Urbanization and Party Survival in China

Urbanization and Party Survival in China
Author: Xiaobing Li
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 347
Release: 2016-11-21
Genre: History
ISBN: 149854200X

While the Chinese urban movement has successfully transferred surplus labor from the countryside to urban industries that urgently require free and cheap labor, numerous problems have arisen as a result of the unprecedented huge-scale process. Such conditions such as overcrowding, substandard housing, lack of social services, corruption, and abuse of power have often reached crisis stage. American college students often ask: How does the government control the largest urban population in the world? Why do newly developed, highly commercialized cities continue to support the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) rather than challenging the old regime? What happens when urban residents have problems with a party-controlled government? This book, collects essays from the best scholars in their fields and examines urban issues, including identifying residents’ concerns, analyzing policy problems, and providing some answers to these pivotal questions. They address this important topic from a Chinese-American perspective through a cooperative interdisciplinary research effort among Chinese-American scholars interested in the subject. Their scholarship makes a significant contribution through multi-faceted components from different fields such as economics, political science, criminal justice, law, anthropology, sociology, and education. The authors introduce and explore the theory and practice of policy patterns, political systems, and social institutions by identifying key issues in Chinese government and society contained within the larger framework of the international sphere. Originally from Beijing, Shanghai, Xi’an, Tianjin, and other cities in China, these authors have received training and advanced degrees from American universities and colleges, thus bringing uncommon perspective and conclusions by focusing on urban studies specific to China. Their endeavors move beyond the existing scholarship and seek to spark new debates and proposed solutions while reflecting on established schools of history, religion, linguistics, and gender studies. Crucial to this volume is the assessment of historical and empirical data found in these essays that place major events in the context of Chinese tradition, its culture, and national security. Using comprehensive coverage to create a broad and solid foundation of knowledge, this collection presents a better understanding of the current Chinese metropolitan climate and includes legitimate issues with city policy implementation.

Cities and Stability

Cities and Stability
Author: Jeremy L. Wallace
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 265
Release: 2014
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0199378991

Cities and Stability examines the threats that large cities pose to authoritarian regime survival and the ways that regimes respond to those threats, particularly focusing on China's management of urbanization through its household registration (hukou) system.

Urban Life in Contemporary China

Urban Life in Contemporary China
Author: Martin King Whyte
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 432
Release: 1985-11-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0226895491

Through interviews with city residents, Martin King Whyte and William L. Parish provide a unique survey of urban life in the last decade of Mao Zedong's rule. They conclude that changes in society produced under communism were truly revolutionary and that, in the decade under scrutiny, the Chinese avoided ostensibly universal evils of urbanism with considerable success. At the same time, however, they find that this successful effort spawned new and equally serious urban problems—bureaucratic rigidity, low production, and more.

China's Great Urbanization

China's Great Urbanization
Author: Zheng Yongnian
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 295
Release: 2016-10-04
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1317373480

China’s extraordinary economic boom since the late 1970s has been accompanied by massive urbanization, with the proportion of the population living in cities rising from 18% in 1978 to 54% in 2014. Currently the Chinese government has amongst its objectives the target to increase this to 60% by 2020, and also to improve the quality of China’s cities. This book examines a wide range of issues connected to China’s urbanization. It considers the many problems which have come with rapid urbanization, including urban housing problems, difficulties affecting rural migrants in urban areas, and a lack of social protection. It examines areas of current reform, including land reform, shanty town renewal and moves to address environmental problems. It explores governance issues, and throughout assesses how urbanization in China is likely to develop in future.

Settlement Spaces: Urban Survival Prospects of China’s Special Communities

Settlement Spaces: Urban Survival Prospects of China’s Special Communities
Author: Xiao Wu
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 688
Release: 2021-10-16
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9811648921

This book examines the settlement space of special communities in China on the community scale from an interdisciplinary approach that combines perspectives from urban planning and sociology. Using the framework of integration response, it theoretically and empirically explores the approaches these communities adopt to survive and evolve. Empirically, this discussion centers on four particular groups, namely international students, land-lost peasants, ethnic minorities, and migrant workers, and offers an analysis of their settlement spaces from different perspectives. Theoretically, this study optimizes the logic of one-way integration as used in classical theories. By constructing a two-way linkage in the theoretical framework of integration response, it provides a multi-scenario interpretation and summary of the laws of survival and evolution that govern the urban settlements of special communities in China. This study conforms to the major transformations that China has undergone in the concepts, models, and orientation of its development since the 18th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party. Furthermore, it renders profound research value and bears practical significance for the adjustment and management of urban spatial patterns in China, social care for marginalized groups, and the construction of a harmonious and moderately prosperous society. This study provides valuable reference for educators, researchers, and management personnel across various fields, including urban planning, geography, and sociology.

