Description
Anthony G.O. Yeh: Centre of Urban Studies and Urban Planning, the University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong SAR.
China’s post-reform urbanization: retrospect, policies and
trends
Anthony G.O. Yeh, Jiang Xu, and Kaizhi Liu
May 2011
Human Settlements Group, IIED
Population and Development Branch, UNFPA
Urbanization and Emerging Population Issues - 5
ii
Author’s contact:
Anthony G.O. Yeh: Centre of Urban Studies and Urban Planning,
the University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong SAR.
Email: [email protected]
Jiang Xu: Department of Geography and Resource Management,
the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong SAR.
Email: [email protected]
Kaizhi Liu: Centre of Urban Studies and Urban Planning,
the University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong SAR.
Email: [email protected]
© IIED and UNFPA 2011
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opinions expressed in this paper are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the
IIED or the UNFPA.
iii
CONTENTS
1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 1
2 Urban growth in China: definitions and measurement ........................................................ 2
3 Stages of Chinese urbanization ......................................................................................... 4
3.1 An overview of post-reform urbanization ..................................................................... 4
3.2 Rural urbanization driven by industrialization (1978 to 1987) ....................................... 9
3.3 Urbanization driven by land reform (1988 to 2000) .................................................... 12
3.4 Urbanization driven by the service industry (2001 to present) ................................... 20
4 Urban planning policies .................................................................................................... 22
4.1 Urban planning regulations ........................................................................................ 22
4.2 Problems of planning coordination ............................................................................ 25
5 Trends and issues of concern .......................................................................................... 28
5.1 Urban expansion and farmland loss .......................................................................... 28
5.2 Rural-to-urban migration ........................................................................................... 29
5.3 Social and environmental justice ............................................................................... 30
6. Concluding remarks ........................................................................................................ 31
References ......................................................................................................................... 33
Recent Publications by IIED?s Human Settlements Group .................................................. 40
LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES
Table 1: Definitions of urban population and urban area adopted in various Censuses ......... 3
Table 2: Urban population and urbanization level, 1979–2008 .............................................. 4
Table 3: Number of cities of different population sizes, 1978 and 2007/8 (millions) ............... 8
Table 4: Premier industries in the outline of the reform and development of the Pearl River
Delta ................................................................................................................................... 22
Table 5: Areas of cultivated land under reform in selected coastal areas, 1979–1997
(thousand hectares) ............................................................................................................ 28
Figure 1: China?s urbanization level and the stages of urbanization ...................................... 6
Figure 2: Urbanization level and urban population, 1979–2008 ............................................. 6
Figure 3: Urbanization level by province, 2008 ...................................................................... 7
Figure 4: Number of cities and urban built-up area, 1981–2008 ............................................ 8
Figure 5: Number of employees of TVEs, 1980–2000 ......................................................... 10
Figure 6: Number of towns and townships, 1984–2007 ....................................................... 11
Figure 7: The process of rural industrialization .................................................................... 12
Figure 8: Urban land-use tax, 1991–2000 ........................................................................... 14
Figure 9: Employment and investment in the real-estate sector, 1989–2008 ....................... 15
Figure 10: Urbanization and urban development driven by land reform ............................... 16
Figure 11: Cities and zones opened to foreign investment in the 1980s .............................. 16
Figure 12: The expansion of urban built-up area, 1981–2008 ............................................. 17
Figure 13: China?s mega-city region .................................................................................... 18
Figure 14: A model of the emerging urban spatial structure of Guangzhou, China .............. 19
Figure 15: Urban economic structures by employment and GDP, 1995–2005 .................... 20
Figure 16: The growth of the main service sectors, 1978–2008 .......................................... 21
Figure 17: Types of plans and their coverage ..................................................................... 24
Figure 18: Fragmented regional planning and governance in China .................................... 27
1
1 Introduction
Throughout most of its long recorded history, China has been an agrarian society. For
thousands of years, Chinese people lived in the countryside and engaged in agriculture in a
societal context that valued self-sufficiency. Given the minimal need for the exchange of
goods within this economic structure, cities and towns were either administrative centres or
military hubs, and sometimes both, but these functions were insufficient to stimulate the
development of large prosperous cities as in many other countries. The role of cities and
towns as marketplaces never became well established under the firmly entrenched
“physiocracy” ideology that encouraged farming and restrained trade and commerce in
feudal China. When the century of foreign incursions began with the first Opium War,
Chinese cities were viewed as repositories of alien corruption and vice (Kirkby,1985). The
city lifestyle was depicted as idle and parasitic, within a strongly anti-urban ideology (Salaff,
1967; Ma, 1976; Murphey, 1976). Much later, but still reflecting this outlook, Mao promoted
several anti-urban and anti-migration policies and even sent young people from cities to
work on farms in the countryside during the 1960s in order to endure hardship and learn
about hard work.
As a result of this heritage, China was still a predominantly rural society as late as the 1970s.
Beginning with the economic reforms of the late 1970s, however, the last three decades
have witnessed an extraordinary turnaround in China?s perspective on urbanization, as well
as massive urban growth. Given changing policies and varying definitions of what constitutes
an urban area, observers have not always agreed on the exact dimensions of recent urban
growth, but all concur that it has been enormous. Given that the central government is
currently directing and supporting further urbanization, the recent pace of China?s
urbanization will undoubtedly continue. Various projections anticipate China?s “urban billion”
era. According to the latest official United Nations projections, for instance, China?s urban
population is expected to increase from 636 million to 1037 million between 2010 and 2050
(United Nations, DESA, 2010). Similarly, the McKinsey Global Institute (2009) has forecast
the expansion of China?s urban population to 926 million in 2025, reaching one billion by
2030 – an annual growth rate of nearly 20 million. Such growth rates will be consistent with
those of the past three decades. In short, the overall trend towards rapid urban growth is
very clear.
This paper provides a broad and updated overview of urban growth in China, its
determinants and its consequences. It attempts to quantify important trends in the Chinese
process of urbanization and to link these to evolving policy stances, especially economic
reform. The paper also describes how urban planning has evolved in unique directions over
time in order to accompany policy changes and how, as urbanization accelerates and the
urban economy is restructuring, new challenges have emerged. In sum, the three themes of
this paper on China?s urbanization since economic reform are retrospect, policies and trends.
The next section (Section 2) discusses the meaning of “urban population” and the level of
urbanization. In China this is a continuing challenge (Ma, 1983; Chan and Xu, 1985; Ma and
Cui, 1987; Chan and Hu, 2003; Zhou and Ma, 2003), and different measurement techniques
have led to innacuracies and discrepancies in estimating the urban population (Zhou and Ma,
2003). Section 2 thus attempts to clarify the basic concepts of “urban” and “urban
population” in China, and on this basis to establish the basic parameters of its recent
urbanization processes.
Section 3 traces China?s urban transformation since economic reform and interprets it
systematically. The past three decades of urban development indicate that the state has had
a tremendous influence on urban and regional development, including through Five-Year
Plans and other policies and guidelines. This core section of the paper thus focuses on the
2
mechanisms underlying China?s urbanization by examining the stages of urban development
since the 1978 economic reform, and looks at the changing landscape of cities and regions
within the respective stages. Section 4 highlights the policies that affect China?s recent
urbanization and urban development, giving special attention to the role of urban planning.
Section 5 discusses issues arising from post-reform urbanization, including the effects on
farmland, migration, and wider social and environmental concerns.
2 Urban growth in China: definitions and measurement
Enumerating the urban population is simple in theory: there are only two questions to
consider – how to define an “urban area”, and what proportion of the population within that
area should be counted as “urban”. Although simple in concept, this is particularly
complicated in the case of China. The country?s urban population “enigma” (Orleans and
Burnham, 1984) concerns the definition of these two elements, and is further complicated by
the national system of household registration.
First, the geographical definition of an urban area relates to the actual spatial coverage of
the built environment that has certain “urban” characteristics, such as urban infrastructure or
residential blocks. This physical reality of a city often does not coincide with its administrative
boundaries. Therefore, in order to enumerate the urban population accurately, it is common
practice to adopt a statistical demarcation of urban areas, such as the Metropolitan
Statistical Area (MSA) and Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area (SMSA) adopted by the
US Census Bureau. However, before 1999, when the first set of criteria for counting urban
populations was established in China, the administrative boundaries of cities and towns were
used for urban population statistics. In addition to the lack of coincidence between actual
urban areas and the administratively bounded areas, administrative boundaries of cities and
towns have frequently changed, often due to expansion. For these reasons, there has been
considerable inaccuracy in measuring the urban population.
The second concern is the proportion of the population within the defined urban areas that
should be counted as urban population. The normal practice is to count those people who
stay for a minimum period, such as six months in the year before the Census. The situation
in China is complicated by the application of the household registration or hukou status as
the criterion for enumerating urban population for some Census years.
The hukou system was introduced in the early 1950s, originally for population registration
and later also for migration control. But there are actually two classifications of hukou: hukou
type and residential location. Both were adopted as categories for the enumeration of urban
population in China?s Census in a rather inconsistent manner. Based on the hukou type, the
country?s population was divided into two groups: agricultural (nongye) hukou population and
non-agricultural (fei nongye) hukou population. The key differentiation was the source of a
person?s grain supply, rather than economic occupation (Zhang and Zhao, 1998). Holders of
a non-agricultural hukou received grain and other goods and services allocated by the state.
Those holding an agricultural hukou were assumed by the state to practice farming and so
received no allocated goods or services. In the pre-reform period, the categorization of
hukou type was an effective way of controlling the movement of population into cities. As
most goods and services were controlled by the state, people could not live in the cities
without state-provided resources. The other classification of hukou is based on residential
location. Individuals register their hukou to an administrative unit (normally their place of
origin) – for example, a Beijing hukou. A hukou in each location can be either agricultural or
non-agricultural.
3
Table 1 indicates the many complex changes in the definition of urban area and urban
population that have been adopted in different Censuses. To complicate matters further, the
administrative boundaries have varied as the criteria defining “city” and “town” changed. In
general, the main criteria for establishing a city are the settlement?s administrative status,
economic functions, size of population and the percentage of non-agricultural hukou
population. The State Council can amend these criteria to change a settlement?s status. For
example, in 1963, strict criteria
1
were adopted to restrict the number of localities defined as
cities and towns due to concern about the rapid growth of the urban population and the
possible lack of agricultural capacity to sustain it. The criteria for establishing towns and
cities were revised in 1984 and 1986 respectively. The latter?s criteria for town establishment
remain valid now, while those for cities were again revised by the State Council in 1993.
2
Such changing criteria greatly inflated the statistics on urban population, when the
administrative boundary was used in counting it.
Table 1: Definitions of urban population and urban area adopted in various Censuses
The proportion of population counted as urban
Total
population
Non-
agricultural
hukou
population
Urban
residence
(one year)
Urban
residence
(half a year)
U
r
b
a
n
a
r
e
a
Administrative
Boundary (I)
Census 1953
(1
st
)
Census 1964
(2
nd
)
Administrative
Boundary (II)
Census 1982
(3
rd
)
Census 1990
(I) (4
th
)
Administrative
Boundary (III)
Census 1990
(II) (4
th
)
Statistical
Criteria (I)
Census 2000
(5
th
)
Statistical
Criteria (II)
Census 2010
(6
th
) (ongoing)
Notes: 1) China has had five Censuses since 1949, conducted in 1953, 1964, 1982, 1990 and 2000; 2)
Administrative Boundary (I) refers to the administrative boundaries of the cities and towns;
Administrative Boundary (II) refers to the administrative boundaries of the cities and towns excluding
the counties under the jurisdiction of cities; and Administrative Boundary (III) reflects more basic
administrative units in cities and towns, the districts and street offices;
3
3) Statistical Criteria (I) refers
to the document issued in 1999 by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Provisions on Statistical
Division of the Urban and Rural Area (on Trial); Statistical Criteria (II) refers to the document issued in
2008 by NBS, Statistical Division of the Urban and Rural Area; 4) “Urban residence (one year)” refers
to people who had been living in the urban area for more than one year by the Census date.
With the evolution of the definition from an administrative boundary to a statistical area for an
urban area, and from total population to hukou category to urban residence on a half-year
basis, the statistics on China?s urban population are becoming increasingly realistic (Chan
and Hu, 2003; Zhou and Ma, 2005). Table 2 shows the estimated urban population and level
of urbanization by year in post-reform China, according to official sources.
1
According to the regulation, a minimum requirement of setting up a town is either a cluster of 3000
people having a non-agricultural population of more than 70 per cent, or a cluster of 2500 people with
a non-agricultural population of more than 85 per cent. Compared with the previous requirement (a
clustered population of 2000 with non-agricultural population over 50 per cent), the new regulation
conveyed a signal of anti-urbanism.
2
For the detailed evolution of town and city establishment criteria, see Zhang and Zhao (1998).
3
For detailed discussion on the variations of these criteria, see Kirkby (1985), Ma and Cui (1987) and
Zhou and Ma (2003).
4
Table 2: Urban population and urbanization level, 1979–2008
Year
Urban
population
(million)
Urbanization
level (%)
Year
Urban
population
(million)
Urbanization
level (%)
1979 184.95 19.0 1994 343.01 28.6
1980 191.40 19.4 1995 351.74 29.0
1981 201.71 20.2 1996 373.04 30.5
1982 214.80 21.1 1997 394.49 31.9
1983 222.74 21.6 1998 416.08 33.4
1984 240.17 23.0 1999 437.48 34.8
1985 250.94 23.7 2000 459.06 36.2
1986 263.66 24.5 2001 486.04 37.7
1987 276.74 25.3 2002 502.12 39.1
1988 286.61 25.8 2003 523.76 40.5
1989 295.40 26.2 2004 542.83 41.8
1990 301.91 26.4 2005 562.12 43.0
1991 305.43 26.4 2006 577.06 43.9
1992 323.72 27.6 2007 593.79 44.9
1993 333.51 28.1 2008 606.67 45.7
Notes: 1) data before 1982 refer to the non-agricultural population; data from 1982 to 1989 are
adjusted based on the 1990 Census; data from 1990 to 2000 are adjusted based on the 2000
Census; data from 2001 to 2004, and 2006 to 2008 are adjusted based on the annual population
survey;
4
data from 2005 are adjusted based on 1 per cent sampling in 2005;
5
2) Census data are for 1
November while data in this table use 31 December; for example, according to Census 2000, the
urbanization level is 36.1 (1 November 2000) while in this table the urbanization level is 36.2 (31
December 2000).
Source: China Population and Employment Statistical Yearbook 2009.
3 Stages of Chinese urbanization
3.1 An overview of post-reform urbanization
This section offers an overall picture of the country?s urbanization trajectory in order to set
the stage for a closer examination of three clearly differentiated recent stages in this process.
The main point to be retained is that the pace of urbanization has been much faster in the
post-reform period than before 1978. According to the first Census of the People?s Republic
of China (PRC) in 1953, there were only 77.3 million urban residents, accounting for 13.3 per
cent of the total population (NBS, 1954). The three decades from 1949 to 1978 witnessed an
increase of only 4.6 per cent in the level of urbanization, signifying an average annual
increase of 3.8 million urban people and an overall increase of 114 million in the urban
population. Most of this modest increase in urban population occurred in the first decade
after 1949, when China embarked on its First Five-Year Plan, involving the launch of
4
The annual population survey, held for 20 years since 1983, is a major source of annual population
data at both national and provincial levels.
5
The Census discussed above is carried out every ten years. Given the rapid change of population
data, the National Bureau of Statistics holds a “1 per cent” sampling survey between Censuses,
usually in the middle year between two Census years.
5
industrial and military modernization projects.
6
Shortly after this planning period, however,
political movements toppled production and construction, slowing down the development of
the whole country, including the cities.
It was not until the economic reform of 1978 that China?s urbanization started to take off and,
since then, the two processes have fed off each other. With the introduction of market
mechanisms in the 1978 reform, growth factors such as labour, land, capital and
technologies (including vernacular techniques) could be mobilized for increased economic
accumulation. The three decades after 1978 (1979–2008) thus saw an increase of 26.7 per
cent (from 19.0 to 45.7 per cent). The urban population increased from 185 million to 607
million, an average annual increase of 14.1 million, nearly four times the rate of the pre-
reform era. As will be shown below, the last three decades have also seen an increase in the
number of cities, in average city size, in the number of large cities and in the urban built-up
area.
During this period, cities have played a central role in the country?s social and economic
development. In 2001, urbanization (chengzhenhua in Chinese) was, for the first time,
written into the 10th Five-Year Plan (2001–2005) as an explicit development strategy. In
2001, cities and towns accounted for half of the national industrial output, 70 per cent of
GDP, and 80 per cent of all national tax revenue. Some 90 per cent of higher education and
scientific research resources were located in cities and towns (People?s Government of
PRC, 2001a).
As noted in the Outline of the 10th Five-Year Plan:
“...enhancing the level of urbanization and shifting rural population benefits an
increase in peasants? income, enlarges the consumer market, optimizes the
rural/urban economic structure… with the advance of productivity in the agricultural
sector and acceleration of industrialization, the time is ripe for the promotion of
urbanization and we should not miss such a chance to implement the strategy of
urbanization.”
(People?s Government of PRC, 2001a, translated by authors)
Urbanization was viewed as a stimulus for economic growth and a solution for rural–urban
disparities. The significance of urbanization was reiterated in the 11th Five-Year Plan (2006–
2010). The resolution to promote further urbanization was confirmed, with emphasis on a
healthier development trajectory:
“...adhere to the coordination of the development of large, medium and small size
cities and towns; enhance the carrying capacity of cities and towns; promote
urbanization actively and steadily to transform the dual rural/urban structure under
the principles of step by step, saving land, intensive development and rational
distribution.”
(People?s Government of PRC, 2006, translated by authors)
According to a model derived from other advanced industrial countries, China?s urbanization
process is now in the accelerating stage
7
(Figure 1) (Pannell, 2002). Figure 2 indicates that
this accelerating trend also applies to both China?s urbanization level and its urban
population growth.
6
PRC launched its 1st Five-Year Plan (1953–1957) to advance industrialization and modernization
with 156 major construction projects under the supervision of the Soviet Union.
7
Renowned American Geographer, Ray M. Northam examined the urbanization process in European
and American cities, and generalized that urbanization goes through three phases: initial, accelerating
and stable. The process enters the accelerating phase when the urbanization level reaches 30 per
cent. Other advanced industrial countries, including Japan, have followed similar patterns.
6
Figure 1: China’s urbanization level and the stages of urbanization
Note: x—x shows China?s urbanization level in respective years.
Source: Pannell, 2002: 1571.
Figure 2: Urbanization level and urban population, 1979–2008
Source: China Statistical Yearbook 2009.
Within these overall national trends, urbanization patterns vary considerably across the
country, with the eastern region showing the highest level of urbanization, followed by the
central and western regions. In 2008, 56.2 per cent of the population in the eastern region
was urban, while the figures for the central and western regions were 43.0 per cent and 38.3
per cent respectively. There are also variations between provinces (Figure 3). The four
7
independent municipalities of Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin and Chongqing are all highly
urbanized, especially the first three, which have over 75 per cent urbanization levels.
Provinces with over 50 per cent urban population are concentrated mostly in coastal areas
and the northeast, such as Heilongjiang, Liaoning, Jilin and Inner Mongolia, which used to
have a heavy-industrial base. There is also a close relationship between urbanization level
and per capita GDP of provinces.
8
Figure 3: Urbanization level by province, 2008
Source: China Statistical Yearbook 2009.
Rapid urban population growth has led to an increase in the number of urban settlements
and to the expansion of urban built-up areas. Thus, the number of cities in China grew from
193 in 1978 to 655 in 2008: The most marked increase began in the early 1980s and
reached a peak in the mid-1990s (Figure 4). The greatest growth took place in small and
medium-sized cities. Such growth is largely due to the urban development strategy that
prevailed throughout the 1980s, intending to control the size of large cities, rationally develop
the medium-sized cities and actively develop small cities. Nevertheless, the number of cities
with more than 1 million people grew from 13 to 58 and their population increased from 29.9
to 148.3 million – an increase larger than the sum of the other city-size groups? increase
(Table 3).
