In the last 30 years, China’s record economic growth lifted half a billion people out of poverty, with rapid urbanization providing abundant labor, cheap land, and good infrastructure. While China has avoided some of the common ills of urbanization, strains are showing as inefficient land development leads to urban sprawl and ghost towns, pollution threatens people’s health, and farmland and water resources are becoming scarce. With China’s urban population projected to rise to about one billion – or close to 70 percent of the country’s population – by 2030, China’s leaders are seeking a more coordinated urbanization process. Urban China is a joint research report by a team from the World Bank and the Development Research Center of China’s State Council which was established to address the challenges and opportunities of urbanization in China and to help China forge a new model of urbanization. The report takes as its point of departure the conviction that China's urbanization can become more efficient, inclusive, and sustainable. However, it stresses that achieving this vision will require strong support from both government and the markets for policy reforms in a number of area. The report proposes six main areas for reform: first, amending land management institutions to foster more efficient land use, denser cities, modernized agriculture, and more equitable wealth distribution; second, adjusting the hukou household registration system to increase labor mobility and provide urban migrant workers equal access to a common standard of public services; third, placing urban finances on a more sustainable footing while fostering financial discipline among local governments; fourth, improving urban planning to enhance connectivity and encourage scale and agglomeration economies; fifth, reducing environmental pressures through more efficient resource management; and sixth, improving governance at the local level.

China’s urbanization is one of the great earth-changing phenomena of recent times. The way in which China continues to urbanize will have a critical impact on the world economy, global climate change, international relations and a host of other critical issues. Understanding and responding to China’s urbanization is of paramount importance to everyone. This book represents a unique exploration of the demographic, spatial, economic and social aspects of China’s urban transformation. Based on years of fieldwork and data analysis from different types of cities and towns in every region of China, the authors present a detailed description of how China has urbanized since 1978 and an original theory about the way in which top-down and bottom-up policies have impacted urbanization. They describe China’s on-going urbanization process as a ‘double-dual’ transformation from a planned economy to a more market-oriented one and from a concern with the quantity to the quality of urbanization. In doing so, the authors provide the most comprehensive and up-to-date book on Chinese urbanization to date. This scholarly study will appeal to academics and practitioners, including professors and postgraduate students of urban studies, planning, geography, Asian studies, and other social science disciplines and professional fields concerned with cities and urban development. Professionals involved in international development, particularly in China and elsewhere in Asia, will be particularly interested in the book.

With urbanism becoming the key driver of socio-economic change in China, this book provides much needed up-to-date material on Chinese urban development. Demonstrating how it transcends the centrally-planned model of economic growth, and assessing the extent to which it has gone beyond the common wisdom of Chinese ‘gradualism’, the book covers a wide range of important topics, including: local land development the local state private-public partnership foreign investment urbanization ageing home ownership. Providing a clear appraisal of recent trends in Chinese urbanism, this book puts forward important new conceptual resources to fill the gap between the outdated model of the ‘Third World’ city and the globalizing cities of the West.

Many agree that rapid urbanization in China in the late 20th and early 21st centuries is a mega process significantly reshaping China and the global economy. China’s urbanization also carries a certain mystique, which has long fascinated generations of scholars and journalists alike. As it has turned out, many of the asserted Chinese feats are mostly fancied claims or gross misinterpretations (of statistics, for example). There does exist, however, an urbanization that displays rather uncommon "Chinese" characteristics that remain to inadequately understood. Building on his three decades of careful research, Professor Kam Wing Chan expertly dissects the complexity of China’s hukou system, migration, urbanization and their interrelationships in this set of journal articles published in the last ten years. These works range from seminal papers on Chinese urban definitions and statistics; and broad-perspective analysis of the hukou system of its first semi-centennial; to examinations of migration trends and geography; and critical evaluations of China’s 2014 urbanization blueprint and hukou reform plan. This convenient assemblage contains many of Chan’s recent important works. Together they also form a relatively coherent set on this topic. They are essential readings to anyone serious about gaining a true understanding of the prodigious urbanization in contemporary China.

As China rises to become the world's largest economy, it is expected to alleviate half-a-billion people from being rural villagers to urban residents in the coming decades. The great urbanization of the world's most populated country is sure to be one of the most remarkable social-economic events in the 21st century. This book aims to give the reader a clear and comprehensive review of this unfolding event. It not only presents a historical review of the evolution of public policies and institutional reforms regarding urban development, but also an up-to-date survey and in-depth analysis of various social-economic forces that define and contribute to the process of urbanization. The target audiences include students of modern China and professionals interested in China's urban development. The general public as well as scholars may also find the book informative and fascinating.

This book traces the history of urbanization in China and discusses major problems and challenges the country is facing as it undergoes a profound social transformation. The author argues that as China tries to build not just more but also better cities, i.e., cities that are not only economically competitive but also people- and environment-friendly, it should adopt urbanization strategies and policies that promote integrated development for both rural and urban areas, and coordination among otherwise disparate objectives – such as industrialization, ecological modernization, informatization and cultural heritage preservation – nationwide and at various scales.

How China’s expansive new era of urbanization threatens to undermine the foundations of rural life Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, China has vastly expanded its urbanization processes in an effort to reduce the inequalities between urban and rural areas. Centered on the mountainous region of Chongqing, which serves as an experimental site for the country’s new urban development policies, The End of the Village analyzes the radical expansion of urbanization and its consequences for China’s villagers. It reveals a fundamental rewriting of the nation’s social contract, as villages that once organized rural life and guaranteed rural livelihoods are replaced by an increasingly urbanized landscape dominated by state institutions. Throughout this comprehensive study of China’s “urban–rural coordination” policy, Nick R. Smith traces the diminishing autonomy of the country’s rural populations and their subordination to larger urban networks and shared administrative structures. Outside Chongqing’s urban centers, competing forces are at work in reshaping the social, political, and spatial organization of its villages. While municipal planners and policy makers seek to extend state power structures beyond the boundaries of the city, village leaders and inhabitants try to maintain control over their communities’ uncertain futures through strategies such as collectivization, shareholding, real estate development, and migration. As China seeks to rectify the development crises of previous decades through rapid urban growth, such drastic transformations threaten to displace existing ways of life for more than 600 million residents. Offering an unprecedented look at the country’s contentious shift in urban planning and policy, The End of the Village exposes the precarious future of rural life in China and suggests a critical reappraisal of how we think about urbanization.