Edited by Dorothy J. Solinger POLARIZED CITIES Portraits of Rich and Poor in Urban China Solinger POLARIZED CITIES Portraits of Rich and Poor in Urban China “Dorothy Solinger here assembles a distinguished group of scholars to throw light on an underside of that country’s vaunted economic miracle: the hard- ening of inequalities of income and wealth to form an increasingly polarized society. This revealing book explores the lives of both the ultra-rich and the destitute and makes clear that the state itself has played a large role in foster- ing polarization.” —CARL RISKIN, Columbia University “This richly researched volume shows that, even though China’s four decades of economic growth have lifted tens of millions of Chinese out of poverty, they have also created rigid structures of inequality and diverging mobility oppor- tunities. The dramatic contrasts between the fabulous and flaunted wealth of urban elites and the struggles of rural migrants and the urban poor docu- mented by researchers in this volume will add fuel to debates about whether socialism any longer has meaning in contemporary China.” —MARTIN K. WHYTE, Harvard University “Solinger’s insights into the caste-like ‘hierarchy of agency’ in contempo- rary China are fresh and illuminating, and the case study chapters provide fascinating—and unsettling—details about the daily lives of Chinese citizens from across the socioeconomic spectrum.” —TERESA WRIGHT, California State University, Long Beach “Going beyond the statistics on expanding social inequality, this important book provides a stunning account of drastic social contrasts. The portraits of the rich and poor reveal not only their monumentally disparate lifestyles but also variegated agencies and life opportunities. Solinger’s marvelous concep- tual design brings the two social extremes under the same scrutiny.” —FULONG WU, University College London CONTRIBUTORS Mun Young Cho, James Farrer, Andrew David Field, Joshua Goldstein, David S. G. Goodman, John Osburg, Dorothy J. Solinger, Wang Feng, Li Zhang ABOUT THE EDITOR Dorothy J. Solinger is professor emerita of political science at the University of California, Irvine. 800-462-6420 www.rowman.com Cover design by Kathi Ha Cover image © Christopher Holt / Alamy Stock Photo