1 Property, Wealth and Law Reforms in China’s Urban Revolution Richard Hu To cite this article: Hu, R. (2011). Property, Wealth and Law Reforms in China's Urban Revolution. In J. Garrick (Ed.), Law, Wealth and Power in China: Commercial Law Reforms in Context (pp. 199-217). London and New York: Routledge. 1. Introduction The world ‘revolution’ – one classic buzzword in China’s discourse but with new connotations in contemporary context – the best describes China’s urban changes since its strategic reorientation of ‘reforms and opening up’ (gai ge kai fang) launched in 1978. China, a predominantly rural society in history, has been moving fast towards an urban society at an unprecedented and unparalleled speed. This rural-urban shift has been occurring along with fundamental changes in China’s economic structure, social organisation and political institution. These changes are transformative rather than transitory, functioning through a variety of complex and interrelated factors which manifesting themselves in an expanding urban landscape (Morley, 2009). Of the numerous scholarly investigations into the factors of China’s urban revolution, one consensus is that China’s urban revolution has been largely driven by demographic change, economic growth, and changes in land use policies and regulations (J. Liu, Zhan, & Deng, 2005). Starting from this statement, this chapter expands the driving forces to be more encompassing and examines how these factors have been working as determinants as well as indicators of China’s urban revolution. The chapter documents China’s urbanisation in terms of demographic change and urban area growth, and elaborates on the property boom – one key driver and outcome of China’s economic growth during the urban revolution – and the new wealthy class growing out of this socio-economic reshuffling. The chapter then introduces the important law reforms which worked as legal frameworks as well as facilitators of such changes in three spheres: housing reform, land reform and the Property Law. The chapter concludes that these interwoven factors represent the beginning or early stage of a process of profound changes, more of which are expected to occur in the future.