China’s ascendancy as an economic superpower has been fueled, not only by a lowcost factory labor, but also by its rapidly expanding consumer market.2 The world’s factory is emerging as a global retail and service magnet; major international retail, fast-food, and hotel chains proliferate in China’s urban centers. Whereas the Mao era’s centrally planned economy minimized consumer services, currently the tertiary sector represents over one-third of China’s gross domestic product, expanding thirty-fold between 1980 and 2000.3 To make way for department stores, fast-food restaurants, boutiques, supermarkets, beauty salons, and hotels, municipal governments rezone urban residential neighborhoods as commercial districts, transforming the urban landscape.4