By 2025, China will have built fifteen new 'supercities' each with 25 million inhabitants. It will have created 250 'Eco-cities' as well: clean, green, car-free, people-friendly, high-tech urban centres. From the edge of an impending eco-catastrophe, we are arguably witnessing history's greatest environmental turnaround - an urban experiment that may provide valuable lessons for cities worldwide. Whether or not we choose to believe the hype - there is little doubt that this is an experiment that needs unpicking, understanding, and learning from. Austin Williams, The Architectural Review's China correspondent, explores the progress and perils of China's vast eco-city program, describing the complexities which emerge in the race to balance the environment with industrialisation, quality with quantity, and the liberty of the individual with the authority of the Chinese state. Lifting the lid on the economic and social realities of the Chinese blueprint for eco-modernisation, Williams tells the story of China's rise, and reveals the pragmatic, political and economic motives that lurk behind the successes and failures of its eco-cities. Will these new kinds of urban developments be good, humane, healthy places? Can China find a 'third way' in which humanity, nature, economic growth and sustainability are reconciled? And what lessons can we learn for our own vision of the urban future? This is a timely and readable account which explores a range of themes - environmental, political, cultural and architectural - to show how the eco-city program sheds fascinating light on contemporary Chinese society, and provides a lens through which to view the politics of sustainability closer to home.

The fascinating title explores the myths and realities of China's vast eco-city programme

About the Author
Austin Williams is Associate Professor of Architecture at Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University in China and Director of the Future Cities Project. He is the China correspondent for The Architectural Review and has written for a wide range of magazines and newspapers, from The Economist to the London Review of Books.

Reviews
Equipped with the diverse talents and tools of a journalist, scholar, and travel writer, Williams tells a fascinating story about China's pursuit of economic growth and environmental protection, urbanization schemes and new socialist countryside initiatives, urban modernization programs and rural heritage policies, which can only be described as contradictory, incongruous, and conflicting yet daunting in their nature, driven by high-minded seriousness, a pragmatic spirit, and unalloyed ambition. * Sustainability: the Journal of Record *
Among the myriad of books on a rising China, China's Urban Revolution sits among the most valuable. * Asian Affairs *
China's Urban Revolution is a terrific book. * Spiked *
This is an in-depth exploration of the recent explosion in city development in China ... What is unique about this book is the fact that Williams spent several years teaching in China and made contact with local academics, planners, bureaucrats and architects as part of his research... The book also contains excellent notes and references for each chapter. -- Edward Farrell * University of Lincoln, UK *



Book Information
ISBN 9781350003255
Author Austin Williams
Format Paperback
Page Count 240
Imprint Bloomsbury Academic
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Weight(grams) 350g