| Through examining the case of demolishing a neighborhood, this paper investigates the mechanism of production and contestation of urban space in post-socialist China. Facilitated by a series of political and economic restructuring, a state-capital alliance consisting of local governments and property developers has monopolized the production of urban space. Through creative destruction of urban landscape, state-capital alliance achieves capital accumulation at the expense of dispossession of citizens' houses, properties, culture and everyday life. Under this situation, contestation over urban space surged. By examining the various participants, strategies and demands of contestation, I point out the contradiction and limitation of these contestations and call for new forms of urban contestation - an urban revolution that will be able to challenge the monopoly over production of space and bring a liberated spatial relation and better urban life. |