Farewell to Peasant China

Farewell to Peasant China
Author: Gregory Eliyu Guldin
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 307
Release: 2016-09-16
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1315293439

Chinese urbanization, including the daily life, migration strategies, and life choices of villagers and townspeople, is the focus of this study by Chinese and North American scholars. The study looks at the urbanization process and the vitality of post-reform Chinese society.

Handbook on Urban Development in China

Handbook on Urban Development in China
Author: Ray Yep
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Total Pages: 432
Release:
Genre:
ISBN: 1786431637

The trajectory and logic of urban development in post-Mao China have been shaped and defined by the contention between domestic and global capital, central and local state and social actors of different class status and endowment. This urban transformation process of historic proportion entails new rules for distribution and negotiation, novel perceptions of citizenship, as well as room for unprecedented spontaneity and creativity. Based on original research by leading experts, this book offers an updated and nuanced analysis of the new logic of urban governance and its implications.

The Politics of Community Building in Urban China

The Politics of Community Building in Urban China
Author: Thomas Heberer
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2011-03-29
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1136808434

This book aims to make sense of the recent reform of neighbourhood institutions in urban China. It builds on the observation that the late 1990s saw a comeback of the state in urban China after the increased economization of life in the 1980s had initially forced it to withdraw. Based on several months of fieldwork in locations ranging from poor and dilapidated neighbourhoods in Shenyang City to middle class gated communities in Shenzhen, the authors analyze recent attempts by the central government to enhance stability in China’s increasingly volatile cities. In particular, they argue that the central government has begun to restructure urban neighbourhoods, and has encouraged residents to govern themselves by means of democratic procedures. Heberer and Göbel also contend that whilst on the one hand, the central government has managed to bring the Party-state back into urban society, especially by tapping into a range of social groups that depend on it, it has not, however, managed to establish a broad base for participation. In testing this hypothesis, the book examines the rationales, strategies and impacts of this comeback by systematically analyzing how the reorganization of neighbourhood committees was actually conducted and find that opportunities for participation were far more limited than initially promised. The book will be of interest to students and scholars of Chinese Studies, Development Studies, Urban Studies and Asian Studies in general.

Settlement Spaces: Urban Survival Prospects of China's Special Communities

Settlement Spaces: Urban Survival Prospects of China's Special Communities
Author: Xiao Wu
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2021
Genre:
ISBN: 9789811648939

This book examines the settlement space of special communities in China on the community scale from an interdisciplinary approach that combines perspectives from urban planning and sociology. Using the framework of integration response, it theoretically and empirically explores the approaches these communities adopt to survive and evolve. Empirically, this discussion centers on four particular groups, namely international students, land-lost peasants, ethnic minorities, and migrant workers, and offers an analysis of their settlement spaces from different perspectives. Theoretically, this study optimizes the logic of one-way integration as used in classical theories. By constructing a two-way linkage in the theoretical framework of integration response, it provides a multi-scenario interpretation and summary of the laws of survival and evolution that govern the urban settlements of special communities in China. This study conforms to the major transformations that China has undergone in the concepts, models, and orientation of its development since the 18th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party. Furthermore, it renders profound research value and bears practical significance for the adjustment and management of urban spatial patterns in China, social care for marginalized groups, and the construction of a harmonious and moderately prosperous society. This study provides valuable reference for educators, researchers, and management personnel across various fields, including urban planning, geography, and sociology.

Understanding China's Urbanization

Understanding China's Urbanization
Author: Li Zhang
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Total Pages: 433
Release: 2016-03-25
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1783474742

China’s urbanization is one of the great earth-changing phenomena of recent times. The way in which China continues to urbanize will have a critical impact on the world economy, global climate change, international relations and a host of other critical issues. Understanding and responding to China’s urbanization is of paramount importance to everyone. This book represents a unique exploration of the demographic, spatial, economic and social aspects of China’s urban transformation. Based on years of fieldwork and data analysis from different types of cities and towns in every region of China, the authors present a detailed description of how China has urbanized since 1978 and an original theory about the way in which top-down and bottom-up policies have impacted urbanization. They describe China’s on-going urbanization process as a ‘double-dual’ transformation from a planned economy to a more market-oriented one and from a concern with the quantity to the quality of urbanization. In doing so, the authors provide the most comprehensive and up-to-date book on Chinese urbanization to date. This scholarly study will appeal to academics and practitioners, including professors and postgraduate students of urban studies, planning, geography, Asian studies, and other social science disciplines and professional fields concerned with cities and urban development. Professionals involved in international development, particularly in China and elsewhere in Asia, will be particularly interested in the book.