Urbanization has been a cornerstone of China’s modernization project and an important driver of economic growth. As a result, over 50 percent of China’s billion people are now living in urban areas, concentrated in the 160 cities with a population over one million. Based on extensive ethnographic field research, this paper examines the lives and work of informal migrant construction workers as they are spatially, socially, and economically integrated into China’s cities. The study makes three main contributions concerning urban informal work in China. First, it documents the different forms of informal work and helps us make sense of the diversity of informal precarious work more generally. Second, it expands our understanding of China’s emerging labor regime that is central to labor control, intimately related to the urbanization process, and ultimately linked to China’s overall economic success. Finally, it shows how these migrants struggle against the disciplining process, contest exploitation and protest in unique ways.