ABSTRACT
It is not our intention in this paper to provide a systematic or comprehensive treatment of civic spaces in Chinese cities, as such an undertaking would be beyond the scope of a single paper; instead we will look specifically at the concept of civic space in the context of current rapid urbanization in Chinese peri-urban villages. We see Chinese peri-urbanization to be of great and growing significance not only because of the geographical extent of this phenomenon during the current accelerated phase of China’s urban transition, but also because of the challenges this form of grassroots urbanization poses for thinking about the evolving roles of state and society in the creation and maintenance of urban space.
