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China s New Urbanization Strategy 1st Edition China
Development Research Foundation Digital Instant
Download
Author(s): China Development Research Foundation
ISBN(s): 9780415625906, 0415625904
Edition: 1
File Details: PDF, 1.88 MB
Year: 2013
Language: english
China’s New Urbanization Strategy
Urbanization is one of the major challenges facing China. Of China’s 1.3 billion
people, around half still live in rural areas. There has been huge migration from
rural areas to cities in recent years, a trend that is likely to continue strongly for
some time. The strains that this vast migration puts on China’s cities are enor-
mous. This book makes available for the English-speaking reader the results of a
large group of research projects undertaken by CDRF, one of China’s leading
think tanks, into the details of rural–urban migration, the resulting urban growth
and the associated problems. The book goes on to put forward a new strategy,
which aims to ensure that China’s urbanization proceeds in an orderly manner
and that people and their needs are put at the centre of the strategy. Key parts of
the strategy include that ‘city clusters’ should become the main form of urbaniza-
tion; that these should be arranged geographically in a pattern of ‘two horizontal
lines and three vertical lines’; that industrial and employment structures should
highlight regional features and diversity; that urban public services should be
more equitably distributed; that there should be new forms of urbanization
management and city governance to accelerate urbanization and ensure harmoni-
ous social development; and that the whole process should be conducted in an
ecological, ‘green’ way.
China Development Research Foundation is one of the leading economic think

tanks in China, where many of the details of China’s economic reform have been
formulated. Its work and publications therefore provide great insights into what
the Chinese themselves think about economic reform and how it should develop.
Routledge studies on the Chinese economy
Series Editor Peter Nolan
Sinyi Professor, Judge Business School,
Chair, Development Studies, University of Cambridge
Founding Series Editors

Peter Nolan
University of Cambridge and
Dong Fureng
Beijing University
The aim of this series is to publish original, high-quality, research-level work by

both new and established scholars in the West and the East, on all aspects of the
Chinese economy, including studies of business and economic history.
1 The Growth of Market Relations 7 The Employment Impact of

in Post-Reform Rural China China’s World Trade
A micro-analysis of peasants, Organisation Accession
migrants and peasant A.S. Bhalla and S. Qiu
entrepreneurs
Hiroshi Sato 8 Catch-Up and Competitiveness
in China
2 The Chinese Coal Industry: The case of large firms in the oil
An Economic History industry
Elspeth Thomson Jin Zhang
3 Sustaining China’s Economic 9 Corporate Governance in China

Growth in the Twenty-First Jian Chen
Century
Edited by Shujie Yao and Xiaming 10 The Theory of the Firm and
Liu Chinese Enterprise Reform
The case of China International
4 China’s Poor Regions Trust and Investment Corporation
Rural–urban migration, poverty, Qin Xiao
economic reform and urbanisation
Mei Zhang 11 Globalisation, Transition and
Development in China
5 China’s Large Enterprises and The case of the coal industry
the Challenge of Late Huaichuan Rui
Industrialization
Dylan Sutherland 12 China Along the Yellow River
Reflections on rural society
6 China’s Economic Growth Cao Jinqing, translated by Nicky
Yanrui Wu Harman and Huang Ruhua
13 Economic Growth, Income 22 Poverty and Inequality among
Distribution and Poverty Chinese Minorities
Reduction in Contemporary A.S. Bhalla and Shufang Qiu
China
Shujie Yao 23 Economic and Social
Transformation in China
14 China’s Economic Relations with Challenges and opportunities
the West and Japan, 1949–79 Angang Hu
Grain, trade and diplomacy
Chad J. Mitcham 24 Global Big Business and the
Chinese Brewing Industry
15 China’s Industrial Policy and Yuantao Guo
the Global Business Revolution
The case of the domestic 25 Peasants and Revolution in
appliance industry Rural China
Ling Liu Rural political change in the North
China Plain and the Yangzi Delta,
16 Managers and Mandarins in 1850–1949
Contemporary China Chang Liu
The building of an international
business alliance 26 The Chinese Banking Industry
Jie Tang Lessons from history for today’s
challenges
17 The Chinese Model of Modern Yuanyuan Peng
Development
Edited by Tian Yu Cao 27 Informal Institutions and Rural
Development in China
18 Chinese Citizenship Biliang Hu
Views from the margins
Edited by Vanessa L. Fong and 28 The Political Future
Rachel Murphy of Hong Kong
Democracy within Communist
19 Unemployment, Inequality and China
Poverty in Urban China Kit Poon
Edited by Shi Li and Hiroshi Sato
29 China’s Post-Reform Economy –
20 Globalisation, Competition and Achieving Harmony, Sustaining
Growth in China Growth
Edited by Jian Chen Edited by Richard Sanders and
and Shujie Yao Chen Yang
21 The Chinese Communist Party 30 Eliminating Poverty Through

