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This research explores from the perspective of new institutional economics the role played by local governments in the Chinese urbanization process. In conventional wisdom of city planning and economics, government is often considered as the opposite of the market: the public goods can only be supplied in special ways, different from that of the common goods. Institutions, planned economy or market economy, are often labelled by how much the government intervenes in its economy. However, theories based on such paradigms can hardly explain the behaviours of governments in the real world. This research argues that government is a part of the market mechanism, but not the opposite of market. A city government is in nature an enterprise that sells its products and services within its territory. Correspondingly, a city is in nature a place to trade public services, which makes the key institutional difference between a city and a village. In light of his argument, the theoretical debate on public goods is first examined. Then the behaviours of Chinese local governments are investigated and explained with a new framework, which cannot be achieved with traditional theory. Case studies in China demonstrate that the rapid growth of Chinese cities in recent years results mainly from the success of the business model of Chinese local governments. Lastly the inadequacies and mistakes of traditional urban planning theories in the Chinese context are analyzed and suggestions are made to transfer planning theory to the new paradigm, which is based mainly on the assumption that the behaviours of governments is to maximise their surplus. In the appendix a new pricing theory is formulated to extend the theoretical ground of this research. With this theory, the public goods can be supplied on a competitive market without substantial distinction from other goods.

This thesis examines the production of social space in Kaili, a small city in southwest China, through its branding as “the homeland of one hundred festivals”, inhabitants’ conceptualizations of music, amateur music-making practices, and the construction of the built environment. Drawing on Henri Lefebvre's triad of social space as a basic framework, I explore the complexity of the city through multiple aspects of the relationship between space, music and sound: how the built environment of post-Mao China hinders and hides amateur music, even in a city branded as a place of authentic (yuanshengtai) ethnic folk music; how disparities between the branding and living of Kaili have produced a discourse whereby citizens relocate authentic musical practices to an imagined rural space outside the city; and how amateur musicians have constructed hierarchies of amateur musical space within the city. This thesis makes a distinctive contribution across a range of disciplinary and theoretical interests: Chinese studies, multi-disciplinary debates about Lefebvre’s spatial theory, and urban studies. For Chinese studies, it gives detailed scrutiny to Lefebvre’s spatial theory in considering the historical and recent formation of urban space in China, and in so doing goes beyond the truism that social space is socially produced. It intervenes in ongoing discussions about Lefebvrian theory outside the parameters of Chinese studies, by grounding what has been a predominantly abstract discussion in ethnographically and textually-based research. My discussion of city branding and everyday musical activity elaborates Lefebvre’s theory, both modifying and adding to his triad of perceived, conceived and lived space.

During the past three decades, China has experienced tremendous changes in urbanization, from 18% in 1980 to 52% in 2014, resulting in a net increase of over 400 million in the urban population (Zhejiang Statistical Bureau, 2015). In this transition process, China’s cities have also been undergoing a series of difficulties and challenges, including the declining downtown, environment deterioration, social imbalance, urban poverty, housing shortage, social stratification, land shortage and an aging society. Changes at the community level can be seen as the response to urban and rural social and institutional changes. This is because the residential community is not only the focus of daily life and social activities, but also produces profound and comprehensive interaction with city re-structuring and growth (See Chapter one and two). As a result, studies of the detailed characteristics of urban changes at community-level have become the crucial perspective for understanding the internal logic of urban changes, whether they be social, economic or administrative. Therefore, the research aim is "To analyse the characteristics of socio-economic changes at the neighbourhood level in Ningbo from the 1980s to the 2010s, to clarify the mechanisms of neighborhood changes in transitional China for supporting better development". The thesis draws upon an evidence base comprising personal observation, completed questionnaires from 156 residents (locals, students and migrants), and interviews of 120 local residents, migrants, members of Community Committee and Village Committee, civil servants and researchers, together with evidence drawn from Ningbo Yearbook, the 2010 census, and statistical data from Ningbo Statistical Bureau. Based on the appraisal framework designed by means of a literature review of sustainable development and community studies, from the perspective of local residents and migrant workers, it analysed the characteristics of social, economic and administrative changes at the neighbourhood level from three cases of the downtown, urban fringe and suburb of Ningbo from the 1980s to the 2010s. The final part of this research summarized the general characteristics of communities and neighbourhood changes in transitional China, and discussed the mechanisms of the changes from the perspective of institutional changes and urbanization, as well as the motivations of migrants’ social mobility. The research found that the market mechanisms and power involved in social and economic changes are the main causes of community and neighbourhood change in transitional China. However, this does not mean governments totally withdrawing from the process, but their role has changed from the “manipulation of power” to being the “mediation of the stakeholders’ conflicts” and “encouraging participation”. Therefore, it can be called the “dual-track approach”, with everything happening gradually as part of a process of reform, initiated and directed by the state.

