ABSTRACT
In Consciousness and the Urban Experience, David Harvey asks of Hauss-man’s demolished and reconstructed Paris: “How did people view each other, represent themselves and others to themselves and others? How did they picture the contours of . . . society, comprehend their social position and the radical transformations then in progress?” (Harvey 1985: 180). This chapter poses a similar set of questions to the contemporary Chinese city. In the context of the phenomenal growth of the Chinese economy, the radical reshaping of urban space, and a massive influx of rural-to-urban migrants, how do Chinese urbanites imagine themselves and others moving in these new geographic, sociocultural and economic spaces? And what are the implications of these imaginings?
