Export processing zones (EPZs) are industrial estates that are fenced in for producing manufactured goods for export. In short, they are trade enclaves that import raw materials, process them, and then export to the world market. The development of EPZs is justified by a number of motivations:...

Urban poverty is an emerging problem. This book explores the household and neighbourhood factors that lead to both the generation and continuance of urban poverty in China. It is argued that the urban Chinese are not a homogenous social group, but combine laid-off workers and rural migrants,...

This paper aims to understand the formation of poor neighbourhoods through examining the transformation of a suburban industrial district into a poverty neighbourhood in the city of Nanjing. The notion of a poverty of transition is developed to show how such a transformation occurs in the...

The spatial distribution and locational characteristics of land development have changed dramatically in Chinese cities since the land reform of 1987 which allowed the paid transfer of land-use rights—i.e. land leasing. This has led to the rapid transformation of the urban spatial...

Housing provision in a socialist country is generally characterised by the dominance of public housing. However, provision of public housing is a complicated process, which involves various social agencies. In the case of China, the simple notion of 'state provision' covers huge differences...

This study considers recent changes in the built environment of Chinese metropolitan areas during the transition from a planned to a market economy. Implications of this transition include changes in the political economy (increasing localisation, diversification of investment and the growth of...

Within the process of urban expansion through land requisition in China, farmers' de facto rights to collective land, including farmland and housing plots (zhaijidi), are forcibly acquired by the state and thereafter redistributed to private developers, to facilitate urban-based economic growth....