This book gathers together reflections from a broad range of urban China specialists to actively engage with the challenge of conceptualising urban China and ask important questions about the development of contemporary global cities.

The City in China: New perspectives on contemporary urbanism~ Ray FORREST, Julie REN & Bart WISSINK; Robert Park in China: From the Chicago School to Urban China Studies~Xuefei REN (Centre for Chinese Studies, Michigan State University); “Bewitched by the History Behind the Walls”: Robert Park and the Arc of Urban Sociology from Chicago to China~Bettina GRANSOW (East Asian Studies, Freie Universitaet Berlin); Moral Order in the Post-Socialist Chinese City: Generating a Dialogue with Robert E. Park’s “The City”~Fulong WU and Zheng WANG (Bartlett School, University College, London); Learning from Chicago (and LA)? The Contemporary Relevance of Western Urban Theory for China“Bewitched by the history behind the walls”: Robert Park and the arc of urban sociology from Chicago to Shenzhen~Bart WISSINK (Department of Public Policy, City University of Hong Kong); From Chicago to Shenzhen, via Birmingham: Zones of Transition and Dreams of Homeownership~Ray FORREST (Department of Public Policy, City University of Hong Kong); Urbanization and Economic Development: Comparing the Trajectories of China and the United States~Jan NIJMAN (Urban Studies Institute, Georgia State University, USA); The Handshake 302 Village Hack Residency: Chicago, Shenzhen, and the Experience of Assimilation~Mary Ann O’DONNELL (Independent scholar/anthropologist/poet, Shenzhen); Beijing Ring Roads and the Poetics of Excess and Ordinariness~Jeroen DE KLOET (Centre for Globalisation Studies, University of Amsterdam); Pathways to Urban Residency and Subjective Well-Being in Beijing~Juan CHEN and Shenghua XIE (Applied Social Studies, Hong Kong Polytechnic University); A Study of Socio-spatial Segregation of Rural Migrants in Shenzhen: A Case of Foxconn~Zhigang LI, Shunxian OU and Rong WU (School of Urban Design, Wuhan University, China); The Anxious Middle Class of Urban China: Its Emergence and Formation~Tai-Lok LUI & Shou LIU (Asian and Policy Studies, Education University of Hong Kong); Conclusion: Everyday Cities, Exceptional Cases~Julie REN (Department of Geography, London School of Economics).

This book aims to go beyond empirical description by engaging actively with the challenge of conceptualising urban China and ask important questions which are hardly asked in the urban China literature, and our contribution can help to fill this gap.