8
The correlation coefficient between urbanization level and per capita GDP for the 31 provinces is
0.93 (correlation significant at the 0.01 level).
8
Figure 4: Number of cities and urban built-up area, 1981–2008
Source: China Urban Construction Statistical Yearbook 2008.
Table 3: Number of cities of different population sizes, 1978 and 2007/8 (millions)
City size
1978
2007
Number of
additional
cities from
1978 to
2008
Population
increase
from 1978
to 2008
Number Population Number Population Number Population
Over 1
million
13 29.9 58 148.3 31 118.4
0.5–1
million
27 19.9 82 56.0 83 36.1
0.2–0.5
million
60 18.7 232 74.1 71 55.4
Under 0.2
million
93 11.3 283 37.6 215 26.3
Total 193 79.8 655 316.0
462 236.2
Source: China Urban Development Report 2008.
There has also been a trend towards rapid expansion of the urban areas (see Figure 4).
From 1981 to 1999, the annual expansion of urban built-up areas was around 800 square
kilometres. Since 1999, the growth rate almost doubled to around 1700 square kilometres
per annum. The urban built-up area has grown much faster than the urban population. From
1981 to 2008, the annual growth rate of urban population was 4 per cent whereas the
9
corresponding figure for urban built-up area was 6 per cent. Altogether, the urban built-up
area grew dramatically from 7438 to 36,295 square kilometres, a fivefold expansion.
In summary, the four key characteristics of urbanization in post-reform China are:
1. A rapid growth of the urban population, with an increase of 421.7 million people,
resulting in an increase of the country?s urbanization level from 19 per cent to 45.7
per cent. This rapid growth is continuing, and anticipated to become even faster.
2. Variations in urbanization levels by region, with the wealthier eastern region having a
higher level, followed by the central and western regions. Variations are also
observed at the provincial echelon, with richer provinces being more urbanized.
3. A rapid growth in the number of urban settlements, with the numbers of small and
medium-sized cities growing faster than those of large and extra-large cities.
However, in absolute terms, urban population growth was concentrated in the largest
cities.
4. A rapid expansion of urban area, resulting in a total urban area in 2008 that was five
times that of 1981. Moreover, the expansion of the urban built-up area has been
accelerating since the beginning of 2000.
The following sub-sections discuss the role of government policy in the acceleration of urban
growth processes in the post-reform period. China?s post-reform urbanization can be divided
into three main stages, according to the forces that affected it. These are: rural urbanization
driven by industrialization (1978–1987); urbanization driven by land reform (1988–2000); and
urbanization driven by the service industry (2001–). Each of these three stages of post-
reform urbanization had different impacts on the pace and form of urban development, and
will now be considered in turn.
3.2 Rural urbanization driven by industrialization (1978 to 1987)
Before the development of national economic reform policies, 18 farmers in Xiaogang village
(in eastern Anhui Province) inadvertently ignited China?s rural reform. They signed a secret
agreement to divide communally owned farmland into individual plots. This ended up
triggering the collapse of the People?s Commune System (PCS) and the establishment of the
Household Responsibility System (HRS). The HRS allowed individual households to take full
charge of production on their allocated land plots. Essentially, households were allowed to
retain grain surpluses instead of turning in the entire farm product to the collectives under
the PCS (Yang, 1996). Peasants? initiatives galvanized rural productivity and generated a
huge surplus of farm labourers that had been disguised under the PCS. According to an
estimate by Taylor and Banister, the number of surplus rural workers exceeded 100 million
each year between 1982 and 1987, accounting for 33.5 to 42.5 per cent of the entire rural
labour force (Ma and Lin, 1993).
Growing perception that the firmly entrenched hukou system fettered the mobility of labour
led to a proposal for reform aimed at releasing the pressure from surplus rural labour. In the
early 1980s, holders of an agricultural hukou were allowed to migrate to nearby market
towns and other small towns, as long as they could provide for their own livelihood (Chan,
2009). This loosened the main constraint on migration. Subsequent industrialization in these
towns absorbed the labour surplus released from the countryside.
The process of rural industrialization was realized through the promotion of township and
village enterprises (TVEs). TVEs were set up in rural areas where the administrative levels
are township and village. Driving forces for the growth of TVEs included: the initiative of the
local government for promoting tax revenue; the central government?s aspiration to
modernize national agriculture; the absorption of surplus labour; the alleviation of rural
poverty by improving the living standards of the peasants; and the desire of those without
adequate agricultural work to seek new opportunities for moving out of poverty and
10
underemployment in the countryside (Liang, 2006). Additional elements facilitated rural
industrialization, such as the existence of traditional craft activities, or favourable locations
for foreign capital investment (Friedmann, 2004).
Figure 5: Number of employees of TVEs, 1980–2000
Source: China Statistical Yearbook 2009.
The number of people employed in TVEs grew rapidly from the early 1980s until the mid-
1990s (Figure 5), with over 100 million employees joining TVEs during that period. In
comparison to the stagnant or even retrograde situation in state- and collectively owned
enterprises during the same period, TVEs contributed significantly to employment creation.
The TVE sector thus became one of the main pillars of China?s economy. In 1990, rural
industries accounted for a quarter of China?s total GNP and 60 per cent of its rural
production. Ninety million people were registered as rural-industry employees, and the actual
number may have been much higher. Rural industries employed 87 per cent as many people
as state sectors, although three years later, in 1993, these two sectors provided equal
numbers of jobs (White, 1998).
The development of rural industries enabled millions of former farmers to continue living
close to their home villages. There was a saying that reflected the condition of these farmers
working in rural industries: „leave the farm but not the village; enter the factory but not the
city?. Despite their non-agricultural jobs, these workers maintained ties with farming and
could provide support in the busiest farming seasons (normally sowing and harvesting),
when mass farm labour was needed for short periods. In addition, the partially reformed
hukou system continued to put restrictions on migration, and was another reason for people
working in the towns close to their villages (Goldstein, 1990; Chan, 1994; Shen, 1995; Chan
and Zhang, 1999; Solinger, 1999).
The influx of rural workers (although most of them were temporary migrants) began giving an
urban character to some rural areas through the development of rural industries (Friedmann,
2004). This process was later described by Zhu (2000) as in situ urbanization. Friedmann
(2004) evaluated such urbanization in five dimensions: administrative, economic, physical,
socio-cultural and political.
Administratively, the rapid increase in the number of towns in the early 1980s and the
momentum maintained in the 1990s resulted in most towns being upgraded from
townships (xiang in Chinese) (State Council, 1984) (Figure 6).
11
Economically, the trend was for people to retreat from underemployment in the
primary sector, by leaving farmland to engage in the secondary (manufacturing
industry, construction), and tertiary sectors (trades and services).
Physically, the villages and townships acquired an “urban look” as streets were
paved, public spaces were beautified and multi-storey buildings appeared.
Socially and culturally, everyday life was transformed, with large numbers of
newcomers working in local factories, and the simple peasant life giving way to new
and more complex livelihoods.
Politically, there emerged a strong linkage between local officials and business
elites – the local corporatism referred to by Jean Oi (Friedmann, 2004).
Figure 6: Number of towns and townships, 1984–2007
Source: China Civil Affairs Statistical Yearbook 2008.
Ma and Lin (1993) and Ma and Fan (1994) described the urbanization brought on by rural
industrialization as “urbanization from below” after investigating the development of towns in
the Pearl River Delta in Southern China and Jiangsu Province in Eastern China. They
argued that the central government had not played an active role in the growth of towns.
Rather, local endowments – such as geographical location, resources, history and business
culture – and linkage with foreign capitals had played key roles. Such varied local
endowments led to the emergence of different models of rural–urban development. For
example, the Southern Jiangsu Model features a prominent role for collectives in organizing
and facilitating local industrial development (Ma and Fan, 1994; Wei, 2002). The Wenzhou
Model was famous for its dynamic private sector (Liu, 1992; Parris 1993; Ye and Wei, 2005),
and the Pearl River Delta Model emphasized the advantages of overseas capital (Ma and
Lin, 1993; Eng, 1997; Sit and Yang, 1997). Such sporadic industrial development in rural
areas generated “multi-centric” urban spatial forms and the rampant growth of peri-urban
areas around medium-sized and large cities (Friedmann, 2004: 36). This helped to slow
down mass migration to big cities, and avoided the pattern common to many other
developing countries where rural migrants settled in shantytowns in large cities, having very
limited formal employment opportunities.
12
The pace of rural industrialization began to slow in the mid-1990s. This was mostly due to
competition from the enterprises in cities, limited technological and human resources,
vanishing tax and loans incentives, and other drawbacks to rural enterprise management
(Yao, 2002; Kung and Lin, 2007). The situation worsened after China?s accession to the
World Trade Organization in 2001, bringing competition from large-scale and better-
managed foreign firms. Employment in the TVEs dropped by 17 million in 1998 (Solinger,
2003) and then remained stagnant. The following decade saw a total growth of only 15.8
million people working in TVEs, less than the annual growth in the 1980s. Facing such
intensive competition, mostly from privatization, TVEs have been experiencing a process of
transformation (Chang, McCall et al. 2003; Shen and Ma, 2005). However, TVEs have
undoubtedly contributed significantly to China?s rural transformation and urbanization. As
noted by Friedmann (2004), China is the only country (with the possible exception of
communist Vietnam) in which rural industrialization has shaped new urban configurations,
and the only country in which rural industrialization has been truly transformative. It helped to
save Chinese cities from the severe problems widely experienced in developing countries
elsewhere.
Figure 7 summarizes the processes of rural industrialization. Initially, rural reform generated
surplus rural labour and supplied sufficient farm produce to sustain non-agricultural activities
in towns and cities. Further, changes in the hukou system facilitated rural migration to small
towns. Then, local initiatives together with local endowments (such as the entrepreneurship
of local leaders and technical knowledge) and foreign capital, all helped rural industries to
flourish. The sector not only absorbed surplus labour but also contributed to the country?s
economy significantly throughout the 1980s. Moreover, the growth of rural industries spurred
the development of small towns and cities and made those previously rural settlements
increasingly urban. The urbanization process in this stage can thus be summarized as an
endogenous and spontaneous growth of rural industries in small towns, leading to the
urbanization of the countryside.
Figure 7: The process of rural industrialization
3.3 Urbanization driven by land reform (1988 to 2000)
Land and housing reforms
The success of rural reform since the late 1970s encouraged the central government to
promote further reforms in the urban sector through a series of policies that have been
Rural Reform
Surplus labour
Abundant product
Land and resources
…
TVEs
Local initiatives
Entrepreneurship
Technical knowhow
Other local
endowment
Rural
Industrialization
and Urbanization of
Countryside
Hukou
Reform
13
adopted since 1984. In line with the country?s transformation from a planned economy
towards a market economy, cities were directed towards commercialization and privatization.
Private property and other institutional arrangements, such as devolution of power, are
essential in the process of marketization. The globalizing world, specifically in the forms of
foreign trade and foreign capital, also fuelled the transformation. The key factor triggering
these processes was land reform, which led to the commodification of the built environment.
Since the economic reform, labour had been commoditized through certain migration rights,
and attracted to towns and cities. Favourable policies facilitated foreign capital investment in
selected regions and industries. Thus, of the three factors of production – labour, capital and
land – it was only land that remained intact in the state?s domain.
In the classic Marxist view, land was not considered a main factor of production, having no
value without the addition of labour. Therein, an increase of land value was perceived as an
indirect exploitation of labour engaged in production. Avoiding the exploitation of labour thus
required elimination of the private ownership of land, regarded as a means of exploitation,
and the reduction of the land costs to zero (Zhang, 1997). Therefore, in the pre-reform era,
there was virtually no privately owned land. Land in China was either state-owned or
collectively owned, and land transactions were banned.
9
The state allocated land to users
without any charges. Since the users at that time were publicly owned enterprises or
agencies, the free land-allocation system was not challenged. Following economic reform
and the introduction of privately owned enterprises, including foreign enterprises and joint
ventures, the free allocation of land was no longer appropriate (Yeh and Wu, 1996a; Zhang,
1997). Besides, it was perceived that the system of free land use resulted in serious
economic inefficiency, contributing to the demand for reform of the land allocation system
(Bertaud and Renaud, 1992; Xie, Parsa et al., 2002; Ding, 2003).
In a prelude to official land reform, several coastal cities with concerns about land use for
foreign investors began to experiment with the paid use of urban land. Shenzhen, one of the
Special Economic Zones established in the early 1980s, was the first to levy an annual land-
use fee to overseas investors (Yeh, 1985). A national experiment in charging land-use fees
was then introduced in 1984 (Xie, Parsa et al., 2002). Such trials confirmed the irrational and
inefficient land use under the previous system, and triggered the establishment of the State
Land Administration Bureau and the enactment of Land Administration Law in 1986. The
Bureau was “responsible for, and in charge of land policy reform, land allocation and
acquisition, monitoring of land development, comprehensive land-use plans, and
implementation of land laws” (Ding, 2003: 112). The law shifted power in land management
from various ministries and other units to the local government (Wu, Xu and Yeh, 2007).
Both the establishment of the bureau and the enactment of the law set the stage for land
reform.
The paid transfer of land-use rights was made official in the First Section of the Seventh
People?s Congress in 1988, and included in the constitution through a clause stating “the
right to the use of land may be transferred in accordance with law”. This marked the end of
free land use and opened a new era of lawful transactions of urban land (Dowall, 1993; Yeh
and Wu, 1996a). There were three key features of China?s urban land-use reform
(Zhang,1997):
1. land taxation, requiring all urban land users, including both work units and individuals,
to pay a land-use tax;
2. the separation of land-use rights from ownership, so that the state retains ownership
of the land and only the use-right is leased;
3. a dual-track land system, in which the administrative land allocation of the pre-reform
era and the newly established land-leasing system co-exist.
9
According to Clause 4, Article 10 of the 1982 Constitution: “no organization or individual may
appropriate, buy, sell, or lease land, or unlawfully transfer it in other ways”.
14
Through these arrangements, land-use efficiency has improved and government revenues
increased. Local authorities and agencies were highlighted as the main actors in
implementation of the land reforms, supported by reform in the fiscal system.
The introduction of the central–local contract system in 1985 (Zhang, 1999) and the tax-
sharing system in 1994 (Chen, 2004) provided incentives for local governments to address
land issues effectively. The objectives of the reform were to promote local productivity,
increase local initiatives in expanding revenue and cutting expenditure, and develop the
national economy. Local governments were permitted to retain certain revenues, the so-
called “extra-budgetary revenue”, for local disposal. Land revenue was included in the
category of extra-budgetary revenue. Together with the disposal rights of land granted by
Land Administrative Law, the role of local government started to change, gaining autonomy
and initiative (Oi,1995). Walder (1995) referred to local governments as “industrial firms” and
Duckett (1996) and Friedmann (2004) described them as entrepreneurial states (or cities).
Land was the essential instrument in developing the local state. According to Ho and Lin
(2001), land-related revenues accounted for 30–70 per cent of the total revenue of local
governments in the 1990s. Ding (2003) came up with a more conservative estimate of 25–50
per cent. Figure 8 shows the rapid growth of urban land-use tax. The trend increased rapidly,
especially since the tax-sharing system of 1994. With the introduction of housing reform, the
significance of land was emphasized once again.
Figure 8: Urban land-use tax, 1991–2000
Source: China Statistical Yearbook 2009.
The gradual reform of the housing sector started in the late 1980s when the state faced a
severe housing shortage and an insufficient budget to construct more housing stock (Wu,
1996; Zhou and Logan, 1996). With the announcement of gradual reform (State Council,
1988), the work-units started to sell existing housing stock, which triggered the process of
housing commercialization. Later, state employees were subsidized by their work-units to
buy newly developed housing. It was not until 1998 that the allocation of housing based on
the state work-units was abolished. The objective of housing reform was to develop
commodity housing to boost domestic demand and thus to stimulate economic growth. The
direct housing distribution by work-unit employers came to an end while a multiple supply
15
system was established, including state-supported affordable or low-cost commercial
housing, and high-standard commodity housing. The housing finance system was created to
facilitate the process of commodification (Wang, 2001; Wu, 2001).
Housing reform led to a booming real-estate market and stimulated the urban economy
(Figure 9). The decade from 1999 to 2008 witnessed a more than seven-fold growth of real-
estate investment, from 410.32 billion to 3120.32 billion, and an increase of more than
double the amount of employment from 880 thousand to 2.1 million. Land and housing
reforms are manifestations of commercialization, decentralization, privatization and
globalization in the post-reform era. The role of local states has been transformed under
these processes, as have urbanization and urban development.
Figure 9: Employment and investment in the real-estate sector, 1989–2008
Source: China Statistical Yearbook 2009.
Urbanization and urban development
The policies and processes summarized in Figure 10 significantly changed the regional and
urban landscapes, especially through the development of the land and housing market and
the rapid expansion of urban land and construction. Regionally, with the gradual
implementation of reform policies, inequalities developed. With the rapid expansion of major
cities, and the appearance of small cities and towns, city-regions in China started to emerge.
At the city level, more efficient land use, and spatial differentiation of land use could be
observed.
16
Figure 10: Urbanization and urban development driven by land reform
The reform policies were tested and implemented gradually. The right to accept foreign
capital was first granted to the Special Economic Zones and then to the open coastal cities
before being introduced throughout the country. Similarly, land-use reform and housing
reform were tested in a few pilot cities, mostly the coastal cities in Southern China. Thus,
geographical disparities increased (Figure 11).
Figure 11: Cities and zones opened to foreign investment in the 1980s
Source: Phillips and Yeh, 1990: Figure 9.4.
Urban Reform
Land reform
Fiscal reform
Housing reform
…
Local Developmental State
Local initiatives
Entrepreneurial cities
Place making
…
Land Reform Driven
Urbanization and Urban
Development
Commercialization
Decentralization
Privatization
Globalization
17
Rapid urban expansion was also observed in this stage (Figure 12). There were two periods
of faster growth: the late 1980s when land reform was initiated, and the late 1990s when
housing reform began. Such rapid urban expansion transformed China?s urban and regional
spatial patterns, giving birth to the mega-city region – a cluster of contiguous cities or
metropolitan areas, administratively separate but intensively networked in various ways (Xu
and Yeh, 2010). This is regarded as a specific urban form resulting from a high level of
urbanization (Gottmann, 1961; Zhou, 1991; Scott, 2001; Hall and Pain, 2006). The country?s
most developed mega-city regions are the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta and
the Bohai Sea Rim, regions regarded as the hub areas of Chinese economic growth (Zhang
and Wu, 2006). These three regions, with less than 3 per cent of the national territory,
accounted for 14 per cent of the country?s population, generated 42 per cent of the national
GDP and attracted 79 per cent of foreign investment flowing into China in 2007 (MOHURD,
2008).
10
Figure 12: The expansion of urban built-up area, 1981–2008
Source: China Urban Construction Statistical Report 2008.
Besides these renowned regions, there are many other emerging regions, such as the
Shandong Peninsula Region, Shenyang-Dalian regions and Chengdu-Chongqing regions
(Figure 13). The role of these mega-city regions in China?s development will be significant.
Recent research and national policy targets the building of more integrated mega-city
regions to coordinate the development of cities (Yeh and Xu, 2008).
10
MOHURD is the Ministry of Housing and Urban–Rural Development of the People?s Republic of
China.
