Wang Jun's book on the pitfalls of Beijing's development since, basically, it was remade the capital of China again in 1949, is a landmark study. Based on ten years of extensive archival research, including personal interviews with many of those involved in the decision making processes that shaped Beijing from the mid-50s of the 20th century onward, it is the most exhaustive study on the subject of Beijing's transformation, especially taking into account the decisions made in the late 1950s until the start of the Cultural Revolution in 1966. The imperial capital of Beijing of course not long ago was deemed a masterpiece of urban planning - it is nowadays splintered into a highly fragmented city where global market forces play the dominant role.
The main topics of the book are introduced early on: demolition versus preservation; honoring the past over globally marketing a new era; socialist housing versus imperial (some say: feudal) style living; revolutionary planning versus highly suspect traditional values (at least in the eyes of the new leaders); in short: the socialist rebranding of an old (and very unique) capital city. And so the story unfolds, twists and turns, introducing planners (such as the UPenn educated Liang Sicheng and his wife Lin Huiyin) in favor of preserving at least the original shape of the city, while others, Russians mostly, enter the fray (on the behest of Mao Zedong) with notions of socialist grandeur, basing their plans for Beijing on their experiences in Moscow and St. Petersburg. The result, of course, is that "in just about 40 years...urban Beijing of today is six or seven times as large as old Beijing...; It means that over the decades, six or seven new cities as large as old Beijing have been built." (p.37) The result of this mostly unchecked, ruptured, violent development, is, in one word, largely unrecognizable.
Wang Jun is a senior (investigative) reporter with Xinhua News Agency. The Chinese edition of this book was awarded very prestigious prices, and is now (unheard of for such a title) in its seventh or eigth print run. This is a must-read for anyone interested in the fate of the modern socialist city, no matter where; in a larger sense, it is a text-book study of the forces which shaped Chinese modernity, especially in the way this modernity expresses itself in China's hyper-dense urban environments. This book is highly recommended.
