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This study examined the happiness of citizens in urban China. Empirical measurements were made of the relationship of reported happiness to economic variables, as well as to citizens' satisfaction with government policies. Employing the 2002 Asian Barometer Survey and the Amelia statistical software package, I found that happiness is strongly correlated both to absolute economic conditions and to relative economic status. Furthermore, citizens who perceived government policies as being responsive to their needs were more likely to report a high level of personal well‐being. This empirical analysis confirms the direction of Chinese leader Hu Jintao's development strategy, which seeks to promote widespread economic prosperity among Chinese citizens. The study results indicate that a healthy and balanced economy is essential in improving urban happiness in China. Based on these results, I argue that the Chinese government can further improve citizen happiness by providing ample employment opportunities and promoting progressive housing policies.

This paper is interested in the decline of congressional voting in urban China. Classic studies in comparative politics long argue that with economic development, countries would experience increased level of political participation. Employing the 1993 Social Mobility and Social Change Survey and 2002 Asian Barometer Survey, I found congressional voting in urban China declined substantially in the past decade. With the analyses of the Probit Model and Generalized Linear Model, I contributed this decline to the disappearance of sociopolitical institutions that used to serve critical conduits for citizens' participation. I argue that although economic development produces more resources to encourage participation, overall political participation actually declines in urban China and the public opts to withdraw from politics. This paper is interested in political participation in urban China. The puzzle that this paper intends to solve is the decline of political participation in the rapid economic development in urban China during the past decade.With steady and accelerating economic development, scholars in comparative politics argue that states will usually experience political liberalization and subsequently increasing political participation. With sufficient economic development, it is expected that citizens are likely to possess more resources to participate in politics, and the state is more likely to accommodate increasing level of participation from citizens in order to adapt to the emerging social cleavages in the society. As argued by Lipset, "perhaps the

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