Since its implementation of economic reforms and open door policy, China has rapidly transformed itself from a socialist planned economy to socialist market economy. Guangzhou and Shanzhen are earmarked as the pioneering and experimental cities within the network of cities in Pearl River Delta Region in implementing various market reform measures. Taking advantage of its close proximity with Ho...

Studies on post-socialist suburbanization, which originally focused demand side dynamics and linear narratives of modernization, have progressively adopted more holistic approaches that consider the various dimensions factors behind phenomenon. However, there are still significant gaps shortcomings affecting this research domain; studies encompassing supply rare, so comparative perspectives. Th...

In the early twentieth century, a range of writers produced visions of a socialist economy whose distinguishing characteristic was an allocation of resources using a ‘technical’ perspective. In the 1930s, Oskar Lange took up the challenge of Ludwig von Mises’ claim of the ‘impossibility’ of constructing a socialist economy on such an engineering basis. He readily acceded to the need for efficie...

In a series of recent writings we have sought to re-open a debate over the economics of socialism. We have argued that the collapse of the Soviet system does not necessitate the conclusion that all forms of socialist economy are doomed to inefficiency. Updating and extending a line of reasoning found in Lange (1967) and Johansen (1977),1 we have claimed that modern information technology permit...

A key theme in urban governance research is how neoliberalism reshapes the state–society relationship. Our study on Guangzhou, where regeneration through massive redevelopment of “villages-in-the-city” uncovered interactions between state, market, and community local governance, contributes to this debate. Based intensive field analyze three projects, we find that what really controls neolibera...

As many others in this volume have observed, the history of the People’s Republic of China after sixty years can be divided into two quite different eras of almost equal length, the socialist era dominated by Mao Zedong and the market-reform era dominated by one of his former lieutenants, Deng Xiaoping. It is also worth noting that Mao’s programs and policies did not outlive him for long and we...