18
Figure 13: China’s mega-city region
Urban growth driven by land development also affects the intra-city spatial pattern. The
immediate impact is that land now has a value, and land value is a better reflection of
location rent. Previously inefficient use of urban land was improved as unused land from
state-owned enterprises was returned to the government. Further, low-value-added
manufacturing industries were excluded from central locations now affordable only to higher-
value-added service activities. Throughout these processes, the economic efficiency of
urban land use has been enhanced, and a new urban spatial pattern has emerged (Logan,
2007; McGee, Lin et al., 2007; Wu, 2007). Inner-city redevelopment, new areas of
construction, high-tech parks, industrial zones and central business districts are emerging to
transform the original urban spatial fabric (Ding, 2003). Most cities have changed from a
compact form to a dispersed metropolis characterized by urban redevelopment in the city
centre, suburban expansion towards new suburban sub-centres, and leapfrog urban sprawl
in the urban fringe (Figure 14) (Wu and Yeh, 1999).
19
Figure 14: A model of the emerging urban spatial structure of Guangzhou, China
Source: Wu and Yeh, 1999: 388.
Urban infrastructure improved significantly in this stage of development. The increasing
amount of money invested in providing infrastructure and other public goods was largely
derived from the land and housing economy?s provision of urban revenue (Yeh and Wu,
1996a; Ding, 2003). In 1987, according to figures from the China Statistics Bureau, cited by
Ding (2003), sales of land-use rights generated 35 million RMB in 1987 but 29,048 million
RMB in 1996, accounting for 25–50 per cent of cities? revenue. With such a rapid increase in
urban revenue, investment in urban infrastructure was greatly increased as well. Taking
Shanghai as an example, the investment in urban infrastructure was only 0.446 billion RMB
in 1978, increasing more than ten-fold to 4.722 billion in 1990, then again to 44.99 billion in
2000. Improved urban infrastructure can improve accessibility and thus open up new land for
development (Yeh, 2002; Wu, Xu and Yeh, 2007). This is widely known in China as the “land
breeding land” model of urban development. Land revenue is used to construct infrastructure
that increases accessibility and thus enhances land value. The enhanced land value derived
from infrastructure development is captured by land sales, which further contribute to the
construction of more infrastructure to increase accessibility and land revenue.
The process of land development driven by urbanization still maintains its momentum. After
all, it is one of the most convenient ways in which to generate urban revenue. However,
government land holdings are limited, and land-based revenues cannot be expected to grow
indefinitely. Thus, urban governments are keen to explore new and sustainable dynamics for
continued urban development.
20
3.4 Urbanization driven by the service industry (2001 to present)
The growth of the tertiary-sector industries in China had been constrained for decades,
especially before economic reform when services were considered unproductive and
consumptive. In the early stages of economic reform, manufacturing and other secondary
industries were still the focus of efforts aimed at boosting the country?s economy. The role of
the tertiary sector was not taken seriously until 1992, when the central government proposed
a strategy to facilitate its development. This shift was based on the awareness that the
service industry can give cities a competitive edge and impetus for new growth. Specifically,
it was hoped that it would help to diversify the employment structure, open up new
opportunities for low-threshold entrepreneurship, and generate employment. In addition, the
growth of per capita income of urban residents since the early 1990s required a dynamic
service sector. Per capita income had grown more than ten-fold in less than two decades. In
this period, the service sector consisted mainly of consumer-related services, such as
wholesale and retail trade, hotels and catering.
In urban China, the service sector grew rapidly. The contribution of the tertiary industry to
employment increased from 30 to 50 per cent from 1995 to 2000, and tertiary-generated
GDP maintained around 40 per cent of all GDP in this period. Since 2000, in terms of both
GDP and employment, the service industry has been catching up with industry (Figure 15).
However, compared with service development in other countries, the proportion of service
industry in China is still low. According to World Bank statistics, the tertiary industry
accounted for 72 per cent of national GDP in high-income economies, and 59 per cent in
middle-income economies. Moreover, the proportion of advanced producer services within
the Chinese service sector remained small.
Figure 15: Urban economic structures by employment and GDP, 1995–2005
Source: China Statistical Yearbook 2009.
21
The producer service sector has developed only recently in China since the privatization of
the public ownership enterprises. Before this, China?s enterprises, both state-owned and
collective-owned, tended to be “all in one” – providing all the services for their employees by
the enterprises themselves. Thus, there was little demand for externalizing separate
functions to outside service providers. Furthermore, human resources with high levels of
education and specialized talents were not yet ready for producer services. Only since the
10th Five-Year Plan (2001–2005) was the producer service sector, often known as the
modern service sector in China, designated to play a significant part in enhancing the global
competitiveness of the Chinese urban economy. The advanced producer service sector in
China normally refers to services for businesses, such as computer services, legal
consulting, accounting, marketing, advertising, scientific and research services. The finance
and real-estate sectors had the greatest growth momentum, although not the highest value
(Figure 16). These sectors roughly fall into the category of advanced producer services.
Figure 16: The growth of the main service sectors, 1978–2008
Source: China Statistical Yearbook 2009.
Producer services are predicted to grow in the coming decades. Premier Wen Jiabao has
emphasized the role of the service sector in the national economy. He has further pinpointed
the role of producer service industries, such as finance, logistics and information, in
supporting the growth of modern manufacturing industry and facilitating the upgrading of
economic structure (Xie, 2010). Such policy emphases have been reflected in the
development of almost all major cities. The development outlines of China?s two major city
regions endorsed recently by the National Development and Reform Committee (NDRC)
reflected the determination of both central and local governments to promote the producer
service sector. According to the Outline of the Reform and Development in Pearl River Delta
Region, this region strives to develop an advanced producer service industry, advanced
manufacturing and high-tech industry (NDRC, 2008). Key industries within the producer
service sector have been identified. Ways of promoting these industries, and goals for them,
22
have been formulated (Table 4). The overall goal of the development of the producer service
industry is to account for more that 60 per cent of service output by 2020.
Table 4: Premier industries in the outline of the reform and development
of the Pearl River Delta
Key industries Practice and objectives
Producer
service
industry
Finance
Commercial service
Guangzhou and Shenzhen as the
regional financial centre; cultivate the
headquarters economy
Exhibition
China Import and Export Fair (Canton
Fair); China High-tech Fair (Shenzhen);
China International Aviation &
Aerospace Exhibition; China
(Shenzhen) International Culture
Industry Fair
Creative industry
Incubate the creative industry cluster,
construct the software, comic and
animation base
Logistics and port services
Baiyun Airport and Bao?an Airport,
Guangzhou Port, Shenzhen Port;
world- class logistics centre; logistics
parks
Information and
communication
Southern China information and
communication centre; international e-
commerce centre
Outsourcing
Cultivate 2/3 national outsourcing
bases; form international integrated
outsourcing chain
Tourism
Demonstration region for
comprehensive tourism-industry reform
Human resources Human-resource exchange centre
Other third-party services
Research, design, marketing,
consulting and others
Source: Outline of the Reform and Development of the Pearl River Delta (NDRC, 2008).
The latest regional plan for the Yangtze River Delta region also shows the importance of the
producer service industry in urban and regional development. The region is positioned as the
“gateway to the Asian Pacific Region, the modern service and advanced manufacturing
centre of global importance and the whole region enjoys relatively high competitiveness”
(NDRC, 2010). Both the Pearl River Delta and the Yangtze River Delta are leading regions
in China?s economic development. They are expected to undertake the role of promoting
new industries, facilitating economic restructuring, guiding other regions and realizing the
overall industrial upgrading of the country?s economy.
4 Urban planning policies
4.1 Urban planning regulations
Under the centrally planned economy before 1978, urban planning was perceived as a tool
for carrying out planned socialist development and for translating the goal of economic
planning into urban space. This approach was largely abandoned after the economic reform
of 1978. The re-emergence of property rights from housing and land reforms in the late
1980s led to an increased interest in developing urban space, which in turn increased the
23
need to establish planning controls suitable for achieving economic development in a market
economy (Yeh and Wu, 1996b; 1999). The shift towards growth-oriented development,
decentralized administration, and inflows of foreign capital also meant that urban planning
faced considerable pressure from commercial and industrial interests in reducing restrictions
on land use. The consequences of this, the subsequent restructuring of interests, and their
demands for land and urban space, undermined the confidence of planners (Wu, Xu and
Yeh, 2007). The urban planning system did not seem to be ready for these shocks during the
early reform period, signalling an urgent need to improve the legal foundation of urban
planning. This led to the enactment of a series of city planning laws and regulations,
beginning in the 1980s, such as the 1984 Urban Planning Regulation, the 1989 Urban
Planning Act, and the 2008 Urban and Rural Planning Act.
Urban planning regulation and legislation, 1980s
The 1984 Urban Planning Regulation provided seminal guidelines for urban planning during
the late 1980s. Five years later, the 1989 Urban Planning Act developed a comprehensive
approach to urban planning which included defining the size, economic orientation and
structure of a city, realizing goals of economic and social development, preparing “rational”
city plans and carrying out construction to meet the needs of development (Wu, Xu and Yeh,
2007). The word “rational” reflects long-held views on the sporadic nature of market-oriented
development and a need to pursue ordered and coordinated growth. This presumes that the
development of a city in terms of its functional specialization and size can and should be
controlled in order to shape a “rational” urban system nationwide.
The 1989 Act also delegated territorial power to municipalities in important functions of urban
planning, ranging from plan-making to development control. In contrast to past practice, prior
permission was now required for all development projects. Municipal planning departments
exercised controlling power through the “one report and two permits” system (Site Selection
Recommendation Report, Land Use Planning Permit, and Building Construction Permit) and
made discretionary judgements on development proposals on the basis of considerations
formulated in development plans and other specific requirements of government (Xu and Ng,
1998).
The 1989 Act offered a blueprint approach in a two-tiered planning system: the master plan
(zongti guihua) and detailed plans (xiangxi guihua). The master plan is a long-term strategic
layout of a city, and is statutory in nature. Apart from defining broad land-use zones, the
master plan spells out a wide range of urban development strategies and land-use policies,
such as those related to transportation and open space. It usually has a 20-year planning
horizon and considers long-term development strategies. Master plans are intended to take
a general perspective, leaving details to other plans.
Land-use policies are set out in detailed plans that define the boundaries of each
construction project within the planned plot, control indices such as floor-area ratio, building
density and building height. They include general layout plans, utility engineering plans and
three-dimensional site plans. Detailed plans are further divided into two types – detailed
development control plans (DDCPs) (kongzhixing xiangxi guihua) and detailed construction
plans (DCPs) (xiujianxing xiangxi guihua). The DDCP is prepared for urban planning districts
where future development projects are uncertain, while the DCP is prepared for areas facing
immediate construction.
In effect, detailed plans fill in details left unspecified by the strategic policies of master plans,
and generally should conform to the master plan. Because all developments now require
planning permission, detailed plans provide the main basis for development control.
However, these plans are not statutory in nature. In practice, controlling development
through these plans is very difficult, if not impossible (Xu and Ng, 1998; Wu, Xu and Yeh,
24
2007). Besides, local officials, flawed enforcement, and interference from higher levels of
administration often override planning regulations. As land leasing becomes an essential
source of government income, planners are often pressured to apply less control in land
development, to encourage economic growth and urban expansion.
To achieve better planning control, new efforts have been introduced in two directions: to
expand the planning area to the regional scale, and to specify land-development intensity at
the micro (land-parcel) level (Wu, Xu and Yeh, 2007). New plans are now required to fulfil
these tasks. The city region plan (shiyu guihua) is a new type of regional plan prepared for
the city region under the jurisdiction of the municipality. The master plan of the 1989 Act
covers only the central city and sometimes only the city centre within the central city. This
means that a large part of the city region is not covered by the master plan, and there is a
need to coordinate development in the outlying counties and towns. The city region plan is
thus intended to integrate a central city along with nearby small towns and counties into one
unified plan for better coordination on important regional issues such as environmental
protection policies, infrastructure and hierarchy of urban settlements.
Complementing the city region plan, the urban system plan (chengzhen tixi guihua) is
another regional plan to rationalize “functional, hierarchical and spatial” structures of
infrastructure and urban settlement. It aspires to manipulate regional spatial development,
such as city size. However, such features are difficult to control, even under a centrally
planned system. Also, there are no concrete measures to link the planned “spatiality” with
resource allocations of national economic planning, the enforcement of development control
or any tangible socio-economic policies. The urban district plan (chengshi fenqu guihua) is
an optional plan made to improve control and define land uses, the boundary and
development intensity, and to coordinate various infrastructure, public amenities and facilities
at the district level. It is part of the master-planning stage.
At the micro level, some local authorities have begun to experiment with zoning-like
measures as a way of bringing urban growth under effective planning control, because
detailed plans do not have statutory force. One example is the statutory plan in Shenzhen.
Such plans offer a basis for planning officials to determine whether planning permission
should be granted unconditionally, or subject to certain conditions. The various types of plan
and their spatial scopes are shown in Figure 17.
Figure 17: Types of plans and their coverage
City
Local
Site-
specific
District
Regional
City Region Plan
Urban System Plan
Master Plan
City District Plan
Detailed Development Control
n
Detailed Construction Plan
Site Plan
Plans for macro purpose
Plans for managerial
purpose
Plans for Physical
Construction
25
Rural and Urban Planning Act 2008
On 28 October 2007, the National People?s Congress promulgated the new Urban and Rural
Planning Act, which came into force on 1 January 2008. The 2008 Act stresses the “rural”
element to ensure better spatial coordination of urban and rural land uses and to avoid
excessive agricultural land loss and unauthorized land development in cities, towns and
villages (Central People?s Covernment, 2007). It provides detailed stipulations to curb the
discretion of local governments and key officials in the decision-making process. It also
encourages public participation. In particular, the 2008 Act empowers DDCPs to become
statutory plans for better development control. The new Act is expected to create a
qualitative and sustainable transformation of both urban and rural landscapes.
In addition to the 2008 Act, new types of plans are emerging. One example is the “concept
plan”, which is widely practised. Unlike most other plans, the concept plan is not fixed at a
particular tier of the plan hierarchy. It can operate at all levels to set out general urban
policies on development and land use. It may also include policies and design proposals for
a specific site. Like a sketch before a painting, the concept plan explores the broad-brush
goals of a new framework for urban growth. Unlike a master plan, the concept plan does not
have a fixed content and a planning horizon. Neither does it need to be modified at
predetermined intervals. Planners can make alterations or replace the whole plan at any
time, and do not require higher-level approval. This results in more local flexibility in
organizing urban space.
Another example of a new type of plan is the regional strategic plan. The regional system in
many of China?s mega-city regions has undergone significant transformation because of
market reform, globalization and rapid urbanization. Many cities and towns that were
formerly peripheral, or connected only to rural areas, have developed into active economic
centres linked to world capital investors and consumer markets. The resultant polycentric
spatial form has combined with the rise of urban entrepreneurialism that is increasingly
becoming a key municipal strategy to enhance space-specific socio-economic assets (Xu
and Yeh, 2005). This reform-imposed transition leads to an intensified inter-city competition
for mobile capital. In response, regional strategic planning constitutes a new policy option for
mega-city regions to overcome the negative effects of political fragmentation. Some scholars
argue that such strategic plans should have been incorporated into the 2008 Act, given their
great importance (Zhang and Luo, 2008).
4.2 Problems of planning coordination
The multiple tiers of China?s planning system present many challenges. In recent years, the
hunger for capital at the municipality level has intensified inter-city competition and
encouraged place-based entrepreneurial endeavour among local governments (Xu and Yeh,
2005). Under such circumstances, planning is more than just prohibiting or constraining
externalities. It has also been used increasingly to enhance place marketing and
competitiveness. In many cities, development plans focus on projects such as the
development of airports, deep-water ports, underground railways, and convention and
exhibition centres. This is intended to address economic and social problems, and to project
new and dynamic city images globally. Hundreds of cities in China, large and small, are
competing to build “mega” projects branded by the world?s top architects and planners. City-
led comprehensive residential development has evolved into a campaign to transform the
urban structure through various economic and technological development zones, special
zones and industrial parks. In this way, cities look “modernized” with Manhattan-like skylines
looking down on multi-lane highways leading to newly emerging and expanding urban areas
(Yeh and Xu, 2009).
26
There are two outcomes of such development. On one hand, place marketing presents the
opportunity for Chinese cities to stimulate business and attract investment. On the other
hand, some aspects of the bureaucratic/entrepreneurial approach to city development can
undermine other important roles of local governments in city planning. Such an approach not
only diverts scarce public-sector resources away from the basic services upon which the
city?s disadvantaged groups depend, but also creates places which lack social meaning and
functionality. The distinctive qualities of Chinese cities have gradually disappeared. The
understanding of cities as a collection of cultural and physical layers is missing in today?s
Chinese planning (Wu, Xu and Yeh, 2007).
Another major problem is the difficulty of coordination among plans from different ministries
(Figure 18). There are many interrelated plans from different government agencies, including
socio-economic plans, urban master plans, and land-use plans. The National Development
and Reform Commission (NDRC) is the agent of socio-economic plans. These plans have
been in operation since the pre-reform period, and have recently come to contain a strong
spatial element. Socio-economic plans have the capacity to guide and constrain spatial plans
made by other ministries. Socio-economic plans clarify the overall positioning of regions and
major cities, provide blueprints for priority development areas, and give solutions to
problems that are difficult for one city or one province to solve. More importantly, socio-
economic plans directly connect state resource allocations to spatial formation.
The Ministry of Housing and Urban–Rural Development (MOHURD) and its local
subordinates, such as construction commissions and municipal urban planning departments,
are agencies responsible for physical planning. They prepare regional studies and plans to
provide necessary elements of spatial coordination, such as functional relationships of cities,
distribution of regional infrastructure facilities, and other spatial elements like industrial space,
transportation hubs, wilderness and conservation areas. These plans pay particular attention
to population and region-wide environmental, social and economic issues, and develop an
extremely strong element of strategic consideration.
The Ministry of Land and Resources (MLR) and local land departments are entitled to
prepare land-use plans at all levels but primarily address issues of farmland protection. In
recent years, new content has been added to these plans to provide land-use projections for
development projects and to demarcate different zones for regulation – an element
contained within physical or spatial planning. Several other ministries such as the Ministry of
Railways, the Ministry of Transportation, and the Ministry of Agriculture have their own
regional plans to guide sectoral development. The fragmented functions of regional planning
can result in inter-ministerial conflicts, making it difficult to implement regional strategic plans
(Xu, 2008).
27
Figure 18: Fragmented regional planning and governance in China
Source: Xu, 2008: 6
State Council
National
Development and
Reform
Commission
Ministry of
Railways
Ministry of
Housing and
Urban-Rural
Development
Ministry of
Environmental
Protection
Ministry of
Land and
Resources
Ministry of
Transportation
Other ministries
such as agriculture,
electricity, and
communication
National
Railway
Development
Plan
National Socioeconomic
Development Plan
? Master Plan
? Sectoral Plan
? Trans-provincial
regional planning
? National Cities
(towns) System
Plan
? Inter-jurisdictional
Urban Cluster
Plan
? Inter-jurisdictional
Urban Ring Plan
National
Environmental
Protection Plan
National Land
Use Master
Plan
National
Transportation
Plan
Other sectoral
plans
Local
Development and
Reform
Committee
Regional
Railway
Development
Plan
Local Socioeconomic
Development Plan (at
provincial, municipal,
county or township level;
or for a region covering
different jurisdictions):
? Master Plan
? Sectoral Plan such as
local railway
development plan
? Regional planning
Regional Railway
Organizations
Provincial
Construction
Commission and
Municipal
Planning
Department
? Local Cities (towns)
System Plan (at
provincial, municipal,
county or township
level; or for a region
covering different
jurisdictions)
? Local Urban Cluster
Plan
? Local Urban Ring
Plan
Local
Environmental
Protection
Administration
Local
Environmental
Protection Plan
Local Land Use
Master Plan (at
provincial,
municipal,
county or
township level;
or for a region
covering
different
jurisdictions)
Local Land
Department
Other local
departments
Other local
sectoral plans
Local
transportation
department
Local
transport-
tation
plans
28
5 Trends and issues of concern
Given the recognition of urbanization as an important part of national strategy for modernization
and economic development, the momentum of urbanization will be accelerated in the future.