in Reform Development in China
Edited by Kjeld Erik Brodsgaard China Development Research
and Zheng Yongnian Foundation
31 Good Governance in China – A 40 Sustainable Reform and
Way Towards Social Harmony Development in Post-Olympic
Case studies by China’s rising China
leaders Edited by Shujie Yao, Bin Wu,
Edited by Wang Mengkui Stephen Morgan and Dylan
Sutherland
32 China in the Wake of Asia’s
Financial Crisis 41 Constructing a Developmental
Edited by Wang Mengkui Social Welfare System for All
China Development Research
33 Multinationals, Globalisation Foundation
and Indigenous Firms in China
Chunhang Liu 42 China’s Road to Peaceful Rise
Observations on its cause, basis,
34 Economic Convergence in connotation and prospect
Greater China: Zheng Bijian
Mainland China, Hong Kong,
Macau and Taiwan 43 China as the Workshop
Chun Kwok Lei and Shujie Yao of the World
An analysis at the national
35 Financial Sector Reform and industry level of China
and the International in the international division
Integration of China of labor
Zhongmin Wu Yuning Gao
36 China in the World Economy 44 China’s Role in Global

Zhongmin Wu Economic Recovery
Xiaolan Fu
37 China’s Three Decades of
Economic Reforms 45 The Political Economy of the
Edited by Xiaohui Liu and Chinese Coal Industry
Wei Zhang Black gold and
blood-stained coal
38 China’s Development Challenges Tim Wright
Economic vulnerability and public
sector reform 46 Rising China in the Changing
Richard Schiere World Economy
Edited by Liming Wang
39 China’s Rural Financial System
Households’ demand for credit 47 Thirty Years of
and recent reforms China’s Reform
Yuepeng Zhao Edited by Wang Mengkui
48 China and the Global Financial 49 China’s New Urbanization
Crisis Strategy
A comparison with Europe China Development Research
Edited by Jean-Pierre Cabestan, Foundation
Jean-François Di Meglio and
Xavier Richet
Routledge Studies on the Chinese Economy – Chinese

Economists on Economic Reform
1 Chinese Economists on Economic 2 Chinese Economists on Economic
Reform – Collected Works of Reform – Collected Works of
Xue Muqiao Guo Shuqing
Xue Muqiao, edited by China Guo Shuqing, edited by China
Development Research Foundation Development Research Foundation
China’s New Urbanization
Strategy

Foundation
CDRF
ROUTLEDGE
Routledge
Taylor & Francis Group 中国发展研究基金会
LONDON AND NEW YORK Foundation
First published 2013
by Routledge
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Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2013 The China Development Research Foundation
The right of The China Development Research Foundation to be identi-
fied as author of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with
the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying
and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
China’s new urbanization strategy/China Development Research
Foundation.
p. cm. – (Routledge studies on the Chinese economy; 49)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Urbanization–China. 2. City planning–China. 3. Rural-urban
migration–China. I. China Development Research Foundation.
HT384.C6C537 2013
307.760951–dc23 2012029317
ISBN: 978-0-415-62590-6 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-203-07493-0 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman

by Cenveo Publisher Services
Contents
List of illustrations xi
Project team xv
Preface I, by Wang Mengkui xvii
Preface II, by Chen Yuan xix
Acknowledgements, by Lu Mai xxi
Introduction 1
1 Urbanization in China: process, trends, and challenges 5
2 Converting rural migrant workers into urban

residents in the course of urbanization 33
3 Setting up a spatial configuration for ‘urbanization’

in China that features ‘two horizontal lines
and three vertical lines’ 78
4 Making ‘urban clusters’ the primary form of

urbanization in China 108
5 Industrial structure and employment considerations

in the course of urbanization 147
6 How to improve the provision of public services

