In the documentary film Chinese Mayor (大同), the mayor Geng Yanbo is driven by the dream of turning the city of Datong from a polluted industrial town in northern Shanxi province into the most special place in China, a cultural destination (Zhou Citation2015). The price for this ambitious plan is the displacement of 500 000 residents (and the demolition of about 200 000 homes), in order to make space for the reconstruction of the Old City’s fourteenth-century Ming Dynasty walls. The film’s depiction of the dynamics within the city administration provides fascinating insights into how cities in China may become the personal creative projects of their administrators, and how they are often left unfinished as the central government decides to interfere and move administrators around the country. It shows how mayors – as key politicians in the city – often face little predictability when undertaking such projects. What the film does not show is the unprecedented public debate that followed the transformations in Datong. But the documentary does reveal what lies on the other side of the urban facade, namely the subjects of urbanisation: the actual residents who either bought apartments or have been living in illegal residences for a long time and face relocation and uprooting. The logic of land use and capital, as well as the mission of civilising the city through new aesthetics, displaces them without providing any alternative.

Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) through the funding of the R&D Unit [UIDB/03126/2020].

• Sociology - Social Sciences
• Arts (arts, history of arts, performing arts, music) - Humanities
• Anthropology - Social Sciences

This publication is an output of the following project(s):

• Candidates Survey (MPs and non-elected candidates) for the 2019 Legislative Elections
• Candidates Survey (MPs and non-elected candidates) for the 2022 Legislative Elections