Chinese Cities in the 21st Century

“With an incredible coverage in breadth and depth, this excellent collection provides a set of timely, compelling and extremely well-articulated assessments of China’s new urban realities. A landmark contribution to the literature casting a long shadow over both scholarly enquiry and policy making concerning a rapidly urbanizing China at the dawn of the new urban century.”

—George C.S. Lin, Chair Professor of Geography, University of Hong Kong, China

“Through skillful selection of varied analytic points of departure, editor Youqin Huang has created a masterful overview of the complex challenges confronting politicians, urban planners, and ordinary citizens who aspire to urban sustainability.”

—Deborah Davis, Professor Emerita of Sociology, Yale University, USA

“This book is a timely and significant contribution to understanding Chinese cities at the moment of transformation. The book provides fresh insights on China’s development model, institutional change, finance and development, and environmental and green development policies. Impressively comprehensive, the book is also remarkably detailed and fascinating.”



—Fulong Wu, Bartlett Professor of Planning, University College London, UK



This book is an interdisciplinary examination of China's new urban development model and the challenges Chinese cities face in the 21st century. China is in the midst of a historic developmental inflection point, grappling with a significantly slowing economy, rapidly rising inequality, massive migration, skyrocketing housing prices, alarming environmental problems, and strong pushback from the West. In this volume, Western and Chinese scholars in different disciplines offer the clearest look yet at some of the main challenges China faces, including domestic and international contexts, the new urban development model, inclusion and well-being of migrants and their families, and urban sustainability. This book sheds light on China’s ongoing development and future directions, and has strong policy implications for anyone interested in the future of China.