THE CONCRETE DRAGON
China's Urban Revolution and What it Means for the world
By Thomas J. Campanella
325pp/Princeton Architectural Press/USD 35 (hardback)

It takes a deft hand to break China’s rapid urban growth over the last 30 years down into informative and manageable chunks − fortunately Thomas Campanella possesses one. Despite an abundance of statistics, technical details, and numbers, The Concrete Dragon is a thoroughly engaging and accessible read on a formidably vast subject.

Beginning with the growth of Shenzhen — little more than a fishing village 30 years ago but thanks to government initiatives now one of the largest a ......, with more people displaced in Shanghai alone than in 30 years of urban renewal across the whole of the United States.

As professor of urban planning at the University of North Carolina and Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, as well as a frequent visiting professor in China, Campanella is well-positioned to write a book of this scope. He successfully manages to both celebrate the good and mourn the bad as China embarks on what he terms the “greatest buildng boom in human history.”