Neo-urbanism in the making under China's market transition

This paper describes the rise of ‘urbanism’ in China. Following Louis Wirth, urbanism here refers to a way of life characterized by anonymous, heterogeneous and diverse social relations. In contrast to the lack of urbanism in Mao’s era, urbanism is being promoted under China’s market transition. We critically examine how urbanism is used as a new accumulation strategy, or ‘urbanization‐as‐accumulation’. Monotonic urban landscapes are thus transformed into exotic and transplanted mosaics. We illustrate this with the example of the ‘neo‐urbanism residence’ as a suburbia for the affluent in China. This ‘accumulation through transforming the built environment’ echoes the recent ‘urban renaissance’ in the West