Li Zhang is Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Davis. A 2008 Guggenheim Fellow, she is coeditor of Privatizing China: Socialism from Afar, also from Cornell, and author of Strangers in the City.

China's rapid urbanisation process and an emerging real estate market have become an eye-catching phenomenon in academic research. It not only greatly transformed the landscape of Chinese cities, but greatly altered the way urban Chinese live and think about their private space, public space and their traditional communities....Overall, this book is easy to read. It can be used as a textbook for undergraduate or postgraduate students to understand the spatialisation of class. It can also provide rich information to academics seeking to understand how individuals, the state, corporations, homeowners and other social groups reposition themselves during housing regime change in China.- Yawei Chen (International Journal of Housing Policy) This book is an excellent ethnography of urban middle-class living in the midst of rapid transformation in China's postsocialism. The validity of Zhang's ethnography is enhanced by its frankness, her willingness to be honest about those with whom she mingled so closely in her hometown.... Especially given the difficulty in gaining access to the lives of middle-class people, who prefer the privacy of living in gated communities, this book is ethnography at its best. It will be of interest to scholars working in Chinese market transition, class and social stratification, state-society relations, and urban studies, as well as those who are interested in empirically-grounded social and cultural theories.- Seio Nakajima (Journal of Asian Studies)

• Introduction1. Farewell to Welfare Housing2. Unlocking the Real Estate Machine3. Emerging Landscapes of Living4. Spatializing Class5. Accumulation by Displacement6. Recasting Self-Worth7. Privatizing Community Governing and Its LimitsEpilogueNotesReferencesIndex

Li Zhang is Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Davis. A 2008 Guggenheim Fellow, she is coeditor of Privatizing China: Socialism from Afar, also from Cornell, and author of Strangers in the City.

China's rapid urbanisation process and an emerging real estate market have become an eye-catching phenomenon in academic research. It not only greatly transformed the landscape of Chinese cities, but greatly altered the way urban Chinese live and think about their private space, public space and their traditional communities....Overall, this book is easy to read. It can be used as a textbook for undergraduate or postgraduate students to understand the spatialisation of class. It can also provide rich information to academics seeking to understand how individuals, the state, corporations, homeowners and other social groups reposition themselves during housing regime change in China.- Yawei Chen (International Journal of Housing Policy) This book is an excellent ethnography of urban middle-class living in the midst of rapid transformation in China's postsocialism. The validity of Zhang's ethnography is enhanced by its frankness, her willingness to be honest about those with whom she mingled so closely in her hometown.... Especially given the difficulty in gaining access to the lives of middle-class people, who prefer the privacy of living in gated communities, this book is ethnography at its best. It will be of interest to scholars working in Chinese market transition, class and social stratification, state-society relations, and urban studies, as well as those who are interested in empirically-grounded social and cultural theories.- Seio Nakajima (Journal of Asian Studies)

• Introduction1. Farewell to Welfare Housing2. Unlocking the Real Estate Machine3. Emerging Landscapes of Living4. Spatializing Class5. Accumulation by Displacement6. Recasting Self-Worth7. Privatizing Community Governing and Its LimitsEpilogueNotesReferencesIndex

Li Zhang is Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Davis. A 2008 Guggenheim Fellow, she is coeditor of Privatizing China: Socialism from Afar, also from Cornell, and author of Strangers in the City.

China's rapid urbanisation process and an emerging real estate market have become an eye-catching phenomenon in academic research. It not only greatly transformed the landscape of Chinese cities, but greatly altered the way urban Chinese live and think about their private space, public space and their traditional communities....Overall, this book is easy to read. It can be used as a textbook for undergraduate or postgraduate students to understand the spatialisation of class. It can also provide rich information to academics seeking to understand how individuals, the state, corporations, homeowners and other social groups reposition themselves during housing regime change in China.- Yawei Chen (International Journal of Housing Policy) This book is an excellent ethnography of urban middle-class living in the midst of rapid transformation in China's postsocialism. The validity of Zhang's ethnography is enhanced by its frankness, her willingness to be honest about those with whom she mingled so closely in her hometown.... Especially given the difficulty in gaining access to the lives of middle-class people, who prefer the privacy of living in gated communities, this book is ethnography at its best. It will be of interest to scholars working in Chinese market transition, class and social stratification, state-society relations, and urban studies, as well as those who are interested in empirically-grounded social and cultural theories.- Seio Nakajima (Journal of Asian Studies)

• Introduction1. Farewell to Welfare Housing2. Unlocking the Real Estate Machine3. Emerging Landscapes of Living4. Spatializing Class5. Accumulation by Displacement6. Recasting Self-Worth7. Privatizing Community Governing and Its LimitsEpilogueNotesReferencesIndex