{"product_id":"villages-in-the-city-a-guide-to-south-chinas-informal-settlements-9780824847562","title":"Villages in the City A Guide to South Chinas","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCountless Chinese villages have been engulfed by modern cities. They no longer consist of picturesque farms and feng shui groves, but of high-rise buildings so close to each other that they create dark claustrophobic alleys - jammed with dripping air-conditioners, hanging clothes, caged balconies and bundles of buzzing electric wires, and crowned with a small strip of daylight, known as thin line sky. At times, buildings stand so close to another they are dubbed kissing buildings or handshake houses - you can literally reach out from one building and shake hands with your neighbor.   Although it is easy to see these villages as slums, a closer look reveals that they provide an important, affordable, and well-located entry point for migrants into the city. They also offer a vital mixed-use, spatially diverse and pedestrian alternative to the prevailing car-oriented modernist-planning paradigm in China. Yet, most of these villages are on the brink of destruction, affecting the homes of m","brand":"University of Hawai'i Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51038683234647,"sku":"9780824847562","price":22.36,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9780824847562.jpg?v=1750941051","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/villages-in-the-city-a-guide-to-south-chinas-informal-settlements-9780824847562","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}