Projections from various research institutes reaffirm the fast pace of urbanization in China, as
discussed in early sections of this paper. However, as the urban population increases and the
urban area expands, several challenges emerge as well. Three main concerns will be examined
here: urban expansion and farmland loss, rural-to-urban migration, and social and
environmental justice.
5.1 Urban expansion and farmland loss
Rampant expansion of urban areas has resulted in the reduction of farmland (Table 5) (Cartier,
2001). Further, many cities have established various kinds of economic and technological zones
(ETZs) as a means of attracting foreign investment and this has involved the diversion of large
land areas (Yeh, 2002) – although many of these ETZs have not been fully used. According to
figures from a national investigation in 1997 – “of the 4,210 development zones nationwide, only
1,128 had central or provincial government approval. Cultivated areas accounted for 55 per cent
of the enclosed areas. Of the land demarcated for these development zones, only 20 per cent
had actually been used” (Lin, 2007: 1848).
Table 5: Areas of cultivated land under reform in selected coastal areas, 1979–1997
(thousand hectares)
Year Shenzhen Shanghai Fujian Jiangsu Historical context
1979 4.37 2.66 10.39 SEZ policy formulated
1980 2.8 1.71 3.67 9.02
1981 2.02 1.33 2
1982 1.38 1.07 4.53 5.8
1983 0.61 1.72 1.8 1.16
1984 1.9 4.18 3.07 8.96 Coastal cities opened
1985 4.1 6.18 18.4 17.06 Coastal regions opened
1986 0.7 6.54 10.93 13.24
1987 1.29 2.17 6.34 10.98
1988 1.01 3.67 4.73 10.97
1989 0.81 3.12 0.67 6.52 Tiananmen incident
1990 0.16 0.82 2 4.46
1991 3.56 2.24 2.06 7.89 Hong Kong property market high
1992 4.78 3.12 5.94 28.2 Deng Xiaoping?s southern tour
1993 4.3 15.85 9.33 26.11
1994 1.46 8.14 8.8 31.66
1995 0.19 3.89 6.41 15.69 Urban real estate law in effect
1996 0 2.71 7.79 12.87
1997 0.87 0 7.67 May moratorium on arable land
conversion
Source: Cartier, 2001: 454.
29
5.2 Rural-to-urban migration
Surplus labour arising from rural reform was the main source of the migrating population from
farms to towns. As discussed above, township and village enterprises (TVEs) throughout the
1980s and export-oriented coastal cities since the 1990s were the major destinations for surplus
labour. The large-scale rural-to-urban migration challenged the absorption capacity of non-
agricultural sectors. The latest official report on China?s floating (temporary) population shows
that there were 211 million migrants in 2009, and this is expected to rise to 350 million in 2050.
Of these migrants, 80 per cent hold an agricultural hukou, and so are not eligible for subsidized
urban services, such as housing, education and health care. The group is dominated by young
people, with over two-thirds between the ages of 20 and 44. Most of them work in production,
construction, wholesale, and other service sectors (National Population and Family Planning
Commission, 2010). It is estimated that another 300–400 million people will need to be
relocated to the non-agricultural sector by 2050 (Fan, 2005).
The encroachment of farmland in suburban areas for development projects, while leaving the
rural residential site intact, gives rise to the problem of urban villages within Chinese cities.
When rapid urban development and expansion reach the urban fringe, the usual development
strategy is the requisition of rural land. Urban governments normally convert agricultural land
into suburban areas while leaving the village?s residential land intact because of the high costs
of relocation of the residents and housing compensation. The villagers are left without farmland,
and so lease their houses to make a living. This often coincides with the influx of rural migrants
seeking affordable shelters in cities. As the number of migrants increases, villagers tend to build
more rooms to lease. However, since the area of residential land is fixed, this results in the
addition of more storeys, and higher-density accommodation. As these areas are categorized as
rural, the city government has no regulatory control over them, and does not provide
infrastructure:
“many urban villages are plagued by aged facilities with poor maintenance, very narrow
pathways between rows of terraced buildings, intensive use of space without appropriate
planning, and high residential density that are beyond the capacity of infrastructure
services. There are also such social problems as violence, pornographic activities,
burglary and robbery in addition to building dilapidation.”
(Zhang, 2005: 246)
Urban villages have thus become a headache for urban governments. They have provided an
indispensible source of cheap housing and services for migrant workers, but have become
communities without adequate infrastructure, and they are beyond urban governance. When
urban areas keep on expanding, some urban villages become surrounded by high-rent urban
areas. The existence of low-income communities close to high-rent areas affects the
development of the city, and many cities are trying to remove the low-income communities at
very high economic and social costs.
Another issue related to the increasing migrant population is the growth of informal economic
activity in Chinese cities. Ghose (2005) identified the “irregular employment” in Chinese cities,
which includes most of the migrant workers and urban laid-off workers. This can involve casual-
wage employment (for example, in construction or domestic service) and self-employment (for
example, street vending or repair services). Ghose?s evaluation shows that irregular
employment had an annual growth rate of 18.5 per cent between 1992 and 2002. There are
increasing concerns about the ability of the urban sector to provide sufficient employment for the
migrant population. The informalization of employment forms, such as street vending and home-
30
based production, which exists in many Third World cities, may be increasing in Chinese cities
(Pannell, 2003; Yeh, Xu et al., 2006; Ma, 2007).
Although the concept of informal employment is still vague, street vending, as one of the most
visible activities within the informal sector, is widespread throughout China. However, it is not
officially allowed in most Chinese cities. According to the regulation on individual and privately
owned enterprises issued in 1987, which is still valid today, the prerequisite to apply for an
individual/private business is a fixed site of operation. However, labour surplus in rural China,
together with the employment pressure in cities, makes street vending an accessible occupation
for many in need of work. One figure commonly cited in the news media is that there are 30
million street vendors throughout the country (People’s Daily Online, 2009), accounting for 4 per
cent of the entire employed population. Because of its illegality, street vending involves the risk
of eviction from the street by the urban authorities. This damages the vendors? livelihoods, and
there are concerns of urban social justice affecting the disadvantaged and marginalized
population in Chinese cities (Ma, 2007).
5.3 Social and environmental justice
Ma (2007) raised eight main concerns about social and environmental justice in China?s current
urban transition:
1. severe water and air pollution
2. population relocation and landslides caused by dam construction
3. serious long-term water shortages in two-thirds of China?s cities
4. widespread corruption
5. land loss by peasants to (and land-grabbing and hoarding by) real-estate developers,
some of whom have amassed huge fortunes
6. loss of jobs and social benefits by urban state workers and violations of labour rights due
to privatization and bankruptcy
7. forced residential relocation of urban residents with inadequate compensation
8. the lack of a “right to the city” and truncated citizenship rights for rural-to-urban migrants.
Due to space limitations, it is not possible to discuss all these topics here, and so this section
only highlights some of the main issues of inequality and environmental degradation.
China has been moving from being one of the world?s most egalitarian to one of its more
unequal societies. The Gini coefficient of income distribution for China has already exceeded
0.4
11
(Lin, Zhuang et al., 2008; Islam, 2009), and there is considerable regional disparity arising
from the country?s strategic arrangement. As discussed above, reform policies were tested and
implemented gradually and in selected places, starting from Spatial Economic Zones, then in
open coastal cities, and provinces. With the reform shifting from the rural to the urban sector,
rural–urban disparities have also increased, especially since the relative decline of TVEs and
mass migration to the cities. As noted above, the majority of the migrants are young people,
whose absence from the rural areas exacerbates the problem of rural development and
increases rural–urban disparities (Fan, 2008). The initial call to “let some people and some
regions get rich first” activated development initiatives in both rural and urban areas three
decades ago. Now it seems time to emphasize the latter part of that slogan – “to eventually
achieve common prosperity”.
11
The Gini coefficient is a measure of inequality of income or wealth. A value of 0 expresses total equality
and a value of 1 maximal inequality.
31
Black smoke from factory stacks could be seen in rural areas where TVEs prospered. Cities and
towns in China?s southern and coastal regions began to suffer serious air pollution and acid rain
in the1980s. With the increasing number of motor vehicles in larger cities, other pollutants such
as nitrous oxides, carbon monoxide and photochemical smog exacerbated air pollution (He and
Huo et al., 2002). The issue of water scarcity and water pollution is equally alarming. According
to Shalizi (2008), more than 400 of China?s 600 cities are believed to be short of water, and
about 100 of them face serious problems of water shortage. Water scarcity in cities leads to the
depletion of groundwater, causing a drop in the groundwater table. In Beijing, the water table
has dropped by 100–300 metres.
Water pollution exacerbates water scarcity in urban areas. According to Economy (2010), „More
than 75 percent of the water in rivers flowing through China?s urban areas is unsuitable for
drinking or fishing? Economy (2010: 18–19). The same source also cites the 2006 annual report
of the Ministry of Environment Protection, which analysed the drinking-water sources in 107
Chinese cities and concluded that about 28 per cent of drinking water failed to meet state water-
quality standards due to contamination by human sewage and nitrogen (Economy, 2010: 71–
72). In terms of solid waste, it is estimated that China?s annual waste production is growing at
close to 10 per cent per year (Dong, Kurt et al., 2001). China has surpassed the United States
as the world?s largest generator of municipal solid waste (Hoornweg and Lam, 2005), and urban
residents produce two to three times more waste than their rural counterparts (Wang, 2009).
China?s central authority is well aware of these issues and forges ahead in its resolution to go
green. The recently issued 12
th
Five-Year Plan reflects China?s effort to combat the
environmental degradation generated by decades of rapid economic growth, and echoes the
calls from academia to this intent (Yeh et al., 2006; Ma, 2007; Economy, 2010). The Plan sets
out a strategy and launches a campaign to „propel green development and to construct a
resource-conserving and environmentally-friendly society?. Six aspects are identified for action
under this strategy. These are: active response to global climate changes; strengthen resource
conservation and management; promote circular economy; intensify environmental protection;
further promote environmental protection; promote ecological protection and restoration; and
strengthen water management system as well as the construction of disaster prevention and
alleviation systems. Additional specific green goals have been announced, including:
energy –16 per cent cut in energy intensity (energy consumed per unit of GDP)
pollution – 17 per cent cut in carbon intensity (carbon emission per unit of GDP)
Land – 30 per cent decrease in built-up-area intensity (built-up area used per unit of
GDP)
resource use – 15 per cent increase in resource-use rate
circular economy – industrial solid-waste comprehensive reuse rate to reach 72 per cent
(People?s Government of PRC, 2011).
6. Concluding remarks
China?s urbanization in the post-reform period since 1978 is especially notable for two features.
First, it had a remarkable impact on the national policy framework, particularly as concerns the
hukou system, household responsibility, land reform, tax-sharing, and housing reform. The state,
both central and local, continues to have an important role in determining the pace of
urbanization and shaping urban and regional growth patterns. China is probably one of the few
countries in the world with such an influential national urban policy. The second feature
concerns the relation between urbanization and the market. Marketization is rapidly taking place
32
in urban China in the post-reform era. This began with the marketization of labour, with migrants
being attracted from the countryside into cities to provide a cheap urban workforce. It developed
into the privatization of productive resources, including the conversion of state-owned
enterprises into shareholding corporations. Finally, it has evolved to include the commodification
of the built environment, through the establishment of a leasehold land system and commodity
housing markets (Wu, Xu and Yeh, 2007).
Three distinctive stages of urbanization have been identified in post-reform China: urbanization
driven by rural industrialization (1978 to 1987), urbanization driven by land reform (1988 to
2000), and urbanization driven by the service industry (2001 to present). These three stages are
strongly influenced by policies on enterprises, land and housing reform and more recently by
market forces, especially rising per capita income as a result of economic development. The
different stages have been identified in this paper to help understand the main factors affecting
the processes of urbanization and urban development. This does not mean that factors affecting
one stage will not affect the development of another. For example, factors affecting rural
urbanization in the 1980s and land-driven urbanization in the 1990s are still influential in urban
development in the stage of service-industry development, which has become just one of the
additional factors affecting urban development. Further, due to the vast land area and great
regional disparity of China, the three urbanization stages also vary between different regions.
For example, service-industry-driven urbanization has mainly occurred in the coastal eastern
regions. Some areas of the central and western regions are undergoing rural urbanization and
land-driven urbanization stages to different degrees.
Rapid urban growth challenges urban planning, even in the context of China?s unique system.
Regulations and laws have been issued and amended in response to the growing need for
coordination and control of urban growth. However, there remain alarming issues such as the
loss of agricultural land and related issues of environmental degradation. The anticipated large
increase in rural migrants to cities, plus increasing car ownership and housing prices as a result
of rising per capita income, will be growing challenges for city governments in China. The
central point that must be recognized, however, is that urbanization has been essential to
China?s economic miracle, and needs to be improved but not inhibited. As indicated by Wu, Xu
and Yeh (2007), China?s post-reform economic regime has to rely on cities as strategic sites for
both capital accumulation and regulation. Urbanization is one of the major central strategies
proposed to overcome the constraints of economic growth. The level of urbanization will
continue to rise during the period of the 12
th
Five-Year Plan (2011–2015), but the focus will shift
to improve the quality of the process in order to solve such problems as the unbalanced
development between urban and rural areas, widening income gaps, urban sprawl, and
insufficient services for migrant workers. It is this combination of enormous challenges and new
urban dynamics that demands further research and observation.
33
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doc_507800044.pdf
Anthony G.O. Yeh: Centre of Urban Studies and Urban Planning, the University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong SAR.
China’s post-reform urbanization: retrospect, policies and
trends
Anthony G.O. Yeh, Jiang Xu, and Kaizhi Liu
May 2011
Human Settlements Group, IIED
Population and Development Branch, UNFPA
Urbanization and Emerging Population Issues - 5
ii
Author’s contact:
Anthony G.O. Yeh: Centre of Urban Studies and Urban Planning,
the University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong SAR.
Email: [email protected]
Jiang Xu: Department of Geography and Resource Management,
the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong SAR.
Email: [email protected]
Kaizhi Liu: Centre of Urban Studies and Urban Planning,
the University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong SAR.
Email: [email protected]
© IIED and UNFPA 2011
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Funding for this work was provided by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). The
opinions expressed in this paper are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the
IIED or the UNFPA.
iii
CONTENTS
1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 1
2 Urban growth in China: definitions and measurement ........................................................ 2
3 Stages of Chinese urbanization ......................................................................................... 4
3.1 An overview of post-reform urbanization ..................................................................... 4
3.2 Rural urbanization driven by industrialization (1978 to 1987) ....................................... 9
3.3 Urbanization driven by land reform (1988 to 2000) .................................................... 12
3.4 Urbanization driven by the service industry (2001 to present) ................................... 20
4 Urban planning policies .................................................................................................... 22
4.1 Urban planning regulations ........................................................................................ 22
4.2 Problems of planning coordination ............................................................................ 25
5 Trends and issues of concern .......................................................................................... 28
5.1 Urban expansion and farmland loss .......................................................................... 28
5.2 Rural-to-urban migration ........................................................................................... 29
5.3 Social and environmental justice ............................................................................... 30
6. Concluding remarks ........................................................................................................ 31
References ......................................................................................................................... 33
Recent Publications by IIED?s Human Settlements Group .................................................. 40
LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES
Table 1: Definitions of urban population and urban area adopted in various Censuses ......... 3
Table 2: Urban population and urbanization level, 1979–2008 .............................................. 4
Table 3: Number of cities of different population sizes, 1978 and 2007/8 (millions) ............... 8
Table 4: Premier industries in the outline of the reform and development of the Pearl River
Delta ................................................................................................................................... 22
Table 5: Areas of cultivated land under reform in selected coastal areas, 1979–1997
(thousand hectares) ............................................................................................................ 28
Figure 1: China?s urbanization level and the stages of urbanization ...................................... 6
Figure 2: Urbanization level and urban population, 1979–2008 ............................................. 6
Figure 3: Urbanization level by province, 2008 ...................................................................... 7
Figure 4: Number of cities and urban built-up area, 1981–2008 ............................................ 8
Figure 5: Number of employees of TVEs, 1980–2000 ......................................................... 10
Figure 6: Number of towns and townships, 1984–2007 ....................................................... 11
Figure 7: The process of rural industrialization .................................................................... 12
Figure 8: Urban land-use tax, 1991–2000 ........................................................................... 14
Figure 9: Employment and investment in the real-estate sector, 1989–2008 ....................... 15
Figure 10: Urbanization and urban development driven by land reform ............................... 16
Figure 11: Cities and zones opened to foreign investment in the 1980s .............................. 16
Figure 12: The expansion of urban built-up area, 1981–2008 ............................................. 17
Figure 13: China?s mega-city region .................................................................................... 18
Figure 14: A model of the emerging urban spatial structure of Guangzhou, China .............. 19
Figure 15: Urban economic structures by employment and GDP, 1995–2005 .................... 20
Figure 16: The growth of the main service sectors, 1978–2008 .......................................... 21
Figure 17: Types of plans and their coverage ..................................................................... 24
Figure 18: Fragmented regional planning and governance in China .................................... 27
1
1 Introduction
Throughout most of its long recorded history, China has been an agrarian society. For
thousands of years, Chinese people lived in the countryside and engaged in agriculture in a
societal context that valued self-sufficiency. Given the minimal need for the exchange of
goods within this economic structure, cities and towns were either administrative centres or
military hubs, and sometimes both, but these functions were insufficient to stimulate the
development of large prosperous cities as in many other countries. The role of cities and
towns as marketplaces never became well established under the firmly entrenched
“physiocracy” ideology that encouraged farming and restrained trade and commerce in
feudal China. When the century of foreign incursions began with the first Opium War,
Chinese cities were viewed as repositories of alien corruption and vice (Kirkby,1985). The
city lifestyle was depicted as idle and parasitic, within a strongly anti-urban ideology (Salaff,
1967; Ma, 1976; Murphey, 1976). Much later, but still reflecting this outlook, Mao promoted
several anti-urban and anti-migration policies and even sent young people from cities to
work on farms in the countryside during the 1960s in order to endure hardship and learn
about hard work.
As a result of this heritage, China was still a predominantly rural society as late as the 1970s.
Beginning with the economic reforms of the late 1970s, however, the last three decades
have witnessed an extraordinary turnaround in China?s perspective on urbanization, as well
as massive urban growth. Given changing policies and varying definitions of what constitutes
an urban area, observers have not always agreed on the exact dimensions of recent urban
growth, but all concur that it has been enormous. Given that the central government is
currently directing and supporting further urbanization, the recent pace of China?s
urbanization will undoubtedly continue. Various projections anticipate China?s “urban billion”
era. According to the latest official United Nations projections, for instance, China?s urban
population is expected to increase from 636 million to 1037 million between 2010 and 2050
(United Nations, DESA, 2010). Similarly, the McKinsey Global Institute (2009) has forecast
the expansion of China?s urban population to 926 million in 2025, reaching one billion by
2030 – an annual growth rate of nearly 20 million. Such growth rates will be consistent with
those of the past three decades. In short, the overall trend towards rapid urban growth is
very clear.
This paper provides a broad and updated overview of urban growth in China, its
determinants and its consequences. It attempts to quantify important trends in the Chinese
process of urbanization and to link these to evolving policy stances, especially economic
reform. The paper also describes how urban planning has evolved in unique directions over
time in order to accompany policy changes and how, as urbanization accelerates and the
urban economy is restructuring, new challenges have emerged. In sum, the three themes of
this paper on China?s urbanization since economic reform are retrospect, policies and trends.
The next section (Section 2) discusses the meaning of “urban population” and the level of
urbanization. In China this is a continuing challenge (Ma, 1983; Chan and Xu, 1985; Ma and
Cui, 1987; Chan and Hu, 2003; Zhou and Ma, 2003), and different measurement techniques
have led to innacuracies and discrepancies in estimating the urban population (Zhou and Ma,
2003). Section 2 thus attempts to clarify the basic concepts of “urban” and “urban
population” in China, and on this basis to establish the basic parameters of its recent
urbanization processes.
