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The New Chinese City: Globalization and Market Reform. John R. Logan, ed.

his volume of collected chapters marks transitions and bridges in a variety of respects. Authors represent every academic rank from graduate student to senior professor, and hail from several continents—a geographic mark of the emergence of academics in this field from several disciplines including sociology, geography, economics, and urban planning. Overall, the effort achieves its aims of highlighting dynamic and evolving improvements in Chinese cities and the widening scope of scholars examining them. Its link to the Urban China Research Network highlights the fine work being undertaken through the combined efforts of several generations of scholars. The first chapter sets out the editor’s perspective on the most salient forces shaping new Chinese cities: “globalization, migration, and market reform,” e.g., an economic landscape. In a small mismatch, the chapters are not ordered in this fashion, with migration following market reform, and the final chapter “migrating” into considerations of the periurban countryside. Along the way well-known authors cover topics in which they have established credentials, providing a useful summary of their points of expertise: G. C. S. Lin on the Pearl River Delta, W. Wu and F. Wu separately on Shanghai housing, Taubmann on the “floating population,” Smart on Hong Kong transitions, and Y. X. Zhou on Chinese global cities. Shifts since 1978 are clearly set out, along with disagreements as to where they are leading. What engenders attention is that urban areas are finally growing, with new boundaries, populations, occupations, types of ownership, and housing. The endpoint and consequences remain less clear. A particularly intriguing question continues to be to what extent is politics in control—or economic forces beyond the nation’s borders and previous experience— inexorably undermining previous patterns and the lagging efforts of planning. Examples are predictably East Coast–centric, covering familiar ground even in the treatment of Singapore’s relation to Suzhou. While some useful primary data and interesting maps (such as the location of migrant workers in Shanghai) are included, this volume primarily serves a summary function rather than exposing new theoretical ground or previously uncharted concepts. Inclusion of Quanzhou, close to Taiwan, does offer a new case study with its own interesting story of successful partnership on behalf of preservation. As the editor points out, both the country and the disciplines examining it remain explorers of a rapidly developing “frontier.” Lingering problems that continue to demand attention as identified in this research include how to balance the powers of government with involvement of citizenry, although other authors from the Chinese mainland declare (with little convincing evidence) that this