Learning from Shenzhen: China’s Post-Mao Experiment from Special Zone to Model City

This multidisciplinary volume, the first of its kind, presents an account of China’s contemporary transformation via one of its most important yet overlooked cities: Shenzhen, located just north of Hong Kong. In recent decades, Shenzhen has transformed from an experimental site for economic reform into a dominant city at the crossroads of the global economy. The first of China’s special economic zones, Shenzhen is today a UNESCO City of Design and the hub of China’s emerging technology industries.

Bringing China studies into dialogue with urban studies, the contributors explore how the post-Mao Chinese appropriation of capitalist logic led to a dramatic remodeling of the Chinese city and collective life in China today. These essays show how urban villages and informal institutions enabled social transformation through cases of public health, labor, architecture, gender, politics, education, and more. Offering scholars and general readers alike an unprecedented look at one of the world’s most dynamic metropolises, this collective history uses the urban case study to explore critical problems and possibilities relevant for modern-day China and beyond.

• Shenzhen Superstars — How China’s smartest city is challenging Silicon Valley
• Shenzhen: From Factory of the World to World City
• AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order
• Out of the Gobi: My Story of China and America
• A State Beyond the State: Shenzhen and the Transformation of Urban China
• Experimental Beijing: Gender and Globalization in Chinese Contemporary Art
• Resigned Activism: Living with Pollution in Rural China (Urban and Industrial Environments)
• The Third Revolution: Xi Jinping and the New Chinese State
• Mall City: Hong Kong’s Dreamworlds of Consumption
• Shenzhen: A Travelogue from China