Chinese urbanization, including the daily life, migration strategies, and life choices of villagers and townspeople, is the focus of this study by Chinese and North American scholars. From Tianjin in the north, to Tibet in the West, and to Guangdong and Fujian on the southeast coast, a tale is told of transforming countrysides, regional disparities, and the prospects of a fully urbanized China as the twenty-first century dawns. This first broad-scale anthropological investigation of Chinese urbanization captures both the dynamic essence of the urbanizations process and the remarkable vitality of post-reform Chinese society.