in urban areas 175
7 Creating sustainable processes for building

and financing urban infrastructure 199
8 A ‘green path’ toward urbanization 223

x Contents
9 Innovative approaches to managing
‘urbanization’ and ‘city governance’ 245
10 Policy recommendations 270
Appendices 282
Bibliography 331
English references 339
Index 347
Illustrations
Boxes
1.1 Japan spent 20 years to convert its own rural migrant
workers to urban residents 24
1.2 Analysis of the various demands being placed on public
services by different kinds of urban groups 29
1.3 Housing conditions of rural migrant workers in Hangzhou 31
2.1 Education of the children of rural migrant workers under
a state of ‘quasi-urbanization’ 38
2.2 Inadequate protection of the rights of rural migrant workers
means that they are subject to higher rates of
occupational disease 40
2.3 The current conditions of ‘villages within the city of Kunming’,
and associated problems 43
2.4 Various exploratory efforts in converting rural migrant
workers into urban residents 63
2.5 Regulations in certain cities with respect to ‘residency permits’
and the ‘settling down’ of a transient population 68
3.1 Classification of types of national territory in China 80
3.2 The ‘impoverished’ state of ecologies in China’s western region 86
3.3 The concept behind ‘ecological products’ and characteristics
of such products 97
4.1 The situation in other countries with respect to incentives
for improved FARs, and measures that deal with the granting
of development rights 116
4.2 The debate on urbanization within academic circles in China 118
4.3 Fei Xiaotong and small-town development in China 126
4.4 The evolution of various forms of urbanization in the
USA and Japan 136
4.5 Standards by which city clusters can be defined 139
4.6 The experience of certain countries in adopting ‘compact’
urban policies 144
5.1 Foxconn shifts its operations inland 164
5.2 Central and western regions should beware of falling into the
‘Mezzogiorno trap’ 166
xii Illustrations
5.3 Tokyo’s TAMA (Metropolitan Association for
Advanced Technologies) 169
6.1 Urban ailments: slums 176
6.2 The public-service needs of empty-nesters 188
7.1 China’s problems with respect to disclosure requirements,
statistical measures, and local government accounting
standards, as seen by international municipal bond-rating
standards 215
7.2 China’s water price of 0.26 dollars per cubic meter is unduly
low when compared with international water prices 219
8.1 Green urban design 238
9.1 Participatory public budgeting experiments in Wuxi and Harbin 249
9.2 Regional experiments on reforming the ‘city-governing-county’
system 258
9.3 Titled programmes by which cities are evaluated, and
their sponsoring ministries 260
9.4 Allow non-governmental organizations to participate in
city governance 261
Tables
1.1 Population distribution in cities of different sizes (2007) 17
1.2 Urban land requirements for different urban population
distributions 27
1.3 Analysis of different urban public demands of different
social groups 30
2.1 Regional distribution and change (%) of rural migrant workers 35
2.2 Distribution and change (%) of rural migrant workers
in different types of cities 2001–2006 35
2.3 Land conditions of rural migrant workers in Yangtze
River delta 48
3.1 Change of spatial structure (in units of 10,000 km2) 81
3.2 Change of sub-classified territorial spatial structure
(in unit of 10,000 km2) 82
3.3 Impact of turning rural migrant workers and their family
members into urban residents on narrowing the inter-regional
per capita GDP gap 88
3.4 Built-up areas (km2) of cities in China 90
3.5 Built-up areas (km2) of county cities and administrative
towns in China 90
3.6 City density in different regions in 2007
(in number per 10,000 km2) 91
4.1 Population-density change in built-up areas of cities
of different sizes (in units of persons/km2) 110
4.2 Ratio of land-sale income to regional government’s
fiscal revenue and extra-budgetary revenue 115
Illustrations xiii
4.3 Population growth and area expansion of cities of
different sizes (1981–2008) 121
4.4 Development of China’s top 10 mega-cities in 1981–2008 123
