ABSTRACT
In citing Lefebvrian urban theories, this chapter focuses on the right to the city in contemporary China which, under state and market-led urbanisation with a strong Chinese character, has rapidly developed into the world’s second largest economy. In this process of transformation, a clash between neoliberal urbanism and slum urbanism in urban China is reviewed, with Beijing offered as an example. Henri Lefebvre notion of the ‘right to be different’ was inclined, however, to reflect acts of neoliberal urbanism and their destructive consequences, producing ‘alienated’ urbanites and ‘alienated’ everyday life in different historical periods, urban contexts, and spatial scales. Drawing on the neoliberal approach adopted by the Chinese authorities in attempts to eliminate slum-like dwellings and upgrade property market values in China’s globalising cities, which closely demonstrates the conflicts between the state-controlled spatial order and the sprawling and informal settlements of low-wage migrant dwellers in urban China.
