"Over the past several decades, China has undergone the largest process of urbanization in human history. While this process has been ongoing for more than the past half-century, the rapid growth of Chinese cities reached new heights in the 2010s. In 2011, China's urbanization rate passed 50%. Just two years later, China's urbanization rate hit 53%, surpassing the world average, and today, over 60% of China's population lives in urban areas. While it is well known that this growth has been driven at least partly by policy, ...
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"Over the past several decades, China has undergone the largest process of urbanization in human history. While this process has been ongoing for more than the past half-century, the rapid growth of Chinese cities reached new heights in the 2010s. In 2011, China's urbanization rate passed 50%. Just two years later, China's urbanization rate hit 53%, surpassing the world average, and today, over 60% of China's population lives in urban areas. While it is well known that this growth has been driven at least partly by policy, the demands of the ever-increasing urban population has come to be a significant driver of policy in China in the twenty-first century. Reinventing the Chinese City unpacks new paradigms of Chinese urban planning and development in that period of escalating growth since 2010. Richard Hu focuses on three urban phenomena-'green revolution', 'smart city movement', and 'great innovation leap forward'-that are spreading throughout and becoming increasingly influential in China. He draws upon case studies of Beijing, Hangzhou, and Hefei to analyze the enabling factors, rationales, and effects of these phenomena, and to examine the paradoxes that they engender. Xiong'an, a new experimental city, offers an additional opportunity to critically explore the idealized version of the urban future in China. Hu also investigates the recent changes in Hong Kong-the most 'un-Chinese' Chinese city-after the 2019 social movement: the city is being reoriented towards its 'second return' under 'one country two systems', which is at a critical mid-point of its 50-year tenure. By analyzing the trajectory of these cities, Hu provides a careful accounting of the theory that has dominated urban policy in China since 2010, and is likely to shape the trajectory of Chinese urban planning and development in the coming decades.""--
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