Uneasy Streets

Ghost neighbourhoods, trainless railways, empty offices—a bottom-up look at China’s footprint in British cities.

At the high tide of UK–China relations, Chinese investors pumped billions into British property and projects each year, promising urban renewal and economic prosperity. But as political tides turned in both countries, the money dried up. A decade on, we live in the ruins of this ‘golden era’.

Caroline Knowles explores China’s global influence from the bottom up. Focusing on London and Manchester, she contrasts Beijing’s grand claims with the ramshackle physical evidence she finds at street level: a series of half-finished buildings and abandoned holes in the ground. And this isn’t just a British phenomenon. All along the continent-spanning Belt and Road network, Chinese-funded cities are patchworks of incompleteness, the products of relentlessly profit-driven urbanism that puts people last.

China’s soft-power city-making falls far short of the dreams displayed in glossy brochures. Combining urban observation with sharp commentary, interviewing property developers, Chinese migrants and other city-dwellers, Knowles paints an intimate, nuanced portrait. This is the material and human fabric of Chinese Britain.