The rise of Chinese cities has largely been fuelled by a property-led urban development strategy, which also leads to acute urban problems. Such a strategy features selling state-owned land use rights to fund infrastructure development and promote urban growth. This book provides both a theoretically informed and empirically rich assessment on the impacts of the property-led model on urban sustainable development of China as a whole and four case study cities. This is based on an indicator system that integrates principles of sustainable development with China's urban context, and reinforces the key role of institutional factor in shaping urban results. Quantitative and qualitative data on a wide spectrum of areas has been collected by an international expert survey and in-depth fieldwork. Scrutiny on institutional context provides a deeper understanding of success and failure of Chinese cities and future institutional changes to retain China's long-term competitiveness. The adoption of 'systems thinking' into discussion also enables a holistic synthesis of dynamic interactions between various urban issues. It is a useful text for urban and property studies on China and its cities.