Piper Gaubatz

University of Massachusetts Amherst | UMass Amherst · Department of Geosciences

Drawing on years of research experience and keen observations of the triumphs and problems in China’s cities, the authors provide a foundational understanding of China’s urbanization and cities that is grounded in history and geography and challenges readers to consider Chinese urbanization through multiple disciplinary and thematic lenses. This b...

This essay considers China's emerging role as a “laboratory” for innovation in achieving urban sustainability. Its purpose is to highlight, in the context of the Sino-American Symposium on Future Issues Affecting Quality of Life, aspects of Chinese urbanization which contribute to China's increasing global significance as a site for natural experim...

Reconfigured public spaces—particularly those established during the early years of Mao’s China—are significant features in China’s urban core areas. The motivations for maintaining urban public spaces include the desire to foster urban development, to produce environmentally sustainable cities, and to foster a healthy society. This article explore...

Although internal migration is one of the most frequently discussed aspects of China’s twenty-first century urbanization, much of the research in this area emphasizes megacities. This paper, however, focuses on Wenzhou, a Chinese city that served as a national model for the introduction of small-scale private enterprise in the 1990s. Through a surv...

This text is anchored in the spatial sciences to offer a comprehensive survey of the evolving urban landscape in China. It is divided into four parts, with 13 chapters that can be read together or as stand-alone material. Part I sets the context, describing the geographical setting, China’s historical urban system, and traditional urban forms. Part...

China's post-reform modernisation and hyper-urbanisation have brought new public spaces to Chinese cities. This article examines the development of a public sphere and five types of new public spaces: newly-open landscapes, squares, commercial spaces, "green" spaces, and transitional spaces. Specific examples are drawn from Beijing, Shanghai, and X...

China's post-reform modernisation and hyper-urbanisation have brought new public spaces to Chinese cities. This article examines the development of a public sphere and five types of new public spaces: newly-open landscapes, squares, commercial spaces, "green" spaces, and transitional spaces. Specific examples are drawn from Beijing, Shanghai, and X...

An American urban geographer specializing in China explores whether a commercial and urban redevelopment model successful in Beijing (Wangfujing) can be transferred to a more remote region of the country (Qinghai Province), and whether the potential benefits outweigh the costs of dismantling the traditional commercial core of the relatively large p...

China’s post-reform modernisation and hyper-urbanisation have brought new public spaces to Chinese cities. This article examines the development of a public sphere and five types of new public spaces: newly-open landscapes, squares, commercial spaces, “green” spaces, and transitional spaces. Specific examples are drawn from Beijing, Shanghai, and X...

La modernisation et l’hyper-urbanisation de la Chine après les réformes ont créé de nouveaux espaces publics dans les villes chinoises. Cet article analyse le développement d’une sphère publique et cinq types de nouveaux espaces publics : les nouveaux paysages, les places, les espaces commerciaux, les espaces « verts » et les espaces de transition....

One of the greatest challenges to those researching and lecturing on China today is the country's rapid rate of change. To date, there have been only a handful of timely general texts for use in English-language geography and other social science courses. These have included single authored efforts, such as Christopher Smith's China: People and Pla...

Traditional Chinese urban form served as both a physical and a symbolic superstructure within which some divergent non-Chinese types of settlement and architectural character were accommodated. Muslim enclaves that were home to Muslims of different ethnic and regional origins were a feature of most Chinese frontier cities. These enclaves persist to...

New urban and economic development are transforming the fundamental nature and structure of China's cities. The distinctive patterns wrought by overlaying socialist ideals on the pre-1949 city are giving way to new forms reflecting the country's dynamic economic, social and political conditions. This article provides an analysis of the patterns and...

The fundamental changes in Chinese economy and society since the announcement of the 1979 reforms have had a substantive impact on the form of Chinese cities. This paper identifies and characterizes five distinctive eras of Chinese urban morphology and provides an analytical framework and original models for interpreting contemporary Chinese urban...

Piper Gaubatz is an Assistant Professor of Geography and Director of Asian Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She is the author of Beyond the Great Wall: Urban Form and Transformation on the Chinese Frontiers, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996). 1. See, for example, Wilbur Zelinsky's article "The Twinning of the World: Si...

Beijing is being transformed from a socialist city of undifferentiated low-rise districts to an increasingly high-rise metropolis marked by areal specialization. This article examines the effects of recent urban planning, of industrial, commercial, and transportation development, and of housing construction on the morphology of the city. Elements o...

Today, Chinese cityscapes are becoming increasingly differentiated. High-rise buildings cluster in revitalized downtown districts and outlying housing developments, mirrored towers mark the location of joint-venture luxury hotels and office complexes, shopping districts bustle with new vitality, and new industrial districts ring the cities. New com...