Governing Urban Development in China: Critical Urban Studies investigates urban development and governance in China and introduces China perspectives to the understanding of governing urban development in the 21st century.

Building upon a rich and burgeoning literature on China, the book explains major changes in governance, offers a well synthesised account of state-centred governance, and provides in-depth discussions on urban governance, city and regional planning, financing and financialization, urban redevelopment, local economic development and innovation, and environmental governance. The book bridges theoretical concepts in critical urban studies and empirical research on China and thus depicts a fuller picture of changing and variegated urban governance in the contemporary world. The book theorizes Chinese urban governance from the ground up and derives a concept of state entrepreneurialism as a framework for narrating urban governance in China. Following this framework, each chapter begins with a brief introduction to key concepts in urban geography and then depicts the urban development process on the ground in China. Then, the chapters discuss these concepts and explanations because many are derived from a different context, often in Western economies. At the end of each chapter, the phenomenal urban changes are evaluated with their theoretical implications.

This book offers contextualised insights into critical geographical studies of urban governance and is the first essential complementary reading for both urban scholars and those exploring the geography of China. It will be of interest to students and researchers in Urban Geography, Urban Studies, Urban Planning, Sociology, Political Science and China Studies. The book can also be complementary reading in China Studies, especially in governance and politics.

Handbook on China’s Urban Environmental Governance addresses how Chinese cities govern environmental changes generated by fast economic growth and urbanisation. With in-depth case studies on governing waste management, climate change, and energy transition, it will illuminate the relationship between the state, market, and society in environmental governance.

This timely and comprehensive Handbook addresses how Chinese cities govern the environmental changes generated by fast economic growth and urbanisation. Outlining the relationship between the state, market, and society, this Handbook provides a systematic understanding of urban environmental governance in China.

Exploring the context of changing urban environmental policies in China, leading international scholars highlight the arts of governance and governmentality through experimentation and discourse. Chapters investigate the political ecologies of eco-cities and conservation, urban waste management, and governance and sustainability transitions, as well as focusing on low-carbon innovations and green buildings. With a territorial perspective grounded in Chinese cities, contributors interrogate changing and complex state–market–society dynamics in urbanisation and urban environmental governance.

With a thorough and systematic analysis of new environmental initiatives, practices, and impacts, this Handbook provides scholars, students, and policy researchers of environmental studies, politics, and East Asian studies with an exemplary selection of contemporary research on China’s urban environmental governance.

The book is free to download via UCL library (requiring UCL account logging in).

Creating Chinese Urbanism describes the landscape of urbanisation in China, revealing the profound impacts of marketisation on Chinese society and the consequential governance changes at the grassroots level.

During the imperial and socialist periods, state and society were embedded. However, as China has been becoming urban, the territorial foundation of ‘earth-bound’ society has been dismantled. This metaphorically started an urban revolution, which has transformed the social order derived from the ‘state in society’. The state has thus become more visible in Chinese urban life.

Besides witnessing the breaking down of socially integrated neighbourhoods, Fulong Wu explains the urban roots of a rising state in China. Instead of governing through autonomous stakeholders, state-sponsored strategic intentions remain. In the urban realm, the desire for greater residential privacy does not foster collectivism. State-led rebuilding of residential communities has sped up the demise of traditionalism and given birth to a new China with greater urbanism and state-centred governance.

Taking the vantage point of concrete residential neighbourhoods, Creating Chinese Urbanism offers a cutting-edge analysis of how China is becoming urban and grounds the changing state governance in the process of urbanization. Its original and material interpretation of the changing role of the state in China makes it suitable reading for researchers and students in the fields of urban studies, geography, planning and the built environment.

Planning for Growth: Urban and Regional Planning in China provides an overview of the changes in China’s planning system, policy, and practices using concrete examples and informative details in language that is accessible enough for the undergraduate but thoroughly grounded in a wealth of research and academic experience to support academics. It is the first accessible text on changing urban and regional planning in China under the process of transition from a centrally planned socialist economy to an emerging market in the world.

Transactions in Planning and Urban Research is a platform for diverse new inquiries and dialogues on the urban and regional development and planning processes in China.

