Abstract
The Chinese urban landscape has changed remarkably in the last two decades. Inner city redevelopment or renovation projects have resulted in massive demolition and displacement in many cities, while large-scale residential development projects in suburban areas have taken over land formerly utilized exclusively for farming or industry. These suburban projects have led to the loss of farmland, the relocation of former villagers, and massive housing consumption by middle-class Chinese. The two parallel processes of urban redevelopment and suburban development have totally transformed China’s urban landscape. Two main types of urban fringe have been produced or shaped in the last two decades: (i) the “rural–urban conjunction area,” “rural–urban fringe zone,” or “chengxiang jiehebu,” and (ii) the “suburb.” Important parts of China’s new urban reality, these two types of suburb provide two radically different ways of life. This chapter focuses on these two urban fringe areas, analyzes how China’s new suburban reality has been produced and shaped, discusses how local people “speak” about the urban fringe, and depicts how suburbanites actually live in the newly built environment. Only by situating China’s new suburban reality in historical context can we understand the radical difference between suburbia in China and that in the West. China’s suburbia is an integrated part of China’s urban system, which does not (and probably will never) support an independent suburban way of life.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Because this paper has to deal with translating traditional Chinese words into modern terms and translating Chinese into English, the author uses pinyin to translate terms that do not have direct modern Chinese and English correspondence.
References
Beijing Statistics Bureau. (2013). Beijing statistical yearbook 2013. Beijing: The Press of Chinese Statistics (in Chinese).
BMCUP. (2005). Beijing Municipal Commission of Urban Planning. Municipality master plan for Beijing (2004–2020). Beijing: BMCUP (in Chinese).
Chan, K. W. (1996). Post-Mao China: A two-class urban society in the making. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 20(1), 134–150.
Fang, K. (2000). Contemporary conservation in the inner city of Beijing: Survey, analysis and investigation. Beijing: Chinese Architecture and Building Press (in Chinese).
Fang, Y. (2006). Residential satisfaction, moving intention and moving behaviors: A study of redeveloped neighborhoods in inner-city Beijing. Housing Studies, 21(5), 671–694.
Feng, J., Zhou, Y., & Wu, F. (2008). New trends of suburbanization in Beijing since 1990: From government-led to market-oriented. Regional Studies, 42(1), 83–99.
Fleischer, F. (2010). Suburban Beijing: Housing and consumption in contemporary China. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Fu, C., & Chen, M. (2010). The research progress about China’s rural-urban fringe zone. Progress in Geography, 10, 1525–1531 (in Chinese).
Guo, H., & Jin, R. (2007). The history of the administrative divisions, the Ming Dynasty. Shanghai: Fudan University Press (in Chinese).
He, S. (2013). Evolving enclave urbanism in China and its socio-spatial implications: The case of Guangzhou. Social and Cultural Geography, 14(3), 243–275.
He, S., & Wu, F. (2007). Socio-spatial impacts of property-led redevelopment on China’s urban neighborhoods. Cities, 24(3), 194–208.
Hsing, Y. (2010). The great urban transformation: Politics of land and property in China. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Jacobs, J. (1961). The death and life of great American cities. New York: Vintage Books.
Liji Wangzhi. (n.d.). The book of rites. Retrieved from http://ctext.org/liji/wang-zhi/ens (in Chinese and English).
Li, P. (2017). Making the gigantic suburban residential complex in Beijing: Political economy processes and everyday life in the 2010s. Retrieved from CUNY Academic Works.
Li, S., & Song, Y. (2009). Redevelopment, displacement, housing conditions, and residential satisfaction: A study of Shanghai. Environment and Planning A, 41, 1090–1108.
NBSC. (2011). National Bureau of Statistics of China. The report of the sixth national census in 2010. Retrieved from http://www.stats.gov.cn (in Chinese).
Read, B. L. (2008). Property rights and homeowner activism in new neighborhood. In L. Zhang & A. Ong (Eds.), Privatizing China: Socialism from afar (pp. 41–56). Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.
Wu, F. (2004). Residential relocation under market-oriented redevelopment: The process and outcomes in urban China. Geoforum, 35, 453–470.
Wu, F. (2010). Gated and packaged suburbia: Packaging and branding Chinese suburban residential development. Cities, 27, 385–396.
Zhang, L. (2001). Strangers in the city: Reconfigurations of space, power, and social networks within China’s floating population. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Zhang, L. (2006). Contesting spatial modernity in late-socialist China. Current Anthropology, 47(3), 461–484.
Zhang, L. (2010). In search of paradise: Middle-class living in a Chinese metropolis. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.
Zhang, Y., & Fang, K. (2004). Is history repeating itself? From urban renewal in the United States to inner-city redevelopment in China. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 23(3), 286–298.
Zhou, D., & Gao, C. (2001). A study of communities in rural-urban fringe zone: The transformation of Guangzhou’s Nanjing village in the last 50 years. Sociological Studies, 4, 99–108. (In Chinese).
Zhou, Y., & Logan, J. R. (2008). Growth on the edge: The new Chinese metropolis. In J. R. Logan (Ed.), Urban China in transition (pp. 140–160). Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
Zhou, Y., & Ma, L. J. C. (2000). Economic restructuring and suburbanization in China. Urban Geography, 21(3), 205–236.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Li, P. (2018). China’s New Suburban Reality: An Attempt to Systematically Define the Chinese Suburb. In: Grant, B., Liu, C., Ye, L. (eds) Metropolitan Governance in Asia and the Pacific Rim. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0206-0_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0206-0_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-13-0205-3
Online ISBN: 978-981-13-0206-0
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)