A range of urban development processes are analyzed including urbanization, real estate development, changing landscapes, the industrial restructuring of the second-tier city, and the formation of the city-region in the context of global and local interactions. In examining city development and local practices as part of globalization processes, the global city is treated as a collection of microcosms and concrete places, overcoming the analytical tension of the dichotomy of the perceived 'East versus West' divide.
Fulong Wu is a reader in the school of Geography at the University of Southampton. His main research areas are urban spatial structure in Chinese cities, urban housing and land development, and he received the 2001 Otto Koenigsberger Prize from Habitat International. He serves as a member of the editorial advisory board of several architectural and planning journals and is co-editor with Laurence J.C. Ma of Restructuring the Chinese City (Routledge, 2005).