This book emphasizes the centrality of cities in China's ongoing transformation. Based on fieldwork in twenty-four Chinese cities between 1996 and 2007, the author forwards an analysis of the relations between the city, the state, and society through two novel concepts: urbanization of the local state and civic territoriality. Urbanization of the local state is a process of state power restructuring entailing an accumulation regime based on the commodification of state-owned land, the consolidation of territorial authority through construction projects, and a policy discourse dominated by noti ... More

This book emphasizes the centrality of cities in China's ongoing transformation. Based on fieldwork in twenty-four Chinese cities between 1996 and 2007, the author forwards an analysis of the relations between the city, the state, and society through two novel concepts: urbanization of the local state and civic territoriality. Urbanization of the local state is a process of state power restructuring entailing an accumulation regime based on the commodification of state-owned land, the consolidation of territorial authority through construction projects, and a policy discourse dominated by notions of urban modernity. Civic territoriality encompasses the politics of distribution engendered by urban expansionism, and social actors' territorial strategies toward self-protection. Findings are based on observations in three types of places. In the inner city of major metropolitan centers, municipal governments battle high-ranking state agencies to secure land rents from redevelopment projects, while residents mobilize to assert property and residential rights. At the urban edge, as metropolitan governments seek to extend control over their rural hinterland through massive-scale development projects, villagers strategize to profit from the encroaching property market. At the rural fringe, township leaders become brokers of power and property between the state bureaucracy and villages, while large numbers of peasants are dispossessed, dispersed, and deterritorialized; their mobilizational capacity is consequently undermined.