As a research field, ‘Urban China’ is growing rapidly and is one of the most active, dynamic, and well-connected. The research field is situated at the conjuncture of China Studies which comes from the tradition of area studies. It is oriented towards historical, cultural, and political contexts and Urban Studies which treats Chinese urbanisation as part of political, economic, environmental, and social-cultural changes of the (de-)globalising world. Whilst both research traditions have contributed greatly towards a better understanding of urban China, we felt that there is a need for a journal that can bridge the two and treat Chinese urbanisation in a holistic, reflexive, grounded way without being confined to historical and cultural specificities. As such, it is time to introduce a journal that pays particular attention to recent developments in China and their policy implications, while situating this research in comparative perspectives within wider urban processes.

Transactions in Planning and Urban Research will make an original contribution to academic and policy debate related to the phenomenal urban development of China. In addition to investigating historical and geographical processes of Chinese development, the journal explores urban China in the wider global context and seeks meaningful connection between interpretative analysis and planning policy development. The journal publishes peer-reviewed academic papers of around 8,000 words that affect Chinese urban and regional development. The journal will focus on recent developments in China, and their policy implications, while situating the research in comparative perspectives within wider processes as appropriate.

The managing editors are Prof. Fangzhu Zhang from UCL and Prof. Zhigang Li from Wuhan University, China

While women scholars have made important contribution to the emerging scholarship of urban China research, this field also has seen increasing female representation among the new generations of urban scholars. This special issue aims to promote women’s scholarship on urban China studies. In this introduction, we provide an overview of the nine articles led by women researchers that are included in the special issue, discussing how these studies are linked and contribute to the wider debates in the urban literature on China and globally. We argue that, while women scholars not surprisingly bring a sensitivity to gender perspective into the study of Chinese cities, their research is by no means limited to gender and women’s experiences. As showcased in this collection, their scholarship covers a wide variety of urban issues in China, ranging across migration, informality, accessibility, social cohesion, sustainability and urban governance, while engaging in the academic and policy debates in the global urban literature.

The contributions to the special issue are as follows.

• Liu, Z., Fan, C. C., & Zhang, F. 2024. Women-led research in urban China studies: Introduction to a special issue. Transactions in Planning and Urban Research (full-text)
• He-Schaefer, Y., & Fan, C. C. 2024. Urban-urban split households in China: Gender, migration, and stay-behind women. Transactions in Planning and Urban Research (full-text)
• Tong, D., Shen, Y., Tian, C., & Wu, C. 2024. Tenure inequality, public facilities and housing prices: Evidence from Shenzhen, China. Transactions in Planning and Urban Research (full-text)
• Wang, X., Sun, J., Scott, I., & Sun, Z. 2024. Exploring gender-based spatio-temporal patterns of informal street vending: A case study in Fangshan District, Beijing, China. Transactions in Planning and Urban Research (full-text)
• Zhang, X., Wang, X., Li, Y., & Tang, Y. 2024. Gendered space-time constraints, daily activities, and social cohesion: Evidence from Fuzhou, China. Transactions in Planning and Urban Research (full-text)
• Liu, Z., Yang, L., & Wang, X. 2024. Neighbourhood social capital and political participation in neighbourhood governance: The case of Beijing, China. Transactions in Planning and Urban Research (full-text)
• Lin, S., Deng, H., Wang, Y., & Chen, S. 2024. Potential and realized access to healthcare services in Wuhan Metropolitan Area, China. Transactions in Planning and Urban Research (full-text)
• Liu, Q., & Iossifova, D. 2024. Socio-metabolic practices and heterogeneous sanitation infrastructures in urbanizing China. Transactions in Planning and Urban Research (full-text)
• Zhang, M. 2024. Three waves of schooling marketization in urban China amid changing political economy since the 1990s. Transactions in Planning and Urban Research (full-text)

