Shanghai Rising

State Power and Local Transformations in a Global Megacity

2009

Xiangming Chen, editor

Analyzing a Chinese city’s dazzling rise to global megacity status

This collection places Shanghai’s unprecedented rise in a rare comparative examination of U.S. cities, as well as with Asian megacities Singapore and Hong Kong, providing a nuanced account of how Shanghai’s politics, economy, society, and space have been transformed by macro- and micro-level forces.

The large city of today has emerged as a strategic site for a whole range of new types of operations—political, economic, and cultural. It is a prominent nexus where the transformation of old practices and formation of new claims, involving both the powerful and the disadvantaged, unfold and take hold.

Saskia Sassen, from Shanghai Rising

Until around 1990, Shanghai was China’s premier but sluggish industrial center. Now at the beginning of the twenty-first century, the joint impact of global forces and state power has turned Shanghai into a dynamic megacity. Shanghai’s remarkable growth in economy, infrastructure, and global presence has prompted questions about the Shanghai “miracle.” This collection places the city’s unprecedented rise in a rare comparative examination of U.S. cities, as well as with Asian megacities Singapore and Hong Kong, providing a nuanced account of how Shanghai’s politics, economy, society, and space have been transformed by macro- and micro-level forces.

Contributors: Stephen W. K. Chiu, Chinese U of Hong Kong; K. C. Ho, National U of Singapore; John D. Kasarda, U of North Carolina; Hanlong Lu, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences; Tai-lok Lui, Chinese U of Hong Kong; Ann R. Markusen, U of Minnesota; Anthony M. Orum, U of Illinois, Chicago; Yuan Ren, Fudan U Shanghai; Saskia Sassen, Columbia U; Jiaming Sun, Texas A&M U, Commerce; Fulong Wu, Cardiff U; Pingkang Yu, George Washington U; Tingwei Zhang, U of Illinois, Chicago; Zhenhua Zhou, Development Research Center, Shanghai Municipal Government.

Xiangming Chen is director of the Center for Urban and Global Studies and Raether Distinguished Professor of Sociology and International Studies at Trinity College.

The large city of today has emerged as a strategic site for a whole range of new types of operations—political, economic, and cultural. It is a prominent nexus where the transformation of old practices and formation of new claims, involving both the powerful and the disadvantaged, unfold and take hold.

Saskia Sassen, from Shanghai Rising

The book offers an important step in rethinking global city research and should be commended in particular for including scholars from Asia. It should be of broad interest to urban scholars as well as practitioners.

The China Journal

This volume is a welcome addition to our understanding of urban China.

International Journal of Urban and Regional Research

This book provides a thorough understanding of Shanghai’s rising, and Chen should be congratulated for his efforts to assemble a group of leading urban scholars to undertake such a challenging task.

Economic Geography

By focusing on Shanghai’s re-emergence as a global urban center that mediates the economic ties between China and the rest of the world, this edited volume offers a rare window through which readers can see how the multidirectional interaction among the local, the state and the global facilitates China’s current rise.

Contemporary Sociology

Numerous examinations of Shanghai over the past two decades pinpointed the same areas of interest. This book is worthy of taking its place in the bibliography of that debate, with its laudable efforts to include the individuating local history of a city with an eye on its evolving articulation with broad global forces.

The Professional Geographer

Shanghai Rising [is] an important reference for policy-makers, urban designers, planners and students alike.

Urban Studies Journal