Planning for growth: urban and regional planning in China

A book on contemporary Chinese urban and regional planning has long been awaited. Numerous works have been published to understand and unpack the largest scale of urbanization process in human history. They are mostly in a piecemeal manner, and fail to provide a panoramic view. This book by Fulong Wu is timely: it is time to summarize, reflect, and critique the role of planning in China's urbanization that is unprecedented in history and unlikely to be repeated in the future. Even though this book ‘is not a comprehensive survey of Chinese planning practices’, it is an effort of providing a systematic narrative of Chinese planning in the more than three decades of market transition. The first sight at the book reminded me of Peter Hall's classic book Urban and Regional Planning. Indeed, the author admits inspiration from Hall's classic book in the Preface. In a sense, this book serves a Chinese version of Urban and Regional Planning.