4.5 Development of China’s county cities and administrative
towns (1981–2008) 125
4.6 Development of China’s three major city clusters (2006) 138
5.1 Scale of inter-regional flow of rural migrant workers
2000–2006 148
5.2 Employment-absorbing capacities of cities: jobs created
per 10,000-yuan GDP 157
5.3 Change in regional distribution of primary, secondary
and tertiary industries (%) 163
6.1 China’s urban compulsory education development 178
6.2 Numbers of China’s urban residents receiving
allowance and relief 184
6.3 Urban nursing and help institutions in China 186
8.1 China’s waste-water discharge 225
8.2 China’s emission of main air pollutants in recent years
(in units of 10,000 tons) 227
8.3 World Bank forecast of China’s production of urban solid
wastes 229
9.1 Source and composition of China’s city maintenance and
construction fund in 2008 255
A19.1 Urban population change in France (1968–1999) 315
Figures
1.1 Urbanization and human development index 6
1.2 Economic densities in Japan 7
1.3a Urbanization and education 8
1.3b Urbanization and average life expectancy 8
1.4 Level and number of China’s cities 15
1.5 Map of structural distribution of grades and scales of
urban populations 16
1.6 China’s provincial urbanization rates in 2008 18
1.7 China’s provincial urbanization rates and human development
indices in 2008 18
1.8 Relationship between urbanization and GDP growth 19
1.9 Urbanization rate and urban-rural income gap 20
1.10 Urbanization rates and urban:rural ratios of health and
technical personnel per 1000 people 21
1.11 Urbanization rates and medical and health service
popularization 22
1.12 Population’s urbanization rate and de-agriculturalization rate 23
3.1 Average expansion speeds of cities in different scales 93
3.2 Classification and functions of main functional regions 99
xiv Illustrations
4.1 Population-density change of China’s cities 111
4.2 Population-density change of China’s county cities and
administrative towns 112
4.3 Urban population-density change when rural migrant
workers are included 113
4.4 Change of numbers of prefecture-level and
county-level cities 120
4.5 Growth of population and built-up area of cities of different
sizes (1981–2008) 121
4.6 Population and population growth of cities of different
population sizes in OECD countries (1995–2005) 124
4.7 Gross regional product of China’s Counties in 2007
(in units 100 million yuan) 129
5.1 Total amount of urban employment and its ratio
to total employment 149
5.2 Statistics and estimates of surveyed urban unemployment
rate and labor participation rate 150
5.3 Types of unemployment and change along with
deepening reform 152
5.4 Quantitative change in China’s labour-age population,
1950–2050 155
5.5 Employment ratio of high-end service industries and
urban development 159
5.6 Urban employment distribution in 2007 160
5.7 Diversification and specialization of urban employment,
2007 162
5.8 Provincial urbanization rate and per capita R&D spending 168
5.9 Provincial urbanization rate and patent possession for
per 10,000 people 168
7.1 Road efficiency disparity of world’s main cities 202
7.2 Minimum funding demand of future urban infrastructure
construction (unit: 100 million yuan) 205
7.3 GDP and urban infrastructure investment, 2010–2020 206
8.1 Comparison of carbon dioxide emission between China’s
industrial sectors 230
8.2 Carbon dioxide emissions of China’s main
industrial sectors 231
8.3 China’s growing environmental control investment 232
9.1 Process of participatory budgeting in Wuxi and Harbin 250
9.2 Change of ratios of regional fiscal revenue and expenditure
1978–2006 256
A19.1 World urban population growth since the Industrial Revolution 310
Project team
Advisors
Wang Mengkui Former President of the Development Research Center of
the State Council and Chairman of the Executive Board of
the China Development Research Foundation
Chen Yuan Chairman of the Board of Directors of the China
Development Bank
Project Coordinator
Lu Mai Secretary-General and Research Fellow of the China
Development Research Foundation
Project Leader
Tang Min Deputy Secretary-General of the China Development
Research Foundation
Authors of Main Report

