This powerful book presents a fresh and compelling set of portraits that bring to life the human dimension of the vast and growing social and economic divides in urban China. Leading scholars explore the increasing rigidity of class and social boundaries, focusing on two new "castes" in contemporary China's cities-the immensely wealthy and the abjectly poor. Much has been made of the rise in incomes, the elimination of much rural poverty, and the expansion of an urban middle class over almost forty years of spectacular economic growth. But what often has been overlooked is the polarization, exclusion, and exclusiveness in cities that have accompanied this rise, along with the threat that these trends will extend to future generations. The book considers five cases that emblematize these castes and depict their varying degrees of agency. Highlighting the social groups at opposite ends of the social hierarchy, the contributors illuminate the growing inequality in urban China today.

Introduction: State Policies, Castes, and Agency Dorothy J. Solinger Part I: Polarization: Scope, Causes, Manifestations 1 China's Uphill Battle Against Inequality Wang Feng 2 Convergence and Divergence Among the Rich and the Poor Li Zhang Part II: Portraits of the Urban Poor 3 Banish the Impoverished Past: The Predicament of the Abandoned Urban Poor Dorothy J. Solinger 4 The Passionate Poor: Foxconn Workers Invited as Volunteers Mun Young Cho 5 On the Rough Edge of Prosperity: Informal Migrant Recyclers in Beijing Joshua Goldstein Part III: The Upper Reaches of the Urban Rich 6 China's Party Kings: Shanghai Club Cultures and Status Consumption, 1920s-2010s Andrew David Field and James Farrer 7 Corruption, Anti-Corruption, and the Dynamics of Class: Formation in Post-Mao China John Osburg Urban Polarities: Inequality, Social Mobility, and the Role of the State David S. G. Goodman About the Contributors