Carolyn Cartier (University of Technology Sydney)

China studies and urban theory have something curiously in common. The scholarship on the reform era rarely examines the administrative reforms that changed city space. Urban theory conceptualizes economic agglomeration and population urbanization but not state administration. What have these research fields missed in overlooking the dynamic ontology of the city in China? This response adopts the Lefebvrian directive to conceive space for the philosophical “whole reality” of social, political and economic transformation. In the process, the party-state treats the administrative divisions of subnational territory as malleable state space, designating new cities, re-ranking, repealing and merging others, quartering some to establish multiple new ones. Through this territorial urbanization, and with evidence from multiple areas including Chongqing, Shanghai, and the Pearl River delta, China marks city space for socialist general planning while reproducing the state governing structure.