Description
Book SynopsisUsing an innovative approach, this book interprets the unprecedented transformation of contemporary China's major cities. It deals with a diversity of trends and analyzes their sources. Every chapter is co-authored by an urban China expert and an outside expert on the wider topic. Together they offer a broad historical and theoretical comparison.
Trade ReviewThese essays on recent Chinese urban developments--particularly trends in migration, labor economics, housing, economic and sociospatial inequality, and governance--offer macro and micro perspectives through analysis of nationwide patterns or developments in specific cities, thus capturing the regional diversity and types of cities in China. Editor Logan is careful not to present the Chinese instance as exceptional, but to situate it within a wider context through comparative analysis. He pairs up scholars from different disciplines and areas for each essay in order to set up comparison between Chinese urban developments and those in the US, Latin America, Europe, and Asia. Logan asked the contributors to view their data through four theoretical lenses: modernization (Simon Kuznet's model), dependency/world system, developmental state, and market transition. By doing so, contributors discover meaningful differences that reveal trends unique to the Chinese context. On the whole, this collection offers undergraduates an accessible introduction to contemporary urban developments in China and to a wide range of qualitative and quantitative analyses commonly used in the social sciences.
Summing Up: Highly recommended. All academic levels/libraries. --
L. Teh, University of Chicago (Choice, February 2009)
Table of ContentsNotes on the Contributors viii
Series Editors’ Preface xiii
Acknowledgments xiv
Introduction: Urban China in Comparative Perspective 1
John R. Logan and Susan S. Fainstein
Part I: Market Transition in Work Units and the Labor Market 25
1 Two Decades of Reform: The Changing Organization Dynamics of Chinese Industrial Firms 27
Shahid Yusuf and Kaoru Nabeshima
2 The Myth of the “New Urban Poverty”? Trends in Urban Poverty in China, 1988–2002 48
Simon Appleton and Lina Song
3 Class Structure and Class Inequality in Urban China and Russia: Effects of Institutional Change or Economic Performance? 66
Yanjie Bian and Theodore P. Gerber
4 Gender and the Labor Market in China and Poland 89
C. Cindy Fan and Joanna Regulska
Part II: Changing Places 113
5 Urbanization, Institutional Change, and Sociospatial Inequality in China, 1990–2001 115
Michael J. White, Fulong Wu, and Yiu Por (Vincent) Chen
6 Growth on the Edge: The New Chinese Metropolis 140
Yixing Zhou and John R. Logan
7 Mirrored Reflections: Place Identity Formation in Taipei and Shanghai 161
Jennifer Rudolph and Hanchao Lu
8 Is Gating Always Exclusionary? A Comparative Analysis of Gated Communities in American and Chinese Cities 182
Youqin Huang and Setha M. Low
Part III: Impacts of Migration 203
9 Urbanization in China in the 1990s: Patterns and Regional Variations 205
Zai Liang, Hy Van Luong, and Yiu Por (Vincent) Chen
10 Trapped in Neglected Corners of a Booming Metropolis: Residential Patterns and Marginalization of Migrant Workers in Guangzhou 226
Min Zhou and Guoxuan Cai
11 Migration and Housing: Comparing China with the United States 250
Weiping Wu and Emily Rosenbaum
Part IV: Social Control in the New Chinese City 269
12 Economic Reform and Crime in Contemporary Urban China: Paradoxes of a Planned Transition 271
Steven F. Messner, Jianhong Liu, and Susanne Karstedt
13 Migration, Urbanization, and the Spread of Sexually Transmitted Diseases: Empirical and Theoretical Observations in China and Indonesia 294
Christopher J. Smith and Graeme Hugo
14 The State’s Evolving Relationship with Urban Society: China’s Neighborhood Organizations in Comparative Perspective 315
Benjamin L. Read and Chun-Ming Chen
Subject index 336
Author index 355
