Urbanisation in Between: Rural traces in a rapidly growing and industrialising county city

Abstract

This article focuses on the lived experiences of people who have moved to Zouping, a rapidly urbanising city in Shandong Province. It argues that the variety of their experiences reveals much about Chinese processes of urbanisation. Recent writing on Chinese urbanisation often portrays a sharp social break with rural experience. This article discusses the variable degrees of continuity with rural pasts that different groups of new urbanites experience. It presents Zouping as an intermediate case of Chinese urbanisation, illustrating aspects of both migrant and in situ development, and also argues for the importance of attention to divergent examples of lived experiences, which often blend or transcend the ideal types presented in models of urban experience.