Remaking Urban Life in Chongqing's Public Rental Housing follows migrant families through an ordinary dayout the door for work and school, back after dark through night markets and shared courtyardsto show how a large state-led public rental housing (PRH) program becomes a lived urban form. Drawing on ethnography, 120 interviews, and sustained site observations across multiple estates, the book links predictable rent and indefinite tenure to the practical work of composing routines, and then shows how transport reliability, school access, and the governance of streets and plazas determine whether those routines feel possible, safe, and shared.

Set within Chongqing's distinctive policy architectureland-ticket exchanges (dipiao), a more permeable hukou door, and metropolitan PRH build-outthe analysis treats planning documents and management contracts as maps that seek synchrony with household rhythms. Using Henri Lefebvre's production of space as a steady guide, it traces how conceived policy space and spatial practice sediment into the lived city: queue lines at bus loops, after-school relays at gates, micro-commerce along edges, and neighbourly care in stairwells and lift lobbies. The book closes with actionable design and governance tools that help agencies keep the housing platform, tighten the links, and design for the day.

Who should read this book? Urban planners and designers; housing and transport policymakers; sociologists and geographers of migration; property and facilities managers working on social-rental estates; graduate students in urban studies and China studies.

Key features include:

• Ground-level evidence connecting policy instruments to everyday mobility, schooling, and shared-space use
• Practical templates for governance and retrofitservice standards, micro-budgets, and a kit-of-parts for day-to-day operations.
• A clear theoretical through-line using Lefebvre's production of space to interpret migrant integration and urban sustainability.

Presents a novel, deeply observed ethnography of PRH in inland China with comparative insight for Asia and Australia Integrates Lefebvre's theory with operational design and governance tools usable by practitioners Demonstrates how housing, mobility, and community formation co-produce inclusive urbanisation in everyday time

Autorentext

Dr. Weijie Hu is a Lecturer in Architecture at Swinburne University of Technology, Australia, and Co-Editor of The Journal of Architecture (Royal Institute of British Architects). He holds a PhD in Architecture from the University of Sydney and an MSc in Architecture, Building and Planning from Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands. A registered architect in the Netherlands, he has worked across China, the Netherlands, France, Japan, and Australia, bridging professional practice and academic research.

Hu’s work examines the intersections of housing, community, and land politics, with a strong focus on China and comparative implications for Australia and Asia. He has published more than twenty peer-reviewed Q1 articles—over 90% as first or corresponding author—in journals such as Dialogues in Human Geography, Urban Geography, and the Journal of Urban Management. His practice has been recognised internationally, including the ArchDaily Building of the Year (2017), with exhibitions at Melbourne Design Week and the Chongqing International Biennale of Design.

Klappentext

Remaking Urban Life in Chongqing’s Public Rental Housing follows migrant families through an ordinary day—out the door for work and school, back after dark through night markets and shared courtyards—to show how a large state-led public rental housing (PRH) program becomes a lived urban form. Drawing on ethnography, 120 interviews, and sustained site observations across multiple estates, the book links predictable rent and indefinite tenure to the practical work of composing routines, and then shows how transport reliability, school access, and the governance of streets and plazas determine whether those routines feel possible, safe, and shared.

Set within Chongqing’s distinctive policy architecture—land-ticket exchanges (dipiao), a more permeable hukou door, and metropolitan PRH build-out—the analysis treats planning documents and management contracts as maps that seek synchrony with household rhythms. Using Henri Lefebvre’s “production of space” as a steady guide, it traces how conceived policy space and spatial practice sediment into the lived city: queue lines at bus loops, after-school relays at gates, micro-commerce along edges, and neighbourly care in stairwells and lift lobbies. The book closes with actionable design and governance tools that help agencies keep the housing platform, tighten the links, and design for the day.

Who should read this book? Urban planners and designers; housing and transport policymakers; sociologists and geographers of migration; property and facilities managers working on social-rental estates; graduate students in urban studies and China studies.

Key features include:

• Ground-level evidence connecting policy instruments to everyday mobility, schooling, and shared-space use
• Practical templates for governance and retrofit—service standards, micro-budgets, and a “kit-of-parts” for day-to-day operations.
• A clear theoretical through-line using Lefebvre’s production of space to interpret migrant integration and urban sustainability.

Inhalt

Part I. The Wager and the Map.- Chapter 1. Morning at the Gate: Building a City for Strangers.- Chapter 2. Maps, Money, and the Hukou Door: How Chongqing Drew Its City.- Chapter 3. How This Book Was Made.- Part II. Making a Life, Day by Day.- Chapter 4. Why Families Move, and What Holds Them Back.- Chapter 5. The Long Ride: Work, Distance, and Trading Time for Stability.- Chapter 6. The School GateHow an Address Becomes Opportunity.- Chapter 7. Between TowersEveryday Neighbourhood Life in PRH.- Part III. Two Doorways and the Road Ahead.- Chapter 8. Two Doorways to the CityPRH and urban villages, Side by Side.- Chapter 9. The Road AheadInclusive Urbanisation in Ordinary Time.