Following the launch of the 'Develop the West' strategy in 2000, western China has undergone huge changes. Chongqing has been at the leading edge of this wave of development and its model of economic reform is particularly interesting and has also attracted public attention. This study aims to answer a series of unexplored questions about Chongqing's urbanisation and rural-urban migration. The first empirical chapter (Chapter 4) derives a simultaneous equation model from the standard theoretical framework of wage growth to estimate the determinants of wage growth of urban workers of various industries and the effects of openness. Data for 38 industries in Chongqing over the past 11 years is grouped into four sets of panel data in terms of different magnitudes of openness. The data shows that the increase in the demand for labourers is positively related to the wage' growth of urban workers. Openness, captured by industry's utilisation or non-utilisation of FDI, impels industrial sectors to use automation techniques more efficiently. The effect of productivity on wages in the group of industries which do utilise FDI is more than twice that of those in the group of industries which do not. Moreover, this chapter has not found enough empirical evidence to support the theory that the building of new cities benefits urban wage growth. The second empirical chapter (Chapter 5) examines the impacts of dynamic localisation and urbanisation externalities on Total Factor Productivity (TFP) in three sectors at the county level between 2001 and 2008, by using panel model estimates based on a modified production function. The results show that the all-industry category localisation externalities' elasticity to productivity is significantly negative and that urbanisation externalities are insignificant. The implication is that the specialisation in Chongqing is no longer able to afford the high growth of economic development; thus, the so called 'Chongqing model' lacks sufficient economic basis. The third empirical chapter (Chapter 6) is based on an in-person survey of 102 households and l38 respondents carried out by the author in 2009. The chapter assesses the determinants of transferring behaviour of the rural-urban migrant workers by using Probit and OLS estimations. A number of conclusions can be drawn from the results. For instance, income in rural areas is crucial to migrant decision-making as to whether to accept urban hukou, and manufacturing and construction workers do not receive more wages than others. The survey results suggest that the quality of Chongqing's large urban population accumulation is still at a low level.

This thesis studies the institutional foundations and micro-mechanisms by which social order is regulated and public goods are delivered in China’s urban grassroots communities. This study is motivated by the seemingly deviant phenomenon that massive internal migration and rapid urbanisation during China’s market reforms have not resulted in chaotic and familiar third world urban diseases. Instead, relatively governed, less contentious, highly dynamic yet ultimately soft migrant enclaves contrast sharply with what often feature most developing countries. Based on the case studies of four urban villages – which categorically housed the majority of China’s 274 million rural migrants – I trace the interplay among the remaining socialist institutions, dominant market forces and various intermediaries in managing migrant contestation and serving state functions. I consider both objective criteria and migrants’ perceptions to explain why China’s migrant enclaves demonstrate distinct characteristics compared with the migrant enclaves in many developing countries. I also consider why China’s migrant enclaves share similar patterns of transformation with its formal cities. The findings contest the conventional approaches that are used to explain China’s structural stability and territorial cohesion despite local disturbances and conflicts, which are mainly attributable to the authoritarian regime, state corporatism or an underdeveloped civil society. Although China’s land, danwei and hukou systems are nationally configured, I argue that these institutions are also conducive to protecting an intermediate realm that comprises residential committees, joint-stock companies and clan associations by providing a safety valve and nurturing localised engagements. I then examine how these intermediaries have adopted coercion, patronage and exit-point mechanisms to deliver public goods, enforce communal order and broker urban renewal through less coercive and predatory means. I further assess the ways in which these engaging but parochial, resourceful but dependent, and exclusive rather than inclusive intermediaries have mediated the boundaries between despotic power and infrastructural power and among state agenda, market forces and grassroots interests. This thesis thus re-visits China’s authoritarian resilience concerning not only how migrant contestation is managed but also what institutions and mechanisms are most effective to articulate multiple interests and ensure social compliance during the processes of urbanisation and decentralisation in the absence of electoral politics.