The City after Chinese New Towns. Spaces and Imaginaries from Contemporary Urban China

By 2020, roughly 400 Chinese New Towns will have been built, representing an unprecedented urban growth. The government is making a substantial effort to absorb up to 250 million people, chiefly migrants from rural parts of the country. Unlike Europe and North America, where new towns grew in parallel with local economies, the construction of contemporary Chinese new towns is almost completed before people are allowed to move in. As a result, some of these massive developments are already inhabited while others are still empty. The book explores the phenomenon of “Chinese New Towns” starting from an international research carried out by architects, planners and geographers. It focuses on psychological and social ramifications, for instance how New Towns change perceptions of the neighbourhood and proximity, and analyses how this new urbanity affects politics and the national narrative. The book examines the spaces of three new towns: Tongzhou, Zhaoqing and Zhengdong. On the one hand it discusses the spatial features they assume in the contexts in question and, on the other, it moves beyond these specific cases and questions urban studies and the exceptionality of Chinese urbanisation.