Yang Weimin Secretary-General of the National Development and Reform
Commission
Cai Fang President of the Institute of Population and Labor Economics
of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
Authors of Background Reports

Han Jun Head of the Rural Economic Research Department of the
Development Research Center of the State Council
Gu Chaolin Professor in the School of Urban Planning and Design of
Tsinghua University
Liu Jingsheng Managing Director of the China International Capital
Corporation Limited
xvi Project team
Li Shantong Research Fellow of the Development Research Center of
the State Council
Zhang Zengxiang Deputy Director of the Center for Resource and
Environmental Remote Sensing Applications of the Institute
of Remote Sensing Applications of the Chinese Academy of
Social Sciences
Liu Shouying Research Fellow of the Rural Economic Research
Department of the Development Research Center of the
State Council
Liu Minquan Professor in the School of Economics of Peking University
Chen Huai Director of Policy Research Center of the Ministry of
Housing and Urban–Rural Development
Wang Yanzhong President of the Institute of Labor and Social Security of the
Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
Pan Jiahua Director of the Center for Urban Development and
Environment of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
Li Shi Professor in the College of Economic and Business
Administration of Beijing Normal University
Qiu Xiuhu Section Chief of the Development Planning Department of
the National Development and Reform Commission
Du Yang Research Fellow of the Institute of Population and Labor
Economics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
Ye Xiafei Professor at Tongji University
Pu Zhan Associate Research Fellow of the Policy Research Center of
the Ministry of Housing and Urban–Rural Development
Wang Meiyan Associate Research Fellow of the Institute of Population
and Labor Economics of the Chinese Academy of Social
Sciences
Li Ming Senior Manager of the Strategic Research Department of
the China International Capital Corporation Limited
Ji Xi Research Fellow of the Center for Economic and Human
Development Research of the School of Economics of
Peking University
Yang Hao Manager of the Strategic Research Department of the China
International Capital Corporation Limited
Du Zhixin Project Director of the China Development Research
Foundation
Yu Jiantuo Project Director of the China Development Research
Foundation
Project Officer
Du Zhixin Project Director of the China Development Research Foundation
Preface I
Urbanization has been a major force behind economic growth in China in recent
years and will continue to be a driving force for the foreseeable future. For the
next decade or two, and even beyond, urbanization will be providing enormous
room for economic development. Understanding China therefore means under-
standing how the country is urbanizing: how that occurred in the past, how it is
happening now, and what the country’s policy options and tasks are as it moves
forward.
[Note: The term used here for ‘urbanization’ is cheng shi hua, as disting-
uished from the ‘old form of urbanization’, which was cheng zhen hua. See
Appendix 18.]
China has 1.3 billion people, more than half of whom still live in rural areas.
Although the country has made great progress, it is still ‘developing’ and indeed
faces pronounced problems of uneven, uncoordinated, and unsustainable devel-
opment. China’s urbanization faces challenges that are unprecedented in the
world when one takes into account the size of the population and the complexities
involved. Just one facet of China’s reality should suffice to describe the chal-
lenge: within the next 10–20 years, the size of the rural population that China
must ‘shift’ to urban areas in the course of urbanization and industrialization
exceeds the population of any single country in the world, with the exception of
India, and possibly the USA.
Pursuing a sound process of urbanization will necessarily involve the conscien-
tious study of the experience of other countries. At the same time, it must be
based on the actual situation in China at this stage in the country’s development.
It must be based on policies and development strategies that are feasible and that
employ creative approaches to China’s specific conditions. For that reason, our
task now is to sum up our actual experience of urbanization to date, and to
research and discuss both theoretical and policy issues relating to urbanization in
the future.
This comprehensive Report incorporates the latest findings and information on
the process of China’s urbanization. It is the culmination of a major research
effort organized by the China Development Research Foundation. It presents both
theoretical analysis and policy recommendations, and is intended to serve as an
xviii Preface I
aid in both policy formulation and academic discourse. We hope it will be useful
to all those who seek to understand the ‘modernization’ of contemporary China.
Wang Mengkui
Chairman of the Executive Board of the China
Development Research Foundation
and
Former President of the State Council’s
Development Research Centre
3 September 2010
Preface II
Advancing the process of urbanization is a necessary part of furthering China’s

social and economic development. ‘Urbanization’ symbolizes how civilizations
progress in general, but it also serves as the concentrated expression of a coun-
try’s overall strength and international competitiveness. In modern societies,
urbanization lies at the heart of social and economic development. All national
governments now find that a key part of their mission is to nurture and improve
the competitiveness of their cities. China, at this specific stage in building up the
country, recognizes the way in which urbanization has a unique and substantive
role to play in development. Urbanization is an important engine of socioeco-
nomic growth within the country itself, but is also highly significant in terms of
global economic development.
It is a great honor for the China Development Bank to be participating as a
leading partner in the publication of this China Development Report 2010.
Organized and prepared by the China Development Research Foundation, the
Report presents in vivid fashion the importance and the orientation of China’s
future urbanization. It calls for a ‘strategy for a new form of urbanization that
enhances the overall development of human beings’. As such, the Report is
thought-provoking and forward-thinking in its approach. The approach is built on
a solid foundation of research that has been conducted by highly regarded author-
ities, organized into teams by subject areas. While also drawing on international
experience, their research has explored the applicability of all aspects, features,
and objectives of ‘urbanization’ to China’s specific circumstances.
The result is a tool that is both highly readable and very powerful in helping
formulate policy. It consolidates the latest research results from many spheres,
including urban economics, planning, environmental study, sociology, and public
administration and governance.
The China Development Bank is the primary financial institution involved in
financing China’s medium- and long-term development. We regard as key
responsibilities the policy goals of ‘establishing a moderately prosperous society
in an all-round way’ and ‘promoting urban development in a scientific way’.
Since the Bank was founded, it has played a major role in advancing the building
of the country’s infrastructure and supporting its ‘foundation industries’ and ‘pillar
industries’, as well as attending to the ‘people’s livelihood’ and to international
xx Preface II
cooperation. At the same time, the Bank is proud of its remarkable market
performance.
An important component of the work of the Bank involves cooperating in
research on major issues to do with national development. As a wholly state-
owned bank, we also regard such cooperation as an expression of the Bank’s
sense of social responsibility. In 2007 and 2010, the Bank engaged in very fruit-
ful cooperation with the China Development Research Foