Given China's rapid economic growth and massive urbanization, no one in the world can ignore what is happening in urban China. This book is a critical review of existing urban China research, which is found wanting due to the decontextualized use of theories and concepts developed in the West.

Wing-Shing Tang was formerly Professor at the Department of Geography and Research Fellow at Advanced Institute for Contemporary China Studies at Hong Kong Baptist University, China. His research interrogates urban theories in China, with special emphasis on town-country relations.

Kam Wing Chan is Professor of Geography at the University of Washington, Seattle, USA. He specializes on China's urbanization, migration, and the household registration (hukou) system.

Reframing urban China research: a critical introduction 1. Exemplary cities in China: the capitalist aesthetic and the loss of space 2. Uncorking the neoliberal bottle: neoliberal critique and urban change in China 3. China's urban ideology: new towns, creation cities, and contested landscapes of memory 4. Two systems in one country: the origin, functions, and mechanisms of the rural-urban dual system in China 5. Town-country relations in China: back to basics 6. Territorially-nested urbanization in China - the case of Dongguan