Liubing Xie

Over 370 million people migrate domestically within China today. By crossing jurisdictions and living in unauthorized housing, they challenge China’s urban governance structure. This project asks how the state governs China’s 370 million migrants, especially as industrialization and labor mobility have undermined traditional sources of authority. While existing governing strategies have proved inadequate, China has launched an initiative to build the largest affordable rental housing scheme in the post-Mao era for migrants. By bridging the methods of anthropological research and planning and design field, this project explores how the crafting of the affordable rental housing market is one of the emerging governing techniques to govern the heterogeneous migrant population in urban China.