Toby Lincoln is Lecturer in Modern Chinese Urban History at the Centre for Urban History, University of Leicester, UK. He is a historian of urbanization in China, the history of urban planning in the twentieth century, and the interaction between war and the city. His most recent publication is Urbanizing China in War and Peace: the Case of Wuxi County (2015).

Xu Tao is Assistant Professor at the Institute of History in the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, China. His research focuses on mobility and transport in the context of urban history and the study of politics in China. He has published two monographs and over twenty articles in Chinese and English, including A History of the Bicycle and Modern China (¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿, 2015).

Examines the urban history of China, and catalysts of China's transformation into the world's newest urban society during times of instability

Focuses on cities as providing life's neccesities, and then becoming places in which quality of life can be inmproved

Explores and compares the design of Chinese cities, aiming to be ideal spaces

Presents solutions to problems affecting Chinese cities today

1. Introduction: The Habitable City in Chinese History .- 2. The Chinese Corpsmen in the Shanghai Volunteer Corps .- 3. Kunimg Dreaming: Hope, Change, and War in the Autobiographies of Youth in China's Southwest .- 4. Securing the City, Securing the Nation: Militerization and Urban Police Work in Dalian, 1945-1953 .- 5. To See and Be Seen: Horse Racing in Shanghai, 1848-1945 .- 6. Second Class Workers: Gender, Industry and Locality in Workers' Welfare Provision in Revolutionary China .- 7. A utopian Garden City: Zhang Jingsheng's 'Beautiful Beijing' .- 8. Habitability in the Treaty Ports: Shanghai and Tianjin .- 9. Urbanization and Nature in China: the example of Lake Tai .- 10. Conclusion.