Section 3 traces China?s urban transformation since economic reform and interprets it
systematically. The past three decades of urban development indicate that the state has had
a tremendous influence on urban and regional development, including through Five-Year
Plans and other policies and guidelines. This core section of the paper thus focuses on the
2
mechanisms underlying China?s urbanization by examining the stages of urban development
since the 1978 economic reform, and looks at the changing landscape of cities and regions
within the respective stages. Section 4 highlights the policies that affect China?s recent
urbanization and urban development, giving special attention to the role of urban planning.
Section 5 discusses issues arising from post-reform urbanization, including the effects on
farmland, migration, and wider social and environmental concerns.
2 Urban growth in China: definitions and measurement
Enumerating the urban population is simple in theory: there are only two questions to
consider – how to define an “urban area”, and what proportion of the population within that
area should be counted as “urban”. Although simple in concept, this is particularly
complicated in the case of China. The country?s urban population “enigma” (Orleans and
Burnham, 1984) concerns the definition of these two elements, and is further complicated by
the national system of household registration.
First, the geographical definition of an urban area relates to the actual spatial coverage of
the built environment that has certain “urban” characteristics, such as urban infrastructure or
residential blocks. This physical reality of a city often does not coincide with its administrative
boundaries. Therefore, in order to enumerate the urban population accurately, it is common
practice to adopt a statistical demarcation of urban areas, such as the Metropolitan
Statistical Area (MSA) and Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area (SMSA) adopted by the
US Census Bureau. However, before 1999, when the first set of criteria for counting urban
populations was established in China, the administrative boundaries of cities and towns were
used for urban population statistics. In addition to the lack of coincidence between actual
urban areas and the administratively bounded areas, administrative boundaries of cities and
towns have frequently changed, often due to expansion. For these reasons, there has been
considerable inaccuracy in measuring the urban population.
The second concern is the proportion of the population within the defined urban areas that
should be counted as urban population. The normal practice is to count those people who
stay for a minimum period, such as six months in the year before the Census. The situation
in China is complicated by the application of the household registration or hukou status as
the criterion for enumerating urban population for some Census years.
The hukou system was introduced in the early 1950s, originally for population registration
and later also for migration control. But there are actually two classifications of hukou: hukou
type and residential location. Both were adopted as categories for the enumeration of urban
population in China?s Census in a rather inconsistent manner. Based on the hukou type, the
country?s population was divided into two groups: agricultural (nongye) hukou population and
non-agricultural (fei nongye) hukou population. The key differentiation was the source of a
person?s grain supply, rather than economic occupation (Zhang and Zhao, 1998). Holders of
a non-agricultural hukou received grain and other goods and services allocated by the state.
Those holding an agricultural hukou were assumed by the state to practice farming and so
received no allocated goods or services. In the pre-reform period, the categorization of
hukou type was an effective way of controlling the movement of population into cities. As
most goods and services were controlled by the state, people could not live in the cities
without state-provided resources. The other classification of hukou is based on residential
location. Individuals register their hukou to an administrative unit (normally their place of
origin) – for example, a Beijing hukou. A hukou in each location can be either agricultural or
non-agricultural.
3
Table 1 indicates the many complex changes in the definition of urban area and urban
population that have been adopted in different Censuses. To complicate matters further, the
administrative boundaries have varied as the criteria defining “city” and “town” changed. In
general, the main criteria for establishing a city are the settlement?s administrative status,
economic functions, size of population and the percentage of non-agricultural hukou
population. The State Council can amend these criteria to change a settlement?s status. For
example, in 1963, strict criteria
1
were adopted to restrict the number of localities defined as
cities and towns due to concern about the rapid growth of the urban population and the
possible lack of agricultural capacity to sustain it. The criteria for establishing towns and
cities were revised in 1984 and 1986 respectively. The latter?s criteria for town establishment
remain valid now, while those for cities were again revised by the State Council in 1993.
2
Such changing criteria greatly inflated the statistics on urban population, when the
administrative boundary was used in counting it.
Table 1: Definitions of urban population and urban area adopted in various Censuses
The proportion of population counted as urban
Total
population
Non-
agricultural
hukou
population
Urban
residence
(one year)
Urban
residence
(half a year)
U
r
b
a
n
a
r
e
a
Administrative
Boundary (I)
Census 1953
(1
st
)
Census 1964
(2
nd
)
Administrative
Boundary (II)
Census 1982
(3
rd
)
Census 1990
(I) (4
th
)
Administrative
Boundary (III)
Census 1990
(II) (4
th
)
Statistical
Criteria (I)
Census 2000
(5
th
)
Statistical
Criteria (II)
Census 2010
(6
th
) (ongoing)
Notes: 1) China has had five Censuses since 1949, conducted in 1953, 1964, 1982, 1990 and 2000; 2)
Administrative Boundary (I) refers to the administrative boundaries of the cities and towns;
Administrative Boundary (II) refers to the administrative boundaries of the cities and towns excluding
the counties under the jurisdiction of cities; and Administrative Boundary (III) reflects more basic
administrative units in cities and towns, the districts and street offices;
3
3) Statistical Criteria (I) refers
to the document issued in 1999 by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Provisions on Statistical
Division of the Urban and Rural Area (on Trial); Statistical Criteria (II) refers to the document issued in
2008 by NBS, Statistical Division of the Urban and Rural Area; 4) “Urban residence (one year)” refers
to people who had been living in the urban area for more than one year by the Census date.
With the evolution of the definition from an administrative boundary to a statistical area for an
urban area, and from total population to hukou category to urban residence on a half-year
basis, the statistics on China?s urban population are becoming increasingly realistic (Chan
and Hu, 2003; Zhou and Ma, 2005). Table 2 shows the estimated urban population and level
of urbanization by year in post-reform China, according to official sources.
1
According to the regulation, a minimum requirement of setting up a town is either a cluster of 3000
people having a non-agricultural population of more than 70 per cent, or a cluster of 2500 people with
a non-agricultural population of more than 85 per cent. Compared with the previous requirement (a
clustered population of 2000 with non-agricultural population over 50 per cent), the new regulation
conveyed a signal of anti-urbanism.
2
For the detailed evolution of town and city establishment criteria, see Zhang and Zhao (1998).
3
For detailed discussion on the variations of these criteria, see Kirkby (1985), Ma and Cui (1987) and
Zhou and Ma (2003).
4
Table 2: Urban population and urbanization level, 1979–2008
Year
Urban
population
(million)
Urbanization
level (%)
Year
Urban
population
(million)
Urbanization
level (%)
1979 184.95 19.0 1994 343.01 28.6
1980 191.40 19.4 1995 351.74 29.0
1981 201.71 20.2 1996 373.04 30.5
1982 214.80 21.1 1997 394.49 31.9
1983 222.74 21.6 1998 416.08 33.4
1984 240.17 23.0 1999 437.48 34.8
1985 250.94 23.7 2000 459.06 36.2
1986 263.66 24.5 2001 486.04 37.7
1987 276.74 25.3 2002 502.12 39.1
1988 286.61 25.8 2003 523.76 40.5
1989 295.40 26.2 2004 542.83 41.8
1990 301.91 26.4 2005 562.12 43.0
1991 305.43 26.4 2006 577.06 43.9
1992 323.72 27.6 2007 593.79 44.9
1993 333.51 28.1 2008 606.67 45.7
Notes: 1) data before 1982 refer to the non-agricultural population; data from 1982 to 1989 are
adjusted based on the 1990 Census; data from 1990 to 2000 are adjusted based on the 2000
Census; data from 2001 to 2004, and 2006 to 2008 are adjusted based on the annual population
survey;
4
data from 2005 are adjusted based on 1 per cent sampling in 2005;
5
2) Census data are for 1
November while data in this table use 31 December; for example, according to Census 2000, the
urbanization level is 36.1 (1 November 2000) while in this table the urbanization level is 36.2 (31
December 2000).
Source: China Population and Employment Statistical Yearbook 2009.
3 Stages of Chinese urbanization
3.1 An overview of post-reform urbanization
This section offers an overall picture of the country?s urbanization trajectory in order to set
the stage for a closer examination of three clearly differentiated recent stages in this process.
The main point to be retained is that the pace of urbanization has been much faster in the
post-reform period than before 1978. According to the first Census of the People?s Republic
of China (PRC) in 1953, there were only 77.3 million urban residents, accounting for 13.3 per
cent of the total population (NBS, 1954). The three decades from 1949 to 1978 witnessed an
increase of only 4.6 per cent in the level of urbanization, signifying an average annual
increase of 3.8 million urban people and an overall increase of 114 million in the urban
population. Most of this modest increase in urban population occurred in the first decade
after 1949, when China embarked on its First Five-Year Plan, involving the launch of
4
The annual population survey, held for 20 years since 1983, is a major source of annual population
data at both national and provincial levels.
5
The Census discussed above is carried out every ten years. Given the rapid change of population
data, the National Bureau of Statistics holds a “1 per cent” sampling survey between Censuses,
usually in the middle year between two Census years.
5
industrial and military modernization projects.
6
Shortly after this planning period, however,
political movements toppled production and construction, slowing down the development of
the whole country, including the cities.
It was not until the economic reform of 1978 that China?s urbanization started to take off and,
since then, the two processes have fed off each other. With the introduction of market
mechanisms in the 1978 reform, growth factors such as labour, land, capital and
technologies (including vernacular techniques) could be mobilized for increased economic
accumulation. The three decades after 1978 (1979–2008) thus saw an increase of 26.7 per
cent (from 19.0 to 45.7 per cent). The urban population increased from 185 million to 607
million, an average annual increase of 14.1 million, nearly four times the rate of the pre-
reform era. As will be shown below, the last three decades have also seen an increase in the
number of cities, in average city size, in the number of large cities and in the urban built-up
area.
During this period, cities have played a central role in the country?s social and economic
development. In 2001, urbanization (chengzhenhua in Chinese) was, for the first time,
written into the 10th Five-Year Plan (2001–2005) as an explicit development strategy. In
2001, cities and towns accounted for half of the national industrial output, 70 per cent of
GDP, and 80 per cent of all national tax revenue. Some 90 per cent of higher education and
scientific research resources were located in cities and towns (People?s Government of
PRC, 2001a).
As noted in the Outline of the 10th Five-Year Plan:
“...enhancing the level of urbanization and shifting rural population benefits an
increase in peasants? income, enlarges the consumer market, optimizes the
rural/urban economic structure… with the advance of productivity in the agricultural
sector and acceleration of industrialization, the time is ripe for the promotion of
urbanization and we should not miss such a chance to implement the strategy of
urbanization.”
(People?s Government of PRC, 2001a, translated by authors)
Urbanization was viewed as a stimulus for economic growth and a solution for rural–urban
disparities. The significance of urbanization was reiterated in the 11th Five-Year Plan (2006–
2010). The resolution to promote further urbanization was confirmed, with emphasis on a
healthier development trajectory:
“...adhere to the coordination of the development of large, medium and small size
cities and towns; enhance the carrying capacity of cities and towns; promote
urbanization actively and steadily to transform the dual rural/urban structure under
the principles of step by step, saving land, intensive development and rational
distribution.”
(People?s Government of PRC, 2006, translated by authors)
According to a model derived from other advanced industrial countries, China?s urbanization
process is now in the accelerating stage
7
(Figure 1) (Pannell, 2002). Figure 2 indicates that
this accelerating trend also applies to both China?s urbanization level and its urban
population growth.
6
PRC launched its 1st Five-Year Plan (1953–1957) to advance industrialization and modernization
with 156 major construction projects under the supervision of the Soviet Union.
7
Renowned American Geographer, Ray M. Northam examined the urbanization process in European
and American cities, and generalized that urbanization goes through three phases: initial, accelerating
and stable. The process enters the accelerating phase when the urbanization level reaches 30 per
cent. Other advanced industrial countries, including Japan, have followed similar patterns.
6
Figure 1: China’s urbanization level and the stages of urbanization
Note: x—x shows China?s urbanization level in respective years.
Source: Pannell, 2002: 1571.
Figure 2: Urbanization level and urban population, 1979–2008
Source: China Statistical Yearbook 2009.
Within these overall national trends, urbanization patterns vary considerably across the
country, with the eastern region showing the highest level of urbanization, followed by the
central and western regions. In 2008, 56.2 per cent of the population in the eastern region
was urban, while the figures for the central and western regions were 43.0 per cent and 38.3
per cent respectively. There are also variations between provinces (Figure 3). The four
7
independent municipalities of Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin and Chongqing are all highly
urbanized, especially the first three, which have over 75 per cent urbanization levels.
Provinces with over 50 per cent urban population are concentrated mostly in coastal areas
and the northeast, such as Heilongjiang, Liaoning, Jilin and Inner Mongolia, which used to
have a heavy-industrial base. There is also a close relationship between urbanization level
and per capita GDP of provinces.
8
Figure 3: Urbanization level by province, 2008
Source: China Statistical Yearbook 2009.
Rapid urban population growth has led to an increase in the number of urban settlements
and to the expansion of urban built-up areas. Thus, the number of cities in China grew from
193 in 1978 to 655 in 2008: The most marked increase began in the early 1980s and
reached a peak in the mid-1990s (Figure 4). The greatest growth took place in small and
medium-sized cities. Such growth is largely due to the urban development strategy that
prevailed throughout the 1980s, intending to control the size of large cities, rationally develop
the medium-sized cities and actively develop small cities. Nevertheless, the number of cities
with more than 1 million people grew from 13 to 58 and their population increased from 29.9
to 148.3 million – an increase larger than the sum of the other city-size groups? increase
(Table 3).
8
The correlation coefficient between urbanization level and per capita GDP for the 31 provinces is
0.93 (correlation significant at the 0.01 level).
8
Figure 4: Number of cities and urban built-up area, 1981–2008
Source: China Urban Construction Statistical Yearbook 2008.
Table 3: Number of cities of different population sizes, 1978 and 2007/8 (millions)
City size
1978
2007
Number of
additional
cities from
1978 to
2008
Population
increase
from 1978
to 2008
Number Population Number Population Number Population
Over 1
million
13 29.9 58 148.3 31 118.4
0.5–1
million
27 19.9 82 56.0 83 36.1
0.2–0.5
million
60 18.7 232 74.1 71 55.4
Under 0.2
million
93 11.3 283 37.6 215 26.3
Total 193 79.8 655 316.0
462 236.2
Source: China Urban Development Report 2008.
There has also been a trend towards rapid expansion of the urban areas (see Figure 4).
From 1981 to 1999, the annual expansion of urban built-up areas was around 800 square
kilometres. Since 1999, the growth rate almost doubled to around 1700 square kilometres
per annum. The urban built-up area has grown much faster than the urban population. From
1981 to 2008, the annual growth rate of urban population was 4 per cent whereas the
9
corresponding figure for urban built-up area was 6 per cent. Altogether, the urban built-up
area grew dramatically from 7438 to 36,295 square kilometres, a fivefold expansion.
In summary, the four key characteristics of urbanization in post-reform China are:
1. A rapid growth of the urban population, with an increase of 421.7 million people,
resulting in an increase of the country?s urbanization level from 19 per cent to 45.7
per cent. This rapid growth is continuing, and anticipated to become even faster.
2. Variations in urbanization levels by region, with the wealthier eastern region having a
higher level, followed by the central and western regions. Variations are also
observed at the provincial echelon, with richer provinces being more urbanized.
3. A rapid growth in the number of urban settlements, with the numbers of small and
medium-sized cities growing faster than those of large and extra-large cities.
However, in absolute terms, urban population growth was concentrated in the largest
cities.
4. A rapid expansion of urban area, resulting in a total urban area in 2008 that was five
times that of 1981. Moreover, the expansion of the urban built-up area has been
accelerating since the beginning of 2000.
The following sub-sections discuss the role of government policy in the acceleration of urban
growth processes in the post-reform period. China?s post-reform urbanization can be divided
into three main stages, according to the forces that affected it. These are: rural urbanization
driven by industrialization (1978–1987); urbanization driven by land reform (1988–2000); and
urbanization driven by the service industry (2001–). Each of these three stages of post-
reform urbanization had different impacts on the pace and form of urban development, and
will now be considered in turn.
3.2 Rural urbanization driven by industrialization (1978 to 1987)
Before the development of national economic reform policies, 18 farmers in Xiaogang village
(in eastern Anhui Province) inadvertently ignited China?s rural reform. They signed a secret
agreement to divide communally owned farmland into individual plots. This ended up
triggering the collapse of the People?s Commune System (PCS) and the establishment of the
Household Responsibility System (HRS). The HRS allowed individual households to take full
charge of production on their allocated land plots. Essentially, households were allowed to
retain grain surpluses instead of turning in the entire farm product to the collectives under
the PCS (Yang, 1996). Peasants? initiatives galvanized rural productivity and generated a
huge surplus of farm labourers that had been disguised under the PCS. According to an
estimate by Taylor and Banister, the number of surplus rural workers exceeded 100 million
each year between 1982 and 1987, accounting for 33.5 to 42.5 per cent of the entire rural
labour force (Ma and Lin, 1993).
Growing perception that the firmly entrenched hukou system fettered the mobility of labour
led to a proposal for reform aimed at releasing the pressure from surplus rural labour. In the
early 1980s, holders of an agricultural hukou were allowed to migrate to nearby market
towns and other small towns, as long as they could provide for their own livelihood (Chan,
2009). This loosened the main constraint on migration. Subsequent industrialization in these
towns absorbed the labour surplus released from the countryside.
The process of rural industrialization was realized through the promotion of township and
village enterprises (TVEs). TVEs were set up in rural areas where the administrative levels
are township and village. Driving forces for the growth of TVEs included: the initiative of the
local government for promoting tax revenue; the central government?s aspiration to
modernize national agriculture; the absorption of surplus labour; the alleviation of rural
poverty by improving the living standards of the peasants; and the desire of those without
adequate agricultural work to seek new opportunities for moving out of poverty and
10
underemployment in the countryside (Liang, 2006). Additional elements facilitated rural
industrialization, such as the existence of traditional craft activities, or favourable locations
for foreign capital investment (Friedmann, 2004).
Figure 5: Number of employees of TVEs, 1980–2000
Source: China Statistical Yearbook 2009.
The number of people employed in TVEs grew rapidly from the early 1980s until the mid-
1990s (Figure 5), with over 100 million employees joining TVEs during that period. In
comparison to the stagnant or even retrograde situation in state- and collectively owned
enterprises during the same period, TVEs contributed significantly to employment creation.
The TVE sector thus became one of the main pillars of China?s economy. In 1990, rural
industries accounted for a quarter of China?s total GNP and 60 per cent of its rural
production. Ninety million people were registered as rural-industry employees, and the actual
number may have been much higher. Rural industries employed 87 per cent as many people
as state sectors, although three years later, in 1993, these two sectors provided equal
numbers of jobs (White, 1998).
The development of rural industries enabled millions of former farmers to continue living
close to their home villages. There was a saying that reflected the condition of these farmers
working in rural industries: „leave the farm but not the village; enter the factory but not the
city?. Despite their non-agricultural jobs, these workers maintained ties with farming and
could provide support in the busiest farming seasons (normally sowing and harvesting),
when mass farm labour was needed for short periods. In addition, the partially reformed
hukou system continued to put restrictions on migration, and was another reason for people
working in the towns close to their villages (Goldstein, 1990; Chan, 1994; Shen, 1995; Chan
and Zhang, 1999; Solinger, 1999).
The influx of rural workers (although most of them were temporary migrants) began giving an
urban character to some rural areas through the development of rural industries (Friedmann,
2004). This process was later described by Zhu (2000) as in situ urbanization. Friedmann
(2004) evaluated such urbanization in five dimensions: administrative, economic, physical,
socio-cultural and political.
