While the literature on both segregation and inequality has traditionally been dominated by European and North American studies, there is growing interest in these issues in the Chinese context. Economic liberalization, rapid industrial restructuring, the enormous growth of cities, and internal migration, have all reshaped the country profoundly. What have we learned from the European and North American experience of segregation and inequality, and what insights can be gleaned to inform the burgeoning interest in these issues in the Chinese context? How is China different in terms of the nature and the consequences of segregation and inequality? And what are the implications for future research and policy? Given the continued rise of China’s significance in the world, and its recent declaration of war on poverty, Gwilym Pryce (University of Sheffield), Ya Ping Wang (University of Glasgow) and Yu Chen (University of Sheffield) introduce key findings from their new open access book published by Springer Nature, "Urban Inequality and Segregation in Europe and China: Towards a New Dialogue." With the goal of fostering an ongoing dialogue between scholars in Europe and China, the edited volume brings together an impressive team of international researchers to shed light on the entwined processes of inequality and segregation, and the implications for urban development. The authors seek to offer a timely contribution to scholarship, identifying the core insights to be learned from existing research, and providing important guidance on future directions for policy makers and researchers. Through a rich collection of empirical studies at the city, regional and national levels, the book explores the impact of migration on cities, the related problems of social and spatial segregation, and the ramifications for policy reform.

Gwilym Pryce completed his PhD in Economics from the University of Glasgow in 1999 whilst working as an ESRC Research Fellow and then as Lecturer in the Department of Urban Studies, University of Glasgow, progressing to Senior Lecturer in 2003 and Professor in 2006. He moved to the University of Sheffield in 2014 to become Professor of Urban Economics and Social Statistics, and founding Director of the Sheffield Methods Institute. Gwilym's research has shifted from a focus on mortgage markets and housing economics to considering the related issues of inequality, segregation and immigration. As Co-Director of the ESRC Understanding Inequalities project (2017-2021) he helped develop new methods and conceptual frameworks for exploring the changing patterns of spatial inequality in the UK, extending these new approaches to explore similar issues in China as leader of the GCRF project on Health & Environmental Inequalities in Hebei Province (2017-2019). Gwilym currently leads the ESRC Life at the Frontier project researching the impacts of segregation on migrant communities in the UK, Sweden, Norway and the Netherlands.

Ya Ping Wang studied town planning and gains his PhD in Edinburgh College of Art/Heriot-Watt University in 1991. He stayed on at Heriot-Watt as research fellow, lecturer, reader and professor. He joined University of Glasgow as Professor and Chair in Global City Futures in the School of Social and Political Sciences in 2013. Ya Ping’s research focus on housing, urban development and planning, rural to urban migration, urban poverty and neighbourhood changes in China and a few other Asia and Africa countries. He is the author of Urban Poverty, Housing and Social Change in China (Routledge), co-author of Planning and Housing in the Rapidly Urbanising World (Routledge), as well as Housing Policy and Practice in China (Macmillan). Ya Ping is currently Director and Principal Investigator of the GCRF Centre for Sustainable, Healthy and Learning Cities and Neighbourhoods (SHLC), one of the major multi-national collaborative growing research capacity projects funded by the UKRI. Ya Ping is Member of Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) and Fellow of Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS).

Yu Chen is Lecturer in Chinese Studies at the School of East Asian Studies, University of Sheffield. She obtained BSc from the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, two MSc from Fudan University and the University of Oslo, Norway, and PhD in Urban Studies from the University of Glasgow. Her research areas are in China’s urbanisation and rural-to-urban migration. She worked on two ESRC-funded projects on China’s urban development, inequalities and segregation, and is currently working on a WUN project on the impacts of Covid-19 on migration. She has published in international peer-reviewed journals such as Urban Studies, Housing Studies, Cities, Environment and Planning B, Habitat International, Population Space and Place.

Aneta Piekut is a Senior Lecturer at the Sheffield Methods Institute, University of Sheffield and Co-Director of Sheffield Migration Research Group. She is a sociologist specialising in migration and ethnic studies, including measurement of attitudes, migrant integration and segregation.