This book is about the practice of rural development in contemporary China. It evolves the concept of 'neo-exogenous development' to explain how the power of the state links to community action via local party structures, in pursuit of both state-building and rural revitalisation.
This book is about the practice of rural development in contemporary China. It evolves the concept of 'neo-exogenous development' to explain how the power of the state links to community action via local party structures, in pursuit of both state-building and rural revitalisation.
Through case studies, the book examines how central government investments are channelled through area-based programmes, which are then locally implemented by party-state and community actors. It illustrates significant continuity in China's rural development, from the imperial era, through the Maoist Collectivization Movement, and onwards to the Open Reform and current National Rural Revitalization Strategy. Advancing Rural Development in China re-evaluates the theory and practice of rural development, identifying important lessons for other nations.
The book presents a critical study of China's approach to rural development for students and researchers in the fields of human geography, rural sociology, planning, agricultural economics, public management, and international development.
1. Introduction: Advancing Rural Development
2. Chinese Rural
Development in International Context
3. Government, Governance, and
Marginalization in Rural China
4. Rural Development and Integration: Evolving
State-Community Relations in China
5. Rural Revitalization and Neo-Exogenous
Development
6. The Village Cases and Research Approach
7. The Binding
Village: Lanjing and Its Evolving Bamboo Industry
8. The Striving Village:
Qianjiachi and Its Orange MAZ
9. The Receiving Village: Yangmatang's Fruit
Industry
10. Neo-Exogenous Development: Advancing Development or Projecting
Power?
11. State and Community in Rural China
Shengxi Xin is a postdoctoral researcher at the College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tongji University, China, and a research fellow at the Shanghai Tongji Urban Planning & Design Institute. His research interests lie in integrated territorial development, with an emphasis on urban-rural linkages, social innovation, and spatial planning. He is also an honorary research fellow at the Bartlett School of Planning, University College London (UCL), a chartered town planner (MRTPI), and a member of the Key Laboratory of Intelligent Territorial Spatial Planning Technology, Ministry of Natural Resources, China. Shengxi is a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and the Royal Society of Arts.
Nick Gallent is Professor of Housing and Planning at the Bartlett School of Planning, University College London, UK. His research is mainly focused on housing delivery and planning systems, but often links across to community engagement with planning, and regularly looks at rural communities and places. He has published a number of books on these topics, the most recent being Rural Places and Planning: Stories from the Global Countryside (2022),Village Housing: Constraints and Opportunities in Rural England (2022), Rural Planning Futures (Routledge, 2025), and Postcapitalist Countrysides (2025). Nick is a fellow of the Royal Town Planning Institute, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, and the UKs Academy of Social Sciences.
Li Zhang is an associate professor at the College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tongji University, and Chief Planner at the Shanghai Tongji Urban Planning & Design Institute. He directs Tongjis Urban Construction Cadre Training Centre (jointly established with the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development) and the Territorial Spatial Planning Training Centre (jointly established with the Ministry of Natural Resources) and serves as Secretary-General of the Small-Town Planning Academic Committee of the Urban Planning Society of China. His work spans strategic and spatial planning, urbanization, and village- and town-planning; he has published over 100 papers and more than ten books, and has led multiple award-winning planning and design projects.