Administratively, the rapid increase in the number of towns in the early 1980s and the
momentum maintained in the 1990s resulted in most towns being upgraded from
townships (xiang in Chinese) (State Council, 1984) (Figure 6).
11
Economically, the trend was for people to retreat from underemployment in the
primary sector, by leaving farmland to engage in the secondary (manufacturing
industry, construction), and tertiary sectors (trades and services).
Physically, the villages and townships acquired an “urban look” as streets were
paved, public spaces were beautified and multi-storey buildings appeared.
Socially and culturally, everyday life was transformed, with large numbers of
newcomers working in local factories, and the simple peasant life giving way to new
and more complex livelihoods.
Politically, there emerged a strong linkage between local officials and business
elites – the local corporatism referred to by Jean Oi (Friedmann, 2004).
Figure 6: Number of towns and townships, 1984–2007
Source: China Civil Affairs Statistical Yearbook 2008.
Ma and Lin (1993) and Ma and Fan (1994) described the urbanization brought on by rural
industrialization as “urbanization from below” after investigating the development of towns in
the Pearl River Delta in Southern China and Jiangsu Province in Eastern China. They
argued that the central government had not played an active role in the growth of towns.
Rather, local endowments – such as geographical location, resources, history and business
culture – and linkage with foreign capitals had played key roles. Such varied local
endowments led to the emergence of different models of rural–urban development. For
example, the Southern Jiangsu Model features a prominent role for collectives in organizing
and facilitating local industrial development (Ma and Fan, 1994; Wei, 2002). The Wenzhou
Model was famous for its dynamic private sector (Liu, 1992; Parris 1993; Ye and Wei, 2005),
and the Pearl River Delta Model emphasized the advantages of overseas capital (Ma and
Lin, 1993; Eng, 1997; Sit and Yang, 1997). Such sporadic industrial development in rural
areas generated “multi-centric” urban spatial forms and the rampant growth of peri-urban
areas around medium-sized and large cities (Friedmann, 2004: 36). This helped to slow
down mass migration to big cities, and avoided the pattern common to many other
developing countries where rural migrants settled in shantytowns in large cities, having very
limited formal employment opportunities.
12
The pace of rural industrialization began to slow in the mid-1990s. This was mostly due to
competition from the enterprises in cities, limited technological and human resources,
vanishing tax and loans incentives, and other drawbacks to rural enterprise management
(Yao, 2002; Kung and Lin, 2007). The situation worsened after China?s accession to the
World Trade Organization in 2001, bringing competition from large-scale and better-
managed foreign firms. Employment in the TVEs dropped by 17 million in 1998 (Solinger,
2003) and then remained stagnant. The following decade saw a total growth of only 15.8
million people working in TVEs, less than the annual growth in the 1980s. Facing such
intensive competition, mostly from privatization, TVEs have been experiencing a process of
transformation (Chang, McCall et al. 2003; Shen and Ma, 2005). However, TVEs have
undoubtedly contributed significantly to China?s rural transformation and urbanization. As
noted by Friedmann (2004), China is the only country (with the possible exception of
communist Vietnam) in which rural industrialization has shaped new urban configurations,
and the only country in which rural industrialization has been truly transformative. It helped to
save Chinese cities from the severe problems widely experienced in developing countries
elsewhere.
Figure 7 summarizes the processes of rural industrialization. Initially, rural reform generated
surplus rural labour and supplied sufficient farm produce to sustain non-agricultural activities
in towns and cities. Further, changes in the hukou system facilitated rural migration to small
towns. Then, local initiatives together with local endowments (such as the entrepreneurship
of local leaders and technical knowledge) and foreign capital, all helped rural industries to
flourish. The sector not only absorbed surplus labour but also contributed to the country?s
economy significantly throughout the 1980s. Moreover, the growth of rural industries spurred
the development of small towns and cities and made those previously rural settlements
increasingly urban. The urbanization process in this stage can thus be summarized as an
endogenous and spontaneous growth of rural industries in small towns, leading to the
urbanization of the countryside.
Figure 7: The process of rural industrialization
3.3 Urbanization driven by land reform (1988 to 2000)
Land and housing reforms
The success of rural reform since the late 1970s encouraged the central government to
promote further reforms in the urban sector through a series of policies that have been
Rural Reform
Surplus labour
Abundant product
Land and resources
…
TVEs
Local initiatives
Entrepreneurship
Technical knowhow
Other local
endowment
Rural
Industrialization
and Urbanization of
Countryside
Hukou
Reform
13
adopted since 1984. In line with the country?s transformation from a planned economy
towards a market economy, cities were directed towards commercialization and privatization.
Private property and other institutional arrangements, such as devolution of power, are
essential in the process of marketization. The globalizing world, specifically in the forms of
foreign trade and foreign capital, also fuelled the transformation. The key factor triggering
these processes was land reform, which led to the commodification of the built environment.
Since the economic reform, labour had been commoditized through certain migration rights,
and attracted to towns and cities. Favourable policies facilitated foreign capital investment in
selected regions and industries. Thus, of the three factors of production – labour, capital and
land – it was only land that remained intact in the state?s domain.
In the classic Marxist view, land was not considered a main factor of production, having no
value without the addition of labour. Therein, an increase of land value was perceived as an
indirect exploitation of labour engaged in production. Avoiding the exploitation of labour thus
required elimination of the private ownership of land, regarded as a means of exploitation,
and the reduction of the land costs to zero (Zhang, 1997). Therefore, in the pre-reform era,
there was virtually no privately owned land. Land in China was either state-owned or
collectively owned, and land transactions were banned.
9
The state allocated land to users
without any charges. Since the users at that time were publicly owned enterprises or
agencies, the free land-allocation system was not challenged. Following economic reform
and the introduction of privately owned enterprises, including foreign enterprises and joint
ventures, the free allocation of land was no longer appropriate (Yeh and Wu, 1996a; Zhang,
1997). Besides, it was perceived that the system of free land use resulted in serious
economic inefficiency, contributing to the demand for reform of the land allocation system
(Bertaud and Renaud, 1992; Xie, Parsa et al., 2002; Ding, 2003).
In a prelude to official land reform, several coastal cities with concerns about land use for
foreign investors began to experiment with the paid use of urban land. Shenzhen, one of the
Special Economic Zones established in the early 1980s, was the first to levy an annual land-
use fee to overseas investors (Yeh, 1985). A national experiment in charging land-use fees
was then introduced in 1984 (Xie, Parsa et al., 2002). Such trials confirmed the irrational and
inefficient land use under the previous system, and triggered the establishment of the State
Land Administration Bureau and the enactment of Land Administration Law in 1986. The
Bureau was “responsible for, and in charge of land policy reform, land allocation and
acquisition, monitoring of land development, comprehensive land-use plans, and
implementation of land laws” (Ding, 2003: 112). The law shifted power in land management
from various ministries and other units to the local government (Wu, Xu and Yeh, 2007).
Both the establishment of the bureau and the enactment of the law set the stage for land
reform.
The paid transfer of land-use rights was made official in the First Section of the Seventh
People?s Congress in 1988, and included in the constitution through a clause stating “the
right to the use of land may be transferred in accordance with law”. This marked the end of
free land use and opened a new era of lawful transactions of urban land (Dowall, 1993; Yeh
and Wu, 1996a). There were three key features of China?s urban land-use reform
(Zhang,1997):
1. land taxation, requiring all urban land users, including both work units and individuals,
to pay a land-use tax;
2. the separation of land-use rights from ownership, so that the state retains ownership
of the land and only the use-right is leased;
3. a dual-track land system, in which the administrative land allocation of the pre-reform
era and the newly established land-leasing system co-exist.
9
According to Clause 4, Article 10 of the 1982 Constitution: “no organization or individual may
appropriate, buy, sell, or lease land, or unlawfully transfer it in other ways”.
14
Through these arrangements, land-use efficiency has improved and government revenues
increased. Local authorities and agencies were highlighted as the main actors in
implementation of the land reforms, supported by reform in the fiscal system.
The introduction of the central–local contract system in 1985 (Zhang, 1999) and the tax-
sharing system in 1994 (Chen, 2004) provided incentives for local governments to address
land issues effectively. The objectives of the reform were to promote local productivity,
increase local initiatives in expanding revenue and cutting expenditure, and develop the
national economy. Local governments were permitted to retain certain revenues, the so-
called “extra-budgetary revenue”, for local disposal. Land revenue was included in the
category of extra-budgetary revenue. Together with the disposal rights of land granted by
Land Administrative Law, the role of local government started to change, gaining autonomy
and initiative (Oi,1995). Walder (1995) referred to local governments as “industrial firms” and
Duckett (1996) and Friedmann (2004) described them as entrepreneurial states (or cities).
Land was the essential instrument in developing the local state. According to Ho and Lin
(2001), land-related revenues accounted for 30–70 per cent of the total revenue of local
governments in the 1990s. Ding (2003) came up with a more conservative estimate of 25–50
per cent. Figure 8 shows the rapid growth of urban land-use tax. The trend increased rapidly,
especially since the tax-sharing system of 1994. With the introduction of housing reform, the
significance of land was emphasized once again.
Figure 8: Urban land-use tax, 1991–2000
Source: China Statistical Yearbook 2009.
The gradual reform of the housing sector started in the late 1980s when the state faced a
severe housing shortage and an insufficient budget to construct more housing stock (Wu,
1996; Zhou and Logan, 1996). With the announcement of gradual reform (State Council,
1988), the work-units started to sell existing housing stock, which triggered the process of
housing commercialization. Later, state employees were subsidized by their work-units to
buy newly developed housing. It was not until 1998 that the allocation of housing based on
the state work-units was abolished. The objective of housing reform was to develop
commodity housing to boost domestic demand and thus to stimulate economic growth. The
direct housing distribution by work-unit employers came to an end while a multiple supply
15
system was established, including state-supported affordable or low-cost commercial
housing, and high-standard commodity housing. The housing finance system was created to
facilitate the process of commodification (Wang, 2001; Wu, 2001).
Housing reform led to a booming real-estate market and stimulated the urban economy
(Figure 9). The decade from 1999 to 2008 witnessed a more than seven-fold growth of real-
estate investment, from 410.32 billion to 3120.32 billion, and an increase of more than
double the amount of employment from 880 thousand to 2.1 million. Land and housing
reforms are manifestations of commercialization, decentralization, privatization and
globalization in the post-reform era. The role of local states has been transformed under
these processes, as have urbanization and urban development.
Figure 9: Employment and investment in the real-estate sector, 1989–2008
Source: China Statistical Yearbook 2009.
Urbanization and urban development
The policies and processes summarized in Figure 10 significantly changed the regional and
urban landscapes, especially through the development of the land and housing market and
the rapid expansion of urban land and construction. Regionally, with the gradual
implementation of reform policies, inequalities developed. With the rapid expansion of major
cities, and the appearance of small cities and towns, city-regions in China started to emerge.
At the city level, more efficient land use, and spatial differentiation of land use could be
observed.
16
Figure 10: Urbanization and urban development driven by land reform
The reform policies were tested and implemented gradually. The right to accept foreign
capital was first granted to the Special Economic Zones and then to the open coastal cities
before being introduced throughout the country. Similarly, land-use reform and housing
reform were tested in a few pilot cities, mostly the coastal cities in Southern China. Thus,
geographical disparities increased (Figure 11).
Figure 11: Cities and zones opened to foreign investment in the 1980s
Source: Phillips and Yeh, 1990: Figure 9.4.
Urban Reform
Land reform
Fiscal reform
Housing reform
…
Local Developmental State
Local initiatives
Entrepreneurial cities
Place making
…
Land Reform Driven
Urbanization and Urban
Development
Commercialization
Decentralization
Privatization
Globalization
17
Rapid urban expansion was also observed in this stage (Figure 12). There were two periods
of faster growth: the late 1980s when land reform was initiated, and the late 1990s when
housing reform began. Such rapid urban expansion transformed China?s urban and regional
spatial patterns, giving birth to the mega-city region – a cluster of contiguous cities or
metropolitan areas, administratively separate but intensively networked in various ways (Xu
and Yeh, 2010). This is regarded as a specific urban form resulting from a high level of
urbanization (Gottmann, 1961; Zhou, 1991; Scott, 2001; Hall and Pain, 2006). The country?s
most developed mega-city regions are the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta and
the Bohai Sea Rim, regions regarded as the hub areas of Chinese economic growth (Zhang
and Wu, 2006). These three regions, with less than 3 per cent of the national territory,
accounted for 14 per cent of the country?s population, generated 42 per cent of the national
GDP and attracted 79 per cent of foreign investment flowing into China in 2007 (MOHURD,
2008).
10
Figure 12: The expansion of urban built-up area, 1981–2008
Source: China Urban Construction Statistical Report 2008.
Besides these renowned regions, there are many other emerging regions, such as the
Shandong Peninsula Region, Shenyang-Dalian regions and Chengdu-Chongqing regions
(Figure 13). The role of these mega-city regions in China?s development will be significant.
Recent research and national policy targets the building of more integrated mega-city
regions to coordinate the development of cities (Yeh and Xu, 2008).
10
MOHURD is the Ministry of Housing and Urban–Rural Development of the People?s Republic of
China.
18
Figure 13: China’s mega-city region
Urban growth driven by land development also affects the intra-city spatial pattern. The
immediate impact is that land now has a value, and land value is a better reflection of
location rent. Previously inefficient use of urban land was improved as unused land from
state-owned enterprises was returned to the government. Further, low-value-added
manufacturing industries were excluded from central locations now affordable only to higher-
value-added service activities. Throughout these processes, the economic efficiency of
urban land use has been enhanced, and a new urban spatial pattern has emerged (Logan,
2007; McGee, Lin et al., 2007; Wu, 2007). Inner-city redevelopment, new areas of
construction, high-tech parks, industrial zones and central business districts are emerging to
transform the original urban spatial fabric (Ding, 2003). Most cities have changed from a
compact form to a dispersed metropolis characterized by urban redevelopment in the city
centre, suburban expansion towards new suburban sub-centres, and leapfrog urban sprawl
in the urban fringe (Figure 14) (Wu and Yeh, 1999).
19
Figure 14: A model of the emerging urban spatial structure of Guangzhou, China
Source: Wu and Yeh, 1999: 388.
Urban infrastructure improved significantly in this stage of development. The increasing
amount of money invested in providing infrastructure and other public goods was largely
derived from the land and housing economy?s provision of urban revenue (Yeh and Wu,
1996a; Ding, 2003). In 1987, according to figures from the China Statistics Bureau, cited by
Ding (2003), sales of land-use rights generated 35 million RMB in 1987 but 29,048 million
RMB in 1996, accounting for 25–50 per cent of cities? revenue. With such a rapid increase in
urban revenue, investment in urban infrastructure was greatly increased as well. Taking
Shanghai as an example, the investment in urban infrastructure was only 0.446 billion RMB
in 1978, increasing more than ten-fold to 4.722 billion in 1990, then again to 44.99 billion in
2000. Improved urban infrastructure can improve accessibility and thus open up new land for
development (Yeh, 2002; Wu, Xu and Yeh, 2007). This is widely known in China as the “land
breeding land” model of urban development. Land revenue is used to construct infrastructure
that increases accessibility and thus enhances land value. The enhanced land value derived
from infrastructure development is captured by land sales, which further contribute to the
construction of more infrastructure to increase accessibility and land revenue.
The process of land development driven by urbanization still maintains its momentum. After
all, it is one of the most convenient ways in which to generate urban revenue. However,
government land holdings are limited, and land-based revenues cannot be expected to grow
indefinitely. Thus, urban governments are keen to explore new and sustainable dynamics for
continued urban development.
20
3.4 Urbanization driven by the service industry (2001 to present)
The growth of the tertiary-sector industries in China had been constrained for decades,
especially before economic reform when services were considered unproductive and
consumptive. In the early stages of economic reform, manufacturing and other secondary
industries were still the focus of efforts aimed at boosting the country?s economy. The role of
the tertiary sector was not taken seriously until 1992, when the central government proposed
a strategy to facilitate its development. This shift was based on the awareness that the
service industry can give cities a competitive edge and impetus for new growth. Specifically,
it was hoped that it would help to diversify the employment structure, open up new
opportunities for low-threshold entrepreneurship, and generate employment. In addition, the
growth of per capita income of urban residents since the early 1990s required a dynamic
service sector. Per capita income had grown more than ten-fold in less than two decades. In
this period, the service sector consisted mainly of consumer-related services, such as
wholesale and retail trade, hotels and catering.
In urban China, the service sector grew rapidly. The contribution of the tertiary industry to
employment increased from 30 to 50 per cent from 1995 to 2000, and tertiary-generated
GDP maintained around 40 per cent of all GDP in this period. Since 2000, in terms of both
GDP and employment, the service industry has been catching up with industry (Figure 15).
However, compared with service development in other countries, the proportion of service
industry in China is still low. According to World Bank statistics, the tertiary industry
accounted for 72 per cent of national GDP in high-income economies, and 59 per cent in
middle-income economies. Moreover, the proportion of advanced producer services within
the Chinese service sector remained small.
Figure 15: Urban economic structures by employment and GDP, 1995–2005
Source: China Statistical Yearbook 2009.
21
The producer service sector has developed only recently in China since the privatization of
the public ownership enterprises. Before this, China?s enterprises, both state-owned and
collective-owned, tended to be “all in one” – providing all the services for their employees by
the enterprises themselves. Thus, there was little demand for externalizing separate
functions to outside service providers. Furthermore, human resources with high levels of
education and specialized talents were not yet ready for producer services. Only since the
10th Five-Year Plan (2001–2005) was the producer service sector, often known as the
modern service sector in China, designated to play a significant part in enhancing the global
competitiveness of the Chinese urban economy. The advanced producer service sector in
China normally refers to services for businesses, such as computer services, legal
consulting, accounting, marketing, advertising, scientific and research services. The finance
and real-estate sectors had the greatest growth momentum, although not the highest value
(Figure 16). These sectors roughly fall into the category of advanced producer services.
Figure 16: The growth of the main service sectors, 1978–2008
Source: China Statistical Yearbook 2009.
Producer services are predicted to grow in the coming decades. Premier Wen Jiabao has
emphasized the role of the service sector in the national economy. He has further pinpointed
the role of producer service industries, such as finance, logistics and information, in
supporting the growth of modern manufacturing industry and facilitating the upgrading of
economic structure (Xie, 2010). Such policy emphases have been reflected in the
development of almost all major cities. The development outlines of China?s two major city
regions endorsed recently by the National Development and Reform Committee (NDRC)
reflected the determination of both central and local governments to promote the producer
service sector. According to the Outline of the Reform and Development in Pearl River Delta
Region, this region strives to develop an advanced producer service industry, advanced
manufacturing and high-tech industry (NDRC, 2008). Key industries within the producer
service sector have been identified. Ways of promoting these industries, and goals for them,
22
have been formulated (Table 4). The overall goal of the development of the producer service
industry is to account for more that 60 per cent of service output by 2020.
Table 4: Premier industries in the outline of the reform and development
of the Pearl River Delta
Key industries Practice and objectives
Producer
service
industry
Finance
Commercial service
Guangzhou and Shenzhen as the
regional financial centre; cultivate the
headquarters economy
Exhibition
China Import and Export Fair (Canton
Fair); China High-tech Fair (Shenzhen);
China International Aviation &
Aerospace Exhibition; China
(Shenzhen) International Culture
Industry Fair
Creative industry
Incubate the creative industry cluster,
construct the software, comic and
animation base
Logistics and port services
Baiyun Airport and Bao?an Airport,
Guangzhou Port, Shenzhen Port;
world- class logistics centre; logistics
parks
Information and
communication
Southern China information and
communication centre; international e-
commerce centre
Outsourcing
Cultivate 2/3 national outsourcing
bases; form international integrated
outsourcing chain
Tourism
Demonstration region for
comprehensive tourism-industry reform
Human resources Human-resource exchange centre
Other third-party services
Research, design, marketing,
consulting and others
Source: Outline of the Reform and Development of the Pearl River Delta (NDRC, 2008).
