This collaboration between Albany and Guangzhou, and between senior scholars and a new generation of researchers, takes the reader directly into the realities of a new urban China. This is a world where people make strategic choices about their future, navigate a rapidly changing labor and housing market, and use high-tech tools in traditional villages. The studies in this volume were originated by doctoral students who are living this new China, and they have a freshness and originality that one rarely sees in academic work.

This edited volume by Liang, Messner, Chen, and Huang represents a continuation of the project on 'the next generation of urban China scholars' that the Urban China Research Network based at the University at Albany initiated more than a decade ago. The nine chapters, each of which is original research jointly composed by a graduate student or junior faculty in China and a senior academic in North America, exemplifies the best of Sino-American and Sino-Canadian collaboration in unraveling the enigma of urban development in the world most populous and fastest growing country.

Much effort has been made to deepen our understanding of topics that have drawn much of scholarly attention, such as peasant-migrants’ employment status and citizenship rights, 'villages-in-the city,' and socio-spatial segregation arising from hukou segmentation, by introducing new perspectives in conjunction with meticulous empirical analysis. Thus, both local villagers-in-the-city and peasant-migrants are subjects of inquiry. While most scholars criticizes the discriminatory treatments against agricultural hukou holders, Li and Smart show that local villagers are trying hard to cling to their agricultural hukou status. Also, while most studies focus on the job barriers that peasant-migrants have to face, Li and Liang demonstrate that job mobility among migrants is in fact high, and that job transition is often accompanied by salary increase.

In addition, there are also chapters that explore relatively unchartered territories. These include the one on African migrants in Guangzhou, who now number 100,000; the one on the Bai minority in Yunnan, who have been able to capitalize on their unique culture to promote tourism; and the chapter on the use of mobile phones by laid off workers in Shenyang, which has helped maintain their social networks and enhanced re-employment prospects.

The Emergence of a New Urban China: Insiders’ Perspectives is a welcome addition to the literature. For students of Chinese cities it is a must on their bookshelves.

With all essays that pair the grounded insights from young scholars inside China with the analytical experience of scholars in the United States, this edited book offers a refreshing collective probe into the new and complex reality of an urbanizing China, from its leading region of the Pearl River Delta to much beyond.