Tian Tang

As a continuation of our award-winning book, ‘China's City Cluster Development in the Race to Carbon Neutrality’ and our recent book, ‘30 Years of Urban Change in China’s 10 Core Cities’, this book delves into China's recent progress in reshaping its cities through holistic urban transformation strategies. Building on our previous work, we expand our focus to explore the latest developments in urbanization, examining how recent strategies and policies have influenced cities and cityscapes across China and beyond. It is evident that China is reshaping its cities through a dynamic interplay of policy reforms, technological advancements, and creative planning. The late 20th and early 21st centuries have seen a sharp increase in urbanization, with a particular focus on the development of smart, resilient, and sustainable cities. Through a thorough examination of case study examples that have undergone significant recent change, this book investigates how these goals are being achieved. ‘China Under Construction: Shaping Cities through Recent Urban Transformation’ offers a thorough overview of China's current urban transformation efforts, highlighting both the achievements and the ongoing challenges, through case studies and in-depth evaluations. We hope to provide insightful information about the real-world applications of urban strategies and their wider implications for China's future urban landscape by concentrating on ten selected cities. This extension of our earlier research emphasizes how critical it is to view urban transformation as a complex process influencing social dynamics, technology, infrastructure, and environmental sustainability, among other facets of city life and urbanization.

As a continuation of our award-winning book ‘China's City Cluster Development in the Race to Carbon Neutrality’, this book covers China's major urban changes over the last 30 years. Unlike the previous book, where we highlighted regional development issues, this book explicitly explores the city cases, particularly those that are considered core cities in China. Based on the micro-historical analysis of China's urbanization trend and urban development patterns, we see that cities in China have played a significant role in driving the country's sustainable development agenda. In a way, they have had both positive and negative impacts on achieving sustainable development. We look at these last three decades mainly because, during this period, China's urbanization became unprecedented, the central government made several pledges and signed many international agreements related to sustainable development, and China grew rapidly to become the second global economic power. Aligned with the overarching Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the more recent Carbon Neutrality Plan (CNP), Chinese core cities played a significant part in regional development, urban-rural relations, industrial clustering, the development of free trade zones and special economic zones, etc. All these recent developments are due to China's ongoing urbanization and urban development. ‘30 Years of Urban Change in China’s 10 Core Cities’ is a mapping study of China's core cities and their changes over three decades of rapid urbanization, urban growth, and economic development. We explicitly highlight each selected city’s development trends, sustainable development plans, and major strategies. In this Volume (out of our two ‘connected’ volumes), we summarise lessons learnt from all 10 case study examples, and we hope they can be utilized for other developing and rapidly urbanizing nations. We expect this book to be a valuable resource for local governments, authorities, urban planners, urbanists, practitioners, developers, and urban researchers. We trust China is no longer a developing country, and much of these recent progressions are owed to its structured urban development strategies, robust governmental structure, and progressive attitude to growth and development. Hence, this topic coverage at the point where China's urbanization is shifting to high-quality urbanization is essential and beneficial to multiple stakeholders.

The scope of this book is to map China’s city clusters and their individual directions for the national-level strategies in line with the 2060 carbon neutrality plan. Since China announced the carbon neutrality plan in autumn 2020, no study has looked at the role of city clusters in achieving this long-term plan. Hence, this study is believed to be the first attempt to explore this important topic from the city cluster perspective. It explores the challenges, opportunities, and directions of all 19 city clusters, allowing readers to have a clear picture of China’s historical and ongoing progress, as well as the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. In a short time, China’s city clusters have helped boost regional economic development, infrastructure development, trade and business, and better urban–rural integration. With enhanced coordination of connection and transport networks in and between the city clusters, we see a growing number of initiatives beyond just the initial economic strategies. The dual approach of top-down policies and infrastructure systems and bottom-up governance and investments has helped China consider urban–rural development strategies and regional sustainable development. These factors are essential to be explored from the city cluster perspective and in line with China’s sustainable development and carbon neutrality directions. Hence, the book covers these points holistically, ensuring that regional planning and development are favored in the face of uneven urbanization trends.We anticipate this book to be a valuable resource for local governments and authorities, urban planners and practitioners, developers, and urban researchers. While the focus is on China’s city clusters, we believe there are similar examples elsewhere. Hence, lessons learnt from this book could apply to other countries, regions, and subregions. Lastly, the book aims to put regional sustainable development at the heart of longer-term strategies and plans,such as the case of China’s carbon neutrality plan.

The scope of this book is to map China’s city clusters and their individual directions for the national-level strategies in line with the 2060 carbon neutrality plan. Since China announced the carbon neutrality plan in autumn 2020, no study has looked at the role of city clusters in achieving this long-term plan. Hence, this study is believed to be the first attempt to explore this important topic from the city cluster perspective. It explores the challenges, opportunities, and directions of all 19 city clusters, allowing readers to have a clear picture of China’s historical and ongoing progress, as well as the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. In a short time, China’s city clusters have helped boost regional economic development, infrastructure development, trade and business, and better urban–rural integration. With enhanced coordination of connection and transport networks in and between the city clusters, we see a growing number of initiatives beyond just the initial economic strategies. The dual approach of top-down policies and infrastructure systems and bottom-up governance and investments has helped China consider urban–rural development strategies and regional sustainable development. These factors are essential to be explored from the city cluster perspective and in line with China’s sustainable development and carbon neutrality directions. Hence, the book covers these points holistically, ensuring that regional planning and development are favored in the face of uneven urbanization trends.We anticipate this book to be a valuable resource for local governments and authorities, urban planners and practitioners, developers, and urban researchers. While the focus is on China’s city clusters, we believe there are similar examples elsewhere. Hence, lessons learnt from this book could apply to other countries, regions, and subregions. Lastly, the book aims to put regional sustainable development at the heart of longer-term strategies and plans,such as the case of China’s carbon neutrality plan.