Urban Development, Private Property, and Public Activism in ChinaIn Search of Paradise: Middle-Class Living in a Chinese Metropolis. By Li Zhang. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2010.

Abstract

The most tangible sign of the changes in Chinese urban economy and society over the past decades has been in urban development and housing. In the 1980s and early 1990s, the typical cityscape was one of endless expanses of drab 7-story concrete apartment blocks in danwei (socialist work unit) compounds, as well as, in the downtown districts, older neighborhoods of dilapidated homes in the traditional architecture. Most peoples’ homes were owned by the state and assigned by their work units. By the 1990s, private ownership of homes became possible, and the private real estate market began to take off. Many were able to purchase their flats at rock-bottom prices from their work units, while others became buyers in the private market; in the space of a few years, a middle class of homeowners was suddenly created. By the early twentyfirst century, the property market had become one of the main arenas for many of the dreams, fantasies, conflicts, and tensions of postreform Chinese society: urban landscapes were transformed to a degree never achieved even at the height of revolutionary social engineering, with both older neighborhoods and danwei compounds being demolished to make way for new commercial and residential developments in increasingly sophisticated modern architectural styles; real estate developers became powerful members of the rising business class; a property market boom became the target of runaway speculation and repeated government efforts to “cool the bubble” and rein in prices, as incidents of conflict, protests, and even violence became ever more frequent, owing to forced relocations, illegal land expropriations, insufficient compensation, or simply the skyrocketing property prices that made the new dream (and social expectation) of home ownership increasingly impossible to attain for ordinary Chinese. How have these profound transformations affected the daily lives, dreams, and social tensions of urban Chinese? Li Zhang’s In Search of Paradise is an anthropological exploration of this question, through 15 months of fieldwork among middle class property owners in Kunming, conducted from 2000 to 2007. The book opens a fascinating window into contemporary Chinese society and culture through the prism of home development and ownership with its discussion ranging from