Concrete Dragon, The :
China's Urban Revolution and What it Means for the World
Thomas J. Campanella

China is the most rapidly urbanizing nation in the world, with an urban population that may well reach one billion within a generation. Over the past 25 years, surging economic growth has propelled a construction boom unlike anything the world has ever seen, radically transforming both city and countryside in its wake. The speed and scale of China's urban revolution challenges nearly all our expectations about architecture, urbanism and city planning. China's ambition to be a major player on the global stage is written on the skylines of every major city. This is a nation on the rise, and it is building for the record books.

China is now home to some of the world's tallest skyscrapers and biggest shopping malls; the longest bridges and largest airport; the most expansive theme parks and gated communities and even the world's largest skateboard park. And by 2020 China's national network of expressways will exceed in length even the American interstate highway system. China's construction industry, employing a workforce equal to the population of California, has been erecting billions of square feet of housing and office space every year. But such extensive development has also meant demolition on a scale unprecedented in the peacetime history of the world. Nearly all of Beijing's centuries-old cityscape has been bulldozed in recent years, and redevelopment in Shanghai has displaced more families than 30 years of urban renewal in the United States. China's cities are also rapidly sprawling across the landscape, churning precious farmland into a landscape of superblock housing estates and single-family subdivisions laced with highways and big-box malls. In a mere generation, China's cities have undergone a metamorphosis that took 150 years to complete in the United States.

The Concrete Dragon: China's Urban Revolution and What it Means for the World sheds light on this extraordinary chapter in world urban history. The book surveys the driving forces behind the great Chinese building boom, traces the historical precedents and global flows of ideas and information that are fusing to create a bold new Chinese cityscape, and considers the social and environmental impacts of China's urban future. The Concrete Dragon provides a critical overview of contemporary Chinese urbanization in light of both China's past as well as earlier episodes of rapid urban development elsewhere in the world—especially that of the United States, a nation that itself once set global records for the speed and scale of its urban ambitions.


Thomas J. Campanella is associate professor of urban design and planning at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a visiting professor at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. He has also taught at MIT and Nanjing University in China, and was a Fulbright fellow at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. His previous books include Cities From the Sky (2001) and Republic of Shade (2003), winner of the Spiro Kostof Award.

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Editorial Reviews

Choice Magazine:

"Urban planning professor Campanella (North Carolina) paints a picture of the speed and sale of China's explosive urban growth over the past two decades. He shows how the combination of a strong state with unchecked ambition, a growing middle-class population, and an unbridled domestic economy linked to the global market enabled China's unparalleled urban transformation, which dwarfed the US experience in all ways. Yet, whether driven by market forces or Olympic dreams, the pattern of this transformation, mainly concentrated in Beijing and the coastal cities, particularly Shanghai and Shenzhen, is modeled on the US city; urban planning is now centered around automobiles, spelling death to bicycles and walking. Campanella carefully documents the social and environmental costs of this transformation. His beautiful black-and-white photographs capture the impact of this urban transformation on the street level: the fracturing of local communities and the assault on aesthetic sensibilities. Perhaps the most inspiring aspects of Campanella's book are the numerous instances of individuals and communities resisting the joint onslaught of bulldozers mobilized by real estate developers and the Chinese state. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries." (April, 2009)

Dwell:

"Just in time for the Beijing Olympics, Thomas J. Campanella tackles what he calls the greatest building boom in human history: the creation of whole new cities thoughout China, where superhighways, themeparks, and engineering projects light up light up the night sky. Campanella is an able guide to the dusty haze of Chinas evver-growing construction sites." (July/August, 2008)

In China, The Shock Of The New,

The Wall Street Journal:

"Chinas urbanization is unprecidented, revolutionary and changing the way cities are made.
The Concrete Dragon offers a vivid overview of the process that Mr. Meyer, in his neighborhood memoir, was attempting to document in homelier terms. Modernity in all its trappings - the tearing down of the old, the building of the new, the concentration of populations and the reordering of life - is now a reality in China. " — Ian Johnson,(Friday, June 27, 2008)

California Bookwatch:

"The Concrete Dragon: Chinas Urban Revolution And What it Means for the World explores Chinas trends during the 1980s, a period when unprecedented urban change affected the country and produced Chinese entrepreneurs who mimicked the wealth and aquisitions of the Western world." — Diane C. Donovan,(November, 2008)

Carolina Arts & Sciences:

"Believe it or not, the worlds largest malls, airport, gated community, bowling alley and skateboard park are all located in China. UNC urban planning expert Campanella reveals in vivid terms the breathtaking scale of this building boom and its impact."

The Chronicle of Higher Education:

"Explores the nature and impact of Chinas rapid urban growth, from fewer than 200 cities in the late 1970s to nearly 700 today, including 102 with more than a million residents." (Friday, March 28th, 2008)

Towering Ambition: Of All Chinas Stories, None May Be More Telling Than The Ones Architects Are Creating In Concrete And Steel,

The Washington Post:

"The obsolence cycle is like a dogs life, says Thomas Camanella, author of a new book, The Concrete Dragon, a powerful overview of Chinas huge building boom and its social and environmentalconsequences." — Philip Kennicot,(Sunday, June 22nd, 2008)

Stock Sales Are Creating Chinese Tycoons,

The New York Times:

"The Concrete Dragon, a chronicle of Chinas rise. The greatest chapters of American urban development just pale in comparison to what is happening today in China." — David Barboza,(October 9, 2007)

Chinas Urban Revolution,

Abitare International Design Magazine:

"The book provides a critical overview of contemporary Chinese urbanization in light of past as well as recent episodes of rapid urban development elsewhere in the world especially that of the United States, a nation that itself once set global records for the speed and scale of its urban ambitions." — Fabrizio Gallanti,(February 5, 2009)

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