Urban China's Rural Fringe

Giulio Verdini, PhD in Economics, Urban and Regional Development, from the University of Ferrara, is Associate Professor in Urban Planning and Design and Co-Director of the Research Institute of Urbanisation at Xian Jiaotong-Liverpool University, People's Republic of China. Dr. Yiwen Wang, PhD in Architecture from the University of Nottingham, is Lecturer in Urban Planning and Design at Xian Jiaotong-Liverpool University, People's Republic of China. Dr. Xiaonan Zhang, PhD in Urban Geography at University of Salford, UK, is the former Head of the Department of Urban Planning and Design at Xian Jiaotong- Liverpool University, People's Republic of China.

• 1. Urban-Rural Synergies (Giulio Verdini), 2. Collaborative Approaches for Planning the Rural Areas of Chinese Cities (Yu Guo and Sheng Zhong), 3. The Rising Chinese Middle Class and the ‘Construction’ of a New Countryside (John Sturzaker and Andrew Law), 4. The Intermediate Role of Medium-Sized Cities in China Between Ultra-Dense Rural Areas and Ultra-Large Cities (Abigaïl-Laure Kern, Marlène Leroux and Jean-Claude Bolay), 5. Rural Regeneration in the Yangtze River Delta: The Challenge and Potential for Rural Heritage Tourism Development (Yiwen Wang), 6. Rural-Urban Edge: A Review of Spatial Planning Representation and Policy Discourse in the Pearl River Delta (Francesca Frassoldati and Dongjin Qi), 7. Preservation and Sustainable Development of Suburban Historical Villages: A Case Study of Dayuwan Village in Wuhan (Shidan Cheng, Yang Yu and Rongbo Hu), 8. Public Participation in Contested Spatial Planning: Learning from a Failed Urban Development Project (Lei Sun and Xiaonan Zhang), 9. A Pedagogical Approach to Designing the Future of China’s Urban Fringe (Rebecca Kiddle, Joon Sik Kim and Bing Chen), Point of View (Paolo Ceccarelli), Conclusions (

’With so much attention focused on Chinese Mega-cites, this book offers fresh and valuable insights. Indeed, rural China has been washed over by city growth but as this timely book shows, traditional culture remains. For everyone interested in sustainability, cultural conservation and balanced growth, I highly recommended it.’ Jeffrey L. Soule, Director, International Programs, American Planning Association, USA ’The past decades have witnessed a rapid urbanisation in China. The changes in the rural fringe of China’s cities present the best examples to researchers for investigating the transition of urban-rural fringe in the context of industrialisation, globalisation, political decentralisation, economic reforms and social democratisation. This book is the finest collection of scholarly essays I know on this topic.’ Pengjun Zhao, Peking University, China