• Zhang, F., Wu, F., & Wang, W. 2023. City-regional governance under state entrepreneurialism in China. Transactions in Planning and Urban Research (full-text)
• Hu, G., Huang, J., Shi, J., & Chen, S. 2023. The formation of the Chinese territorial spatial planning system and international comparison. Transactions in Planning and Urban Research (full-text)
• Ramondetti, L. 2023. Plans and projects for the Central Plains of China: New forms of extended urbanisation in Zhengzhou metropolitan region. Transactions in Planning and Urban Research (full-text)
• Harrison, J., & Gu, H. 2023. Arguing with megaregions: Learning from China’s chéngshì qún. Transactions in Planning and Urban Research (full-text)
• Chen, W., Yuan, F., Sun, W., & Li, Y. 2023. Governing cities through regions: Evolution of regional plans for the Yangtze River Delta mega city-region. Transactions in Planning and Urban Research (full-text)
• Zhang, X., Zhou, Z, & Yang, Y. 2023. Stepwise transition of urban entrepreneurialism in cross-boundary statecraft: A qualitative study of an enclave industrial park in Zhejiang province, China. Transactions in Planning and Urban Research (full-text)
• Li, Y., & Jonas, A. E. G. 2023. Small cities and towns in global city-centred regionalism: Observations from Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, China. Transactions in Planning and Urban Research (full-text)
• Geng, Y., Jiang, W., & Wang, Z. 2023. Planning centrality, state-oriented growth, and the spatial evolution of development zones in urban China: The case of Wuhan’s Optics Valley. Transactions in Planning and Urban Research (full-text)
• Wang, W., Wu, F., & Zhang, F. 2023. Environmental city-regionalism in China: War against air pollution in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region. Transactions in Planning and Urban Research (full-text)
• Yang, C., Ma, C. Y., Wang, J., & Zhou, Y. 2023. Cross-border ageing in China’s Greater Bay Area in the digital age: A comparative study of mobile application adoption by Hong Kong older migrants and local older adults in Shenzhen. Transactions in Planning and Urban Research (full-text)

• Wu, F., Pan, F., & Chen, J. 2022. Financialization under state entrepreneurialism in China. Regional Studies (full-text)
• Li, Z., Wu, F., & Zhang, F. 2022. A multi-scalar view of urban financialization: urban development and local government bonds in China. Regional Studies (full-text)
• Feng, Y., Wu, F., & Zhang, F. 2021. Changing roles of the state in the financialization of urban development through chengtou in China. Regional Studies (full-text)
• Theurillat, T. 2021. Urban growth, from manufacturing to consumption and financialization: the case of China’s contemporary urban development. Regional studies (full-text)
• Chen, J., Guo, X., & Zhong, S. 2022. The financialization of urban development and urban labour productivity: evidence from China. Regional Studies (full-text)
• Jiang, Y., & Waley, P. 2021. Financialization of urban development in China: fantasy, fact or somewhere in between? Regional Studies (full-text)

• Zhang, F., & Wu, F. 2022. Financialised urban development: Chinese and (South-)East Asian observations. Land Use Policy (full-text)
• Feng, Y., Wu, F., & Zhang, F. 2022. The development of local government financial vehicles in China: A case study of Jiaxing Chengtou. Land Use Policy (full-text)
• Wu, F. 2022. Land financialisation and the financing of urban development in China. Land Use Policy (full-text)
• Ye, Z., Zhang, F., Coffman, D., Xia, S., Wang, Z., & Zhu, Z. 2022. China’s urban construction investment bond: Contextualising a financial tool for local government. Land Use Policy (full-text)
• Chen, J., & Wu, F. 2022. Housing and land financialization under the state ownership of land in China. Land Use Policy (full-text)
• Chen, J., Wu, F., & Lu, T. 2022. The financialization of rental housing in China: A case study of the asset-light financing model of long-term apartment rental. Land use policy (full-text)
• Luan, X., & Li, Z. 2022. Financialization in the making of the new Wuhan. Land Use Policy (full-text)
• Su, X., & Qian, Z. 2022. Neoliberal financial governance and its transformation under real estate boom and bust: The case of Ordos City, China. Land Use Policy (full-text)
• Shen, J. 2022. Universities as financing vehicles of (sub)urbanisation: the development of university towns in Shanghai. Land Use Policy (full-text)
• Li, L., & Xiao, Y. 2022. Capital accumulation and urban land development in China: (Re)making Expo Park in Shanghai. Land Use Policy (full-text)
• Chen, Y. 2022. Financialising urban redevelopment: Transforming Shanghai’s waterfront. Land Use Policy (full-text)
• Aveline-Dubach, N. 2022. The financialization of rental housing in Tokyo. Land Use Policy (full-text)
• Shatkin, G. 2022. Financial sector actors, the state, and the rescaling of Jakarta’s extended urban region. Land Use Policy (full-text)