The latest regional plan for the Yangtze River Delta region also shows the importance of the
producer service industry in urban and regional development. The region is positioned as the
“gateway to the Asian Pacific Region, the modern service and advanced manufacturing
centre of global importance and the whole region enjoys relatively high competitiveness”
(NDRC, 2010). Both the Pearl River Delta and the Yangtze River Delta are leading regions
in China?s economic development. They are expected to undertake the role of promoting
new industries, facilitating economic restructuring, guiding other regions and realizing the
overall industrial upgrading of the country?s economy.
4 Urban planning policies
4.1 Urban planning regulations
Under the centrally planned economy before 1978, urban planning was perceived as a tool
for carrying out planned socialist development and for translating the goal of economic
planning into urban space. This approach was largely abandoned after the economic reform
of 1978. The re-emergence of property rights from housing and land reforms in the late
1980s led to an increased interest in developing urban space, which in turn increased the
23
need to establish planning controls suitable for achieving economic development in a market
economy (Yeh and Wu, 1996b; 1999). The shift towards growth-oriented development,
decentralized administration, and inflows of foreign capital also meant that urban planning
faced considerable pressure from commercial and industrial interests in reducing restrictions
on land use. The consequences of this, the subsequent restructuring of interests, and their
demands for land and urban space, undermined the confidence of planners (Wu, Xu and
Yeh, 2007). The urban planning system did not seem to be ready for these shocks during the
early reform period, signalling an urgent need to improve the legal foundation of urban
planning. This led to the enactment of a series of city planning laws and regulations,
beginning in the 1980s, such as the 1984 Urban Planning Regulation, the 1989 Urban
Planning Act, and the 2008 Urban and Rural Planning Act.
Urban planning regulation and legislation, 1980s
The 1984 Urban Planning Regulation provided seminal guidelines for urban planning during
the late 1980s. Five years later, the 1989 Urban Planning Act developed a comprehensive
approach to urban planning which included defining the size, economic orientation and
structure of a city, realizing goals of economic and social development, preparing “rational”
city plans and carrying out construction to meet the needs of development (Wu, Xu and Yeh,
2007). The word “rational” reflects long-held views on the sporadic nature of market-oriented
development and a need to pursue ordered and coordinated growth. This presumes that the
development of a city in terms of its functional specialization and size can and should be
controlled in order to shape a “rational” urban system nationwide.
The 1989 Act also delegated territorial power to municipalities in important functions of urban
planning, ranging from plan-making to development control. In contrast to past practice, prior
permission was now required for all development projects. Municipal planning departments
exercised controlling power through the “one report and two permits” system (Site Selection
Recommendation Report, Land Use Planning Permit, and Building Construction Permit) and
made discretionary judgements on development proposals on the basis of considerations
formulated in development plans and other specific requirements of government (Xu and Ng,
1998).
The 1989 Act offered a blueprint approach in a two-tiered planning system: the master plan
(zongti guihua) and detailed plans (xiangxi guihua). The master plan is a long-term strategic
layout of a city, and is statutory in nature. Apart from defining broad land-use zones, the
master plan spells out a wide range of urban development strategies and land-use policies,
such as those related to transportation and open space. It usually has a 20-year planning
horizon and considers long-term development strategies. Master plans are intended to take
a general perspective, leaving details to other plans.
Land-use policies are set out in detailed plans that define the boundaries of each
construction project within the planned plot, control indices such as floor-area ratio, building
density and building height. They include general layout plans, utility engineering plans and
three-dimensional site plans. Detailed plans are further divided into two types – detailed
development control plans (DDCPs) (kongzhixing xiangxi guihua) and detailed construction
plans (DCPs) (xiujianxing xiangxi guihua). The DDCP is prepared for urban planning districts
where future development projects are uncertain, while the DCP is prepared for areas facing
immediate construction.
In effect, detailed plans fill in details left unspecified by the strategic policies of master plans,
and generally should conform to the master plan. Because all developments now require
planning permission, detailed plans provide the main basis for development control.
However, these plans are not statutory in nature. In practice, controlling development
through these plans is very difficult, if not impossible (Xu and Ng, 1998; Wu, Xu and Yeh,
24
2007). Besides, local officials, flawed enforcement, and interference from higher levels of
administration often override planning regulations. As land leasing becomes an essential
source of government income, planners are often pressured to apply less control in land
development, to encourage economic growth and urban expansion.
To achieve better planning control, new efforts have been introduced in two directions: to
expand the planning area to the regional scale, and to specify land-development intensity at
the micro (land-parcel) level (Wu, Xu and Yeh, 2007). New plans are now required to fulfil
these tasks. The city region plan (shiyu guihua) is a new type of regional plan prepared for
the city region under the jurisdiction of the municipality. The master plan of the 1989 Act
covers only the central city and sometimes only the city centre within the central city. This
means that a large part of the city region is not covered by the master plan, and there is a
need to coordinate development in the outlying counties and towns. The city region plan is
thus intended to integrate a central city along with nearby small towns and counties into one
unified plan for better coordination on important regional issues such as environmental
protection policies, infrastructure and hierarchy of urban settlements.
Complementing the city region plan, the urban system plan (chengzhen tixi guihua) is
another regional plan to rationalize “functional, hierarchical and spatial” structures of
infrastructure and urban settlement. It aspires to manipulate regional spatial development,
such as city size. However, such features are difficult to control, even under a centrally
planned system. Also, there are no concrete measures to link the planned “spatiality” with
resource allocations of national economic planning, the enforcement of development control
or any tangible socio-economic policies. The urban district plan (chengshi fenqu guihua) is
an optional plan made to improve control and define land uses, the boundary and
development intensity, and to coordinate various infrastructure, public amenities and facilities
at the district level. It is part of the master-planning stage.
At the micro level, some local authorities have begun to experiment with zoning-like
measures as a way of bringing urban growth under effective planning control, because
detailed plans do not have statutory force. One example is the statutory plan in Shenzhen.
Such plans offer a basis for planning officials to determine whether planning permission
should be granted unconditionally, or subject to certain conditions. The various types of plan
and their spatial scopes are shown in Figure 17.
Figure 17: Types of plans and their coverage
City
Local
Site-
specific
District
Regional
City Region Plan
Urban System Plan
Master Plan
City District Plan
Detailed Development Control
n
Detailed Construction Plan
Site Plan
Plans for macro purpose
Plans for managerial
purpose
Plans for Physical
Construction
25
Rural and Urban Planning Act 2008
On 28 October 2007, the National People?s Congress promulgated the new Urban and Rural
Planning Act, which came into force on 1 January 2008. The 2008 Act stresses the “rural”
element to ensure better spatial coordination of urban and rural land uses and to avoid
excessive agricultural land loss and unauthorized land development in cities, towns and
villages (Central People?s Covernment, 2007). It provides detailed stipulations to curb the
discretion of local governments and key officials in the decision-making process. It also
encourages public participation. In particular, the 2008 Act empowers DDCPs to become
statutory plans for better development control. The new Act is expected to create a
qualitative and sustainable transformation of both urban and rural landscapes.
In addition to the 2008 Act, new types of plans are emerging. One example is the “concept
plan”, which is widely practised. Unlike most other plans, the concept plan is not fixed at a
particular tier of the plan hierarchy. It can operate at all levels to set out general urban
policies on development and land use. It may also include policies and design proposals for
a specific site. Like a sketch before a painting, the concept plan explores the broad-brush
goals of a new framework for urban growth. Unlike a master plan, the concept plan does not
have a fixed content and a planning horizon. Neither does it need to be modified at
predetermined intervals. Planners can make alterations or replace the whole plan at any
time, and do not require higher-level approval. This results in more local flexibility in
organizing urban space.
Another example of a new type of plan is the regional strategic plan. The regional system in
many of China?s mega-city regions has undergone significant transformation because of
market reform, globalization and rapid urbanization. Many cities and towns that were
formerly peripheral, or connected only to rural areas, have developed into active economic
centres linked to world capital investors and consumer markets. The resultant polycentric
spatial form has combined with the rise of urban entrepreneurialism that is increasingly
becoming a key municipal strategy to enhance space-specific socio-economic assets (Xu
and Yeh, 2005). This reform-imposed transition leads to an intensified inter-city competition
for mobile capital. In response, regional strategic planning constitutes a new policy option for
mega-city regions to overcome the negative effects of political fragmentation. Some scholars
argue that such strategic plans should have been incorporated into the 2008 Act, given their
great importance (Zhang and Luo, 2008).
4.2 Problems of planning coordination
The multiple tiers of China?s planning system present many challenges. In recent years, the
hunger for capital at the municipality level has intensified inter-city competition and
encouraged place-based entrepreneurial endeavour among local governments (Xu and Yeh,
2005). Under such circumstances, planning is more than just prohibiting or constraining
externalities. It has also been used increasingly to enhance place marketing and
competitiveness. In many cities, development plans focus on projects such as the
development of airports, deep-water ports, underground railways, and convention and
exhibition centres. This is intended to address economic and social problems, and to project
new and dynamic city images globally. Hundreds of cities in China, large and small, are
competing to build “mega” projects branded by the world?s top architects and planners. City-
led comprehensive residential development has evolved into a campaign to transform the
urban structure through various economic and technological development zones, special
zones and industrial parks. In this way, cities look “modernized” with Manhattan-like skylines
looking down on multi-lane highways leading to newly emerging and expanding urban areas
(Yeh and Xu, 2009).
26
There are two outcomes of such development. On one hand, place marketing presents the
opportunity for Chinese cities to stimulate business and attract investment. On the other
hand, some aspects of the bureaucratic/entrepreneurial approach to city development can
undermine other important roles of local governments in city planning. Such an approach not
only diverts scarce public-sector resources away from the basic services upon which the
city?s disadvantaged groups depend, but also creates places which lack social meaning and
functionality. The distinctive qualities of Chinese cities have gradually disappeared. The
understanding of cities as a collection of cultural and physical layers is missing in today?s
Chinese planning (Wu, Xu and Yeh, 2007).
Another major problem is the difficulty of coordination among plans from different ministries
(Figure 18). There are many interrelated plans from different government agencies, including
socio-economic plans, urban master plans, and land-use plans. The National Development
and Reform Commission (NDRC) is the agent of socio-economic plans. These plans have
been in operation since the pre-reform period, and have recently come to contain a strong
spatial element. Socio-economic plans have the capacity to guide and constrain spatial plans
made by other ministries. Socio-economic plans clarify the overall positioning of regions and
major cities, provide blueprints for priority development areas, and give solutions to
problems that are difficult for one city or one province to solve. More importantly, socio-
economic plans directly connect state resource allocations to spatial formation.
The Ministry of Housing and Urban–Rural Development (MOHURD) and its local
subordinates, such as construction commissions and municipal urban planning departments,
are agencies responsible for physical planning. They prepare regional studies and plans to
provide necessary elements of spatial coordination, such as functional relationships of cities,
distribution of regional infrastructure facilities, and other spatial elements like industrial space,
transportation hubs, wilderness and conservation areas. These plans pay particular attention
to population and region-wide environmental, social and economic issues, and develop an
extremely strong element of strategic consideration.
The Ministry of Land and Resources (MLR) and local land departments are entitled to
prepare land-use plans at all levels but primarily address issues of farmland protection. In
recent years, new content has been added to these plans to provide land-use projections for
development projects and to demarcate different zones for regulation – an element
contained within physical or spatial planning. Several other ministries such as the Ministry of
Railways, the Ministry of Transportation, and the Ministry of Agriculture have their own
regional plans to guide sectoral development. The fragmented functions of regional planning
can result in inter-ministerial conflicts, making it difficult to implement regional strategic plans
(Xu, 2008).
27
Figure 18: Fragmented regional planning and governance in China
Source: Xu, 2008: 6
State Council
National
Development and
Reform
Commission
Ministry of
Railways
Ministry of
Housing and
Urban-Rural
Development
Ministry of
Environmental
Protection
Ministry of
Land and
Resources
Ministry of
Transportation
Other ministries
such as agriculture,
electricity, and
communication
National
Railway
Development
Plan
National Socioeconomic
Development Plan
? Master Plan
? Sectoral Plan
? Trans-provincial
regional planning
? National Cities
(towns) System
Plan
? Inter-jurisdictional
Urban Cluster
Plan
? Inter-jurisdictional
Urban Ring Plan
National
Environmental
Protection Plan
National Land
Use Master
Plan
National
Transportation
Plan
Other sectoral
plans
Local
Development and
Reform
Committee
Regional
Railway
Development
Plan
Local Socioeconomic
Development Plan (at
provincial, municipal,
county or township level;
or for a region covering
different jurisdictions):
? Master Plan
? Sectoral Plan such as
local railway
development plan
? Regional planning
Regional Railway
Organizations
Provincial
Construction
Commission and
Municipal
Planning
Department
? Local Cities (towns)
System Plan (at
provincial, municipal,
county or township
level; or for a region
covering different
jurisdictions)
? Local Urban Cluster
Plan
? Local Urban Ring
Plan
Local
Environmental
Protection
Administration
Local
Environmental
Protection Plan
Local Land Use
Master Plan (at
provincial,
municipal,
county or
township level;
or for a region
covering
different
jurisdictions)
Local Land
Department
Other local
departments
Other local
sectoral plans
Local
transportation
department
Local
transport-
tation
plans
28
5 Trends and issues of concern
Given the recognition of urbanization as an important part of national strategy for modernization
and economic development, the momentum of urbanization will be accelerated in the future.
Projections from various research institutes reaffirm the fast pace of urbanization in China, as
discussed in early sections of this paper. However, as the urban population increases and the
urban area expands, several challenges emerge as well. Three main concerns will be examined
here: urban expansion and farmland loss, rural-to-urban migration, and social and
environmental justice.
5.1 Urban expansion and farmland loss
Rampant expansion of urban areas has resulted in the reduction of farmland (Table 5) (Cartier,
2001). Further, many cities have established various kinds of economic and technological zones
(ETZs) as a means of attracting foreign investment and this has involved the diversion of large
land areas (Yeh, 2002) – although many of these ETZs have not been fully used. According to
figures from a national investigation in 1997 – “of the 4,210 development zones nationwide, only
1,128 had central or provincial government approval. Cultivated areas accounted for 55 per cent
of the enclosed areas. Of the land demarcated for these development zones, only 20 per cent
had actually been used” (Lin, 2007: 1848).
Table 5: Areas of cultivated land under reform in selected coastal areas, 1979–1997
(thousand hectares)
Year Shenzhen Shanghai Fujian Jiangsu Historical context
1979 4.37 2.66 10.39 SEZ policy formulated
1980 2.8 1.71 3.67 9.02
1981 2.02 1.33 2
1982 1.38 1.07 4.53 5.8
1983 0.61 1.72 1.8 1.16
1984 1.9 4.18 3.07 8.96 Coastal cities opened
1985 4.1 6.18 18.4 17.06 Coastal regions opened
1986 0.7 6.54 10.93 13.24
1987 1.29 2.17 6.34 10.98
1988 1.01 3.67 4.73 10.97
1989 0.81 3.12 0.67 6.52 Tiananmen incident
1990 0.16 0.82 2 4.46
1991 3.56 2.24 2.06 7.89 Hong Kong property market high
1992 4.78 3.12 5.94 28.2 Deng Xiaoping?s southern tour
1993 4.3 15.85 9.33 26.11
1994 1.46 8.14 8.8 31.66
1995 0.19 3.89 6.41 15.69 Urban real estate law in effect
1996 0 2.71 7.79 12.87
1997 0.87 0 7.67 May moratorium on arable land
conversion
Source: Cartier, 2001: 454.
29
5.2 Rural-to-urban migration
Surplus labour arising from rural reform was the main source of the migrating population from
farms to towns. As discussed above, township and village enterprises (TVEs) throughout the
1980s and export-oriented coastal cities since the 1990s were the major destinations for surplus
labour. The large-scale rural-to-urban migration challenged the absorption capacity of non-
agricultural sectors. The latest official report on China?s floating (temporary) population shows
that there were 211 million migrants in 2009, and this is expected to rise to 350 million in 2050.
Of these migrants, 80 per cent hold an agricultural hukou, and so are not eligible for subsidized
urban services, such as housing, education and health care. The group is dominated by young
people, with over two-thirds between the ages of 20 and 44. Most of them work in production,
construction, wholesale, and other service sectors (National Population and Family Planning
Commission, 2010). It is estimated that another 300–400 million people will need to be
relocated to the non-agricultural sector by 2050 (Fan, 2005).
The encroachment of farmland in suburban areas for development projects, while leaving the
rural residential site intact, gives rise to the problem of urban villages within Chinese cities.
When rapid urban development and expansion reach the urban fringe, the usual development
strategy is the requisition of rural land. Urban governments normally convert agricultural land
into suburban areas while leaving the village?s residential land intact because of the high costs
of relocation of the residents and housing compensation. The villagers are left without farmland,
and so lease their houses to make a living. This often coincides with the influx of rural migrants
seeking affordable shelters in cities. As the number of migrants increases, villagers tend to build
more rooms to lease. However, since the area of residential land is fixed, this results in the
addition of more storeys, and higher-density accommodation. As these areas are categorized as
rural, the city government has no regulatory control over them, and does not provide
infrastructure:
“many urban villages are plagued by aged facilities with poor maintenance, very narrow
pathways between rows of terraced buildings, intensive use of space without appropriate
planning, and high residential density that are beyond the capacity of infrastructure
services. There are also such social problems as violence, pornographic activities,
burglary and robbery in addition to building dilapidation.”
(Zhang, 2005: 246)
Urban villages have thus become a headache for urban governments. They have provided an
indispensible source of cheap housing and services for migrant workers, but have become
communities without adequate infrastructure, and they are beyond urban governance. When
urban areas keep on expanding, some urban villages become surrounded by high-rent urban
areas. The existence of low-income communities close to high-rent areas affects the
development of the city, and many cities are trying to remove the low-income communities at
very high economic and social costs.
Another issue related to the increasing migrant population is the growth of informal economic
activity in Chinese cities. Ghose (2005) identified the “irregular employment” in Chinese cities,
which includes most of the migrant workers and urban laid-off workers. This can involve casual-
wage employment (for example, in construction or domestic service) and self-employment (for
example, street vending or repair services). Ghose?s evaluation shows that irregular
employment had an annual growth rate of 18.5 per cent between 1992 and 2002. There are
increasing concerns about the ability of the urban sector to provide sufficient employment for the
migrant population. The informalization of employment forms, such as street vending and home-
30
based production, which exists in many Third World cities, may be increasing in Chinese cities
(Pannell, 2003; Yeh, Xu et al., 2006; Ma, 2007).
Although the concept of informal employment is still vague, street vending, as one of the most
visible activities within the informal sector, is widespread throughout China. However, it is not
officially allowed in most Chinese cities. According to the regulation on individual and privately
owned enterprises issued in 1987, which is still valid today, the prerequisite to apply for an
individual/private business is a fixed site of operation. However, labour surplus in rural China,
together with the employment pressure in cities, makes street vending an accessible occupation
for many in need of work. One figure commonly cited in the news media is that there are 30
million street vendors throughout the country (People’s Daily Online, 2009), accounting for 4 per
cent of the entire employed population. Because of its illegality, street vending involves the risk
of eviction from the street by the urban authorities. This damages the vendors? livelihoods, and
there are concerns of urban social justice affecting the disadvantaged and marginalized
population in Chinese cities (Ma, 2007).
5.3 Social and environmental justice
Ma (2007) raised eight main concerns about social and environmental justice in China?s current
urban transition:
1. severe water and air pollution
2. population relocation and landslides caused by dam construction
3. serious long-term water shortages in two-thirds of China?s cities
4. widespread corruption
5. land loss by peasants to (and land-grabbing and hoarding by) real-estate developers,
some of whom have amassed huge fortunes
6. loss of jobs and social benefits by urban state workers and violations of labour rights due
to privatization and bankruptcy
7. forced residential relocation of urban residents with inadequate compensation
8. the lack of a “right to the city” and truncated citizenship rights for rural-to-urban migrants.
Due to space limitations, it is not possible to discuss all these topics here, and so this section
only highlights some of the main issues of inequality and environmental degradation.
China has been moving from being one of the world?s most egalitarian to one of its more
unequal societies. The Gini coefficient of income distribution for China has already exceeded
0.4
11
(Lin, Zhuang et al., 2008; Islam, 2009), and there is considerable regional disparity arising
from the country?s strategic arrangement. As discussed above, reform policies were tested and
implemented gradually and in selected places, starting from Spatial Economic Zones, then in
open coastal cities, and provinces. With the reform shifting from the rural to the urban sector,
rural–urban disparities have also increased, especially since the relative decline of TVEs and
mass migration to the cities. As noted above, the majority of the migrants are young people,
whose absence from the rural areas exacerbates the problem of rural development and
increases rural–urban disparities (Fan, 2008). The initial call to “let some people and some
regions get rich first” activated development initiatives in both rural and urban areas three
decades ago. Now it seems time to emphasize the latter part of that slogan – “to eventually
achieve common prosperity”.
11
The Gini coefficient is a measure of inequality of income or wealth. A value of 0 expresses total equality
and a value of 1 maximal inequality.
31
Black smoke from factory stacks could be seen in rural areas where TVEs prospered. Cities and
towns in China?s southern and coastal regions began to suffer serious air pollution and acid rain
in the1980s. With the increasing number of motor vehicles in larger cities, other pollutants such
as nitrous oxides, carbon monoxide and photochemical smog exacerbated air pollution (He and
Huo et al., 2002). The issue of water scarcity and water pollution is equally alarming. According
to Shalizi (2008), more than 400 of China?s 600 cities are believed to be short of water, and
about 100 of them face serious problems of water shortage. Water scarcity in cities leads to the
depletion of groundwater, causing a drop in the groundwater table. In Beijing, the water table
has dropped by 100–300 metres.
Water pollution exacerbates water scarcity in urban areas. According to Economy (2010), „More
than 75 percent of the water in rivers flowing through China?s urban areas is unsuitable for
drinking or fishing? Economy (2010: 18–19). The same source also cites the 2006 annual report
of the Ministry of Environment Protection, which analysed the drinking-water sources in 107
Chinese cities and concluded that about 28 per cent of drinking water failed to meet state water-
quality standards due to contamination by human sewage and nitrogen (Economy, 2010: 71–
72). In terms of solid waste, it is estimated that China?s annual waste production is growing at
close to 10 per cent per year (Dong, Kurt et al., 2001). China has surpassed the United States
as the world?s largest generator of municipal solid waste (Hoornweg and Lam, 2005), and urban
residents produce two to three times more waste than their rural counterparts (Wang, 2009).
China?s central authority is well aware of these issues and forges ahead in its resolution to go
green. The recently issued 12
th
Five-Year Plan reflects China?s effort to combat the
environmental degradation generated by decades of rapid economic growth, and echoes the
calls from academia to this intent (Yeh et al., 2006; Ma, 2007; Economy, 2010). The Plan sets
out a strategy and launches a campaign to „propel green development and to construct a
resource-conserving and environmentally-friendly society?. Six aspects are identified for action
under this strategy. These are: active response to global climate changes; strengthen resource
conservation and management; promote circular economy; intensify environmental protection;
further promote environmental protection; promote ecological protection and restoration; and
strengthen water management system as well as the construction of disaster prevention and
alleviation systems. Additional specific green goals have been announced, including:
energy –16 per cent cut in energy intensity (energy consumed per unit of GDP)
pollution – 17 per cent cut in carbon intensity (carbon emission per unit of GDP)
Land – 30 per cent decrease in built-up-area intensity (built-up area used per unit of
GDP)
resource use – 15 per cent increase in resource-use rate
circular economy – industrial solid-waste comprehensive reuse rate to reach 72 per cent
(People?s Government of PRC, 2011).
6. Concluding remarks
China?s urbanization in the post-reform period since 1978 is especially notable for two features.
First, it had a remarkable impact on the national policy framework, particularly as concerns the
hukou system, household responsibility, land reform, tax-sharing, and housing reform. The state,
both central and local, continues to have an important role in determining the pace of
urbanization and shaping urban and regional growth patterns. China is probably one of the few
countries in the world with such an influential national urban policy. The second feature
concerns the relation between urbanization and the market. Marketization is rapidly taking place
32
in urban China in the post-reform era. This began with the marketization of labour, with migrants
being attracted from the countryside into cities to provide a cheap urban workforce. It developed
into the privatization of productive resources, including the conversion of state-owned
enterprises into shareholding corporations. Finally, it has evolved to include the commodification
of the built environment, through the establishment of a leasehold land system and commodity
housing markets (Wu, Xu and Yeh, 2007).
Three distinctive stages of urbanization have been identified in post-reform China: urbanization
driven by rural industrialization (1978 to 1987), urbanization driven by land reform (1988 to
2000), and urbanization driven by the service industry (2001 to present). These three stages are
strongly influenced by policies on enterprises, land and housing reform and more recently by
market forces, especially rising per capita income as a result of economic development. The
different stages have been identified in this paper to help understand the main factors affecting
the processes of urbanization and urban development. This does not mean that factors affecting
one stage will not affect the development of another. For example, factors affecting rural
urbanization in the 1980s and land-driven urbanization in the 1990s are still influential in urban
development in the stage of service-industry development, which has become just one of the
additional factors affecting urban development. Further, due to the vast land area and great
regional disparity of China, the three urbanization stages also vary between different regions.
For example, service-industry-driven urbanization has mainly occurred in the coastal eastern
regions. Some areas of the central and western regions are undergoing rural urbanization and
land-driven urbanization stages to different degrees.
Rapid urban growth challenges urban planning, even in the context of China?s unique system.
Regulations and laws have been issued and amended in response to the growing need for
coordination and control of urban growth. However, there remain alarming issues such as the
loss of agricultural land and related issues of environmental degradation. The anticipated large
increase in rural migrants to cities, plus increasing car ownership and housing prices as a result
of rising per capita income, will be growing challenges for city governments in China. The
central point that must be recognized, however, is that urbanization has been essential to
China?s economic miracle, and needs to be improved but not inhibited. As indicated by Wu, Xu
and Yeh (2007), China?s post-reform economic regime has to rely on cities as strategic sites for
both capital accumulation and regulation. Urbanization is one of the major central strategies
proposed to overcome the constraints of economic growth. The level of urbanization will
continue to rise during the period of the 12
th
Five-Year Plan (2011–2015), but the focus will shift
to improve the quality of the process in order to solve such problems as the unbalanced
development between urban and rural areas, widening income gaps, urban sprawl, and
insufficient services for migrant workers. It is this combination of enormous challenges and new
urban dynamics that demands further research and observation.
33
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Recent Publications by IIED’s Human Settlements Group
WORKING PAPER SERIES
All working papers can be downloaded at no charge. For a complete list, seehttp://www.iied.org/human-settlements/group-publications/publications
URBAN POVERTY
Understanding pro-poor housing finance in Malawi - Mtafu A.Z. Manda,
Siku Nkhoma and Diana
Mitlin (due June 2011)
Interrogating Urban Poverty Lines – the Case of Zambia - Miniva Chibuye (2011)
Assessing the Scale and Nature of Urban Poverty in Buenos Aires – Jorgelina Hardoy with
Florencia Almansi (2011)
Broadening Poverty Definitions in India: Basic Needs in Urban Housing - S. Chandrasekhar and
Mark R. Montgomery (2010)
Poverty lines in Greater Cairo: Underestimating and Misrepresenting Poverty –Sarah Sabry
(2009)
Poverty Lines and Lives of the Poor: Underestimation of Urban Poverty, the case of India –
Meera Bapat (2009)
Community Finance: the News from Asia and Africa. Report of a workshop held in November
2007 – Asian Coalition for Housing Rights (2008)
Urban Poor Funds; Development by the People for the People – Diana Mitlin (2008)
Building Homes, Changing Official Approaches: the Work of Urban Poor Federations and their
Contributions to Meeting the Millennium Development Goals in Urban Areas – Celine D?Cruz
and David Satterthwaite (2005)
Catalysing Pro-Poor Development; the Role of Savings and Savings Organizations: Key Issues
arising from an International Workshop on Housing Finance and Poverty – Diana Mitlin (2005)
The Under-estimation of Urban Poverty in Low- and Middle-income Nations – David
Satterthwaite (2004)
RURAL–URBAN
Climate change, adaptation strategies and mobility: evidence from four settlements in
Senegal - Mohamadou Sall, Serigne Mansour Tall and Aly Tandian (due June 2011, also
available in French)
41
Rural migration in Bolivia: the impact of climate change, economic crisis and state policy -
Carlos Balderrama Mariscal, Nico Tassi, Ana Rubena Miranda, Lucía Aramayo Canedo, Iván
Cazorla (2011)
Not only climate change: mobility, vulnerability and socio-economic transformations in
environmentally fragile areas in Bolivia, Senegal and Tanzania – Cecilia Tacoli (2011)
International Migration, Social Change and Local Governance in Ourossogui and Louga, Two
Small Urban Centres in Senegal – Mohamadou Sall, Serigne Mansour Tall, Aly Tandian, Al
Assane Samb, Abdou Khadre Sano and Souleymane Sylla (2010)
Migration, Local Development and Governance in Small Towns: Two Examples from the
Philippines – Charito Basa and Lorna Villamil with Violeta de Guzman (2009)
Migration and Small Towns in China: Power Hierarchy and Resource Allocation – Bingqin Li and
Xiangsheng An (2009)
Migration and Small Towns in Pakistan – Arif Hasan and Mansoor Raza (2009)
Urbanization and Rural Development in Viet Nam's Mekong Delta: Livelihood Transformations
in Three Fruit Growing Settlements - Hoang Xuan Thanh, Thi Thu Phuong Dinh, Thu Huong
Nguyen and Cecilia Tacoli (2008)
Toward Synergistic Rural–Urban Development: the Experience of the Rural–Urban Partnership
Programme (RUPP) in Nepal – S.F. Momen (2006)
Rural-Urban Migration in China: Policy Options for Economic Growth, Environmental
Sustainability and Equity – Gordon McGranahan and Cecilia Tacoli (2006)
Livelihood Diversification and Rural–Urban Linkages in Vietnam’s Red River Delta – Anh, Dang
Nguyen, Hoang Xuan Thanh and Cecilia Tacoli (2005)
Rural–Urban Change, Boundary Problems and Environmental Burdens – Gordon McGranahan,
David Satterthwaite and Cecilia Tacoli (2004)
WATER AND SANITATION
Groundwater, Self-supply and Poor Urban Dwellers: A Review with Case studies of Bangalore
and Lusaka – Jenny T. Gronwall, Martin Mulenga and Gordon McGranahan (2010)
Urban Water and Sanitation in Ghana: How Local Action is Making a Difference - Kanton I.
Osumanu, Lukman Abdul-Rahim, Jacob Songsore and Farouk R. Braimah with Martin Mulenga
(2010)
Improving Water and Sanitation Provision in Buenos Aires: What can a Research-oriented NGO
do? – Florencia Almansi, Ana Hardoy and Jorgelina Hardoy (2010)
Water Service Provision for the Peri-urban Poor in Post-conflict Angola – Allan Cain and Martin
Mulenga (2009)
42
Water and Sanitation in Urban Malawi: can the Millennium Development Goals be Met? A Study
of Informal Settlements in Three Cities – Mtafu A. Zeleza Manda (2009)
Lessons from Karachi: The role of Demonstration, Documentation, Mapping and Relationship
Building in Advocacy for Improved Urban Sanitation and Water Services – Arif Pervaiz,
Perween Rahman and Arif Hasan (2008)
Local Water and Sanitation Companies and the Urban Poor – Gordon McGranahan and David
Lloyd Owen (2006)
Informal Water Vendors and the Urban Poor – Marianne Kjellén and Gordon McGranahan
(2006)
Governance and Getting the Private Sector to Provide Better Water and Sanitation Services to
the Urban Poor – Gordon McGranahan and David Satterthwaite (2006)
URBAN CHANGE
Africa’s Urban Transition and the Role of Regional Collaboration – Gordon McGranahan, Diana
Mitlin, David Satterthwaite, Cecilia Tacoli and Ivan Turok (2009)
The Transition to a Predominantly Urban World and its Underpinnings – David Satterthwaite
(2007)
Urban Environments, Wealth and Health: Shifting Burdens and Possible Responses in Low and
Middle-income Nations – Gordon McGranahan (2007)
Outside the Large Cities: the Demographic Importance of Small Urban Centres and Large
Villages in Africa, Asia and Latin America – David Satterthwaite (2006)
A Pro-poor Urban Agenda for Africa; Clarifying Ecological and Development Issues for Poor and
Vulnerable Populations. A Report for the Ford Foundation - Joel Bolnick, Happy M Kayuni ,
Richard Mabala, Gordon McGranahan, Diana Mitlin, Sikhulile Nkhoma, John Oucho, Amal
Sabri, Sarah Sabry, David Satterthwaite, Mark Swilling, Cecilia Tacoli, Richard I C Tambulasi
and Mirjam van Donk (2006)
CLIMATE CHANGE AND CITIES
Community-driven Disaster Intervention: Experiences of the Homeless People’s Federation
Philippines, Incorporated (HPFPI) – Jason Christopher Rayos Co (2010)
Towards Pro-poor Adaptation to Climate Change in the Urban Centres of Low and Middle-
income Countries – Caroline Moser and David Satterthwaite (2008)
Climate Change and Urban Children: Impacts and Implications for Adaptation in Low and
Middle-Income Nations – Sheridan Bartlett (2008)
43
Adapting to Climate Change in Urban Areas: the Possibilities and Constraints in Low- and
Middle-income Nations – David Satterthwaite, Saleemul Huq, Hannah Reid, Mark Pelling and
Patricia Romero Lankao (2007)
URBANIZATION & EMERGING POPULATION (Joint series with the United Nations Population
Fund)
China’s Post-Reform Urbanization: Retrospect, Policies and Trends - Anthony G.O. Yeh, Jiang
Xu and Kaizhi Liu (2011)
Brazil’s Early Urban Transition: What can it Teach Urbanizing Countries? – George Martine and
Gordon McGranahan (2010)
Planning for High Density in Low-income Settlements: Four Case Studies from Karachi – Arif
Hasan, Asiya Sadiq and Suneela Ahmed (2010)
The Food Price Crisis and Urban Food (in)security – Marc J. Cohen and James L. Garrett
(2009)
Is Urbanization Contributing to Higher Food Prices? – Jesper Stage, Jørn Stage and Gordon
McGranahan (2009)
OTHER HUMAN SETTLEMENTS PUBLICATIONS
Assessing the Costs of Adaptation to Climate Change. A Review of the UNFCCC and Other
Estimates - Martin Parry, Nigel Arnell, Pam Berry, David Dodman, Samuel Fankhauser, Chris
Hope, Sari Kovats, Robert Nicholls, David Satterthwaite, Richard Tiffin and Tim Wheeler (2009)
Population Dynamics and Climate Change edited by José Miguel Guzmán, George Martine,
Gordon McGranahan, Daniel Schensul and Cecilia Tacoli (2009) (A joint UNFPA-IIED
publication)
EARTHSCAN BOOKS
Adapting Cities to Climate Change: Understanding and Addressing the Development
Challenges, edited by Jane Bicknell, David Dodman and David Satterthwaite (2009)
The New Global Frontier: Urbanization, Poverty and Environment in the 21st Century, edited by
George Martine, Gordon McGranahan, Mark Montgomery and Rogelio Fernández-Castilla
(2008)
Scaling Urban Environmental Challenges; From Local to Global and Back, edited by Peter J
Marcotullio and Gordon McGranahan (2007)
The Earthscan Reader on Rural–Urban Linkages, edited by Cecilia Tacoli (2006)
Water and Sanitation in the World’s Cities 2006; Meeting Development Goals in Small Urban
Centres, prepared for UN–Habitat by IIED (2006)
44
Empowering Squatter Citizen: Local Government, Civil Society and Urban Poverty Reduction,
edited by Diana Mitlin and David Satterthwaite (2004)
Water and Sanitation in the World’s Cities: Local Action for Global Goals, UN–Habitat Report
prepared by Gordon McGranahan and David Satterthwaite (2003)
Air Pollution and Health in Rapidly Developing Countries, edited by Gordon McGranahan and
Frank Murray (2003)
The Citizens at Risk: From Urban Sanitation to Sustainable Cities – Gordon McGranahan,
Pedro Jacobi, Jacob Songsore, Charles Surjadi and Marianne Kjellén (2001)
Environmental Problems in an Urbanizing World: Finding Solutions for Cities in Africa, Asia and
Latin America – Jorge E Hardoy, Diana Mitlin and David Satterthwaite (2001)
Cities for Children: Children’s Rights, Poverty and Urban Management – Sheridan Bartlett,
Roger Hart, David Satterthwaite, Ximena de la Barra and Alfredo Missair (1999)
The Earthscan Reader in Sustainable Cities, edited by David Satterthwaite (1999)
The Environment for Children – David Satterthwaite, Roger Hart, Caren Levy, Diana Mitlin,
David Ross, Jac Smit and Carolyn Stephens (1996)
Squatter Citizen: Life in the Urban Third World – Jorge E Hardoy and David Satterthwaite
(1989)
ENVIRONMENT AND URBANIZATION
A twice-yearly journal published since 1989, this is one of the most cited and widely distributed
international journals on urban issues. Each issue has a special theme and includes 9–14
papers and some include a guide to the literature on that theme. It also has a special section of
papers on climate change and cities (since 2007), profiles of innovative NGOs (in some issues)
and Book Notes – which includes summaries of new books, research reports and newsletters
and how these can be obtained (including those in Spanish, French and Portuguese).
For more details, seehttp://www.environmentandurbanization.org/
The on-line edition is athttp://eandu.sagepub.com/ The full text of all papers in all issues (from
the first issue in 1989) are available on-line at this site and all but the issues from the last two
years are available at no charge. From this site, subscriptions and back issues can be
purchased and searches made. There is also a list with the theme of each issue.
Environment and Urbanization Briefs: A five page summary of each issue of Environment and
Urbanization is available in print and electronically; to receive this, e-mail [email protected].
All Briefs can be downloaded fromhttp://pubs.iied.org/search.php?s=EUB
HOW TO OBTAIN WORKING PAPERS: Printed versions can be obtained from Earthprint Ltd,
PO Box 119, Stevenage, Hertfordshire SG1 4TP, UK; T: +44 1438 748 111; F: +44 1438 748
45
844; E-mail: [email protected]; Web: www.earthprint.com for US$ 20 each plus
postage and packing. All working papers are free to download at www.iied.org.
HOW TO OBTAIN BOOKS: These are available from Earthscan Publications, 8–12 Camden
High Street, London NW1 0JH, UK; E-mail: [email protected]; Web:
www.earthscan.co.uk; also available in bookstores. In the USA, available from Earthscan,
22883 Quicksilver Drive, Sterling, VA 20166-2012, USA. The Earthscan website also has
details of Earthscan representatives and agents in all other countries.
HOW TO OBTAIN ENVIRONMENT AND URBANIZATION: Since 2006, Environment and
Urbanization has been published by Sage Publications, and subscriptions and back issues can
be ordered from them at:http://eau.sagepub.com/
Order on-line for:
The Americas:http://www.sagepub.com/journalsSubscribe.nav?prodId=Journal201733
Rest of the world:http://www.sagepub.co.uk/journalsSubscribe.nav?prodId=Journal201733
Free subscriptions are available to NGOs and teaching/training institutions in Africa and in low-
and middle-income countries in Asia and Latin America that have difficulty obtaining foreign
exchange; contact IIED ([email protected]).
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