China is one of the origins of the earliest urban civilizations in the world but her
urbanization process has lagged behind the developed countries and even some
developing countries in the recent centuries. By the beginning of the 21st century, all
developed countries have already completed urbanization process and more than 70%
of their residents now live in cities. Urbanization has been a remarkable social
phenomenon in the world in the 19th and 20th centuries which has transformed the
spatial and social configurations of human society. Only 3% of the world population
lived in urban areas in the year 1800. One hundred years later, 13.6% lived in places
with 5000 or more population in 1900. By the year 1996, 46% of the world population
lived in urban areas and the total urban population was over 2.5 billion. Now twothirds
of the urban population are in more developing regions1
. But the urbanization
process will continue in the 21st century especially in developing countries such as
China whose level of urbanization is far behind developed countries.
Underurbanization was the most remarkable in the first three decades of the
People’s Republic of China over the period 1949-1976 under the influence of Maoist
anti-urban ideology2
. Socialist revolution, ideology, political control, national defense
and material production had priority over consumption, housing, education, service
and entertainment in that period. Political purity and royalty to socialism had priority
over efficiency and economic growth. The urban population in China increased from
66.32 million in 1951 to 172 million in 1978 and the share of urban population in total
population increased only from 11.78% to 17.92% in the period3
. Such
underurbanization was achieved by deliberate government policies and direct control
of population movement through the household registration (hukou) system. Under
the strict control of central planning and command system, all activities and processes
were initiated from the top while the masses of grass-roots officials and peoples only
need to follow orders passively. People had no way to maximize wealth creation
through hard work and innovation out of the state planning system. A large amount of
human resources had been wasted in pre-reform China which otherwise could have
created a large amount of wealth. Human resources, like the running water in the
river, will be wasted if it is not used.
The most significant change took place in 1978 when economic reforms began
to be introduced in China. The economic reforms have sparked profound socialeconomic
transformations in the largest country in the world. Such transformations
also manifested in the emerging new urban and rural landscapes all over the country.
The urbanization process in China has no doubt accelerated since then.
As part of the changes in the official attitudes towards market economy and
modernization in the reform period, urbanization now has been accepted as a positive
process conducive to the country’s modernization and development. Population
mobility has reached the highest level in China as people especially rural migrants
have been empowered to move around in the country relatively freely. It seems that
the Chinese people have partially reclaimed the freedom of migration included in the
first constitution of the People's Republic adopted in 1954. This represents one kind of
social progress in post reform China. But facing with a massive inflow of migrants
and temporary population from rural areas into cities, there have been serious
2
concerns on the impacts of such rapid urbanization on social stability, unemployment
and housing conditions in Chinese cities. Particularly, many third world countries
have already experienced severe problems of overurbanization, poor urban housing,
widespread urban unemployment and poverty. To what extent, is current urbanization
process in China similar to other third world countries? Is there any distinctive
urbanization process going on in China? Can China avoid the problems of third world
cities? What kind of policies can be adopted to solve urban problems in China in the
21st century? All these are important questions facing the government and the public.
This chapter will examine the recent experience of Chinese urbanization in the reform
period. The changing urban-rural relations and the main channels of rural to urban
population shift will be analyzed. The major urban problems facing China and the
possible choices of urban policy to solve these problems will be discussed. It is
argued that the on-going rapid urbanization will bring about great challenges as well
as opportunities in China and will have profound impacts on China’s spatial, social
and economic development. Chinese urbanization shares some generalities with other
countries in the world but also has its unique characteristics due to particular
institutional settings and government policies in China.