The Urban Communes and Anti-City Experiment in Communist China

Abstract

Social critics and intellectuals since Sir Thomas More have subjected growing urban industrial centres to sweeping criticism. Much of city planning in the West is characterised by reassertion of rural values and rural self-sufficiency. The anti-city approach often takes the form of ‘planning Utopian communities in the country, free from the “excesses of urbanism.” However, in an industrialising country like China a different theme underlies the view of country-city relations. In predominantly rural China, and in the U.S.S.R. during early years of industrialisation, the emphasis of city planning shifts to the need to bring cities and industry to the land. The aim has been to spread industrial values and techniques to rural areas.