China's changing urban geography: A review of major forces at work

The Chinese urban landscape is vibrant, diverse, and sometimes puzzling. This essay outlines the major forces that constitute and reconstitute this landscape. Persistence of the soft budget constraint is important. However, this should be seen in conjunction with the increasing role taken on by urban municipal governments, which is many times strengthened by the land leasing system. Place promotion and image building are targeted not only at transnational corporations, but also at state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and large private enterprises. The influx of foreign direct investment (FDI) and the corporate reforms have brought about much wider income spreads and the formation of a new urban middle class. This, together with the housing reform of 1998-99 and reforms in the financial sector, has added a choice dimension to the urban spatial form. At the same time, the reforms have also produced a new class of urban poor struggling to cling to the dwindling stock of dilapidated danwei (work unit) housing.