Housing Booms in China, But Without Neighborhoods

A new book suggests not, and offers ideas about how the booming Chinese housing market can create better places for its rising urban population to live.

"To accommodate ballooning populations, Chinese urban planners are building super-zoned residential enclaves. But as they have raced to shelter the masses, policymakers have forgotten to build them actual neighborhoods.

A newly published architectural book, "Networks Cities," suggests how Chinese urban planning can sprout actual neighborhoods, not just collections of apartment buildings.

The authors, a husband-and-wife team of architects who run a Shanghai firm called B.A.U., have done master plans in China for almost a decade. (Disclosure: the architects are friends of the reporter.)"