Full Description
Despite decades of rural-to-urban transformation in China, much of the literature still treats villages and cities as distinct entities. This book reframes rural-urban transformation as an integrated process, examining administrative practices, implementation challenges, and the evolution of new-type urban communities.
Based on extensive, multisite fieldwork conducted over several decades in Shandong Province, the author makes a contribution to Chinese village studies by examining the contexts, drivers, and processes of village consolidation and the formation of new-type urban communities. The book illustrates how village mergers and new-type urbanization are shaped by—and in turn shape—project-based governance, grassroots organizations, and villagers' everyday lives. It also explores why "new urban residents" often face delays in acquiring urban citizenship. Finally, it outlines people-centered pathways toward a more integrated urban-rural relationship.
The book clarifies the institutional and everyday challenges of China's rapid rural transformation, offering timely insights for scholars of Chinese studies and global researchers and practitioners facing accelerated social and spatial restructuring.
Contents
1. Introduction 2. Reflection on the Methodology of Research on Chinese Village 3. Chinese Lineage-Based Villages: Research Traditions and Problems 4. Chinese Rural Social Research in the Past Three Decades: A Content Analysis of 305 Articles in Sociological Studies 5. Structural Transformation of Urban-Rural Development and the Issue of Rural Development 6. Investment and Transformation in the Village by a Tobacco Enterprise: The "Non-Tobacco Ecological Village" Project 7. Types of Village Mergers and Trends in Rural Social Development 8. Village Mergers and the Development of Rural Communities 9. The Development of New-type Rural Communities: Dilemmas and Prospects 10. Citizenization of the "New Urban Residents" and the "Institutional Valve" Effect 11. Goals for the New-type Urban-Rural Relationship and Pathways Toward New-type Urbanization 12. From a "Dualistic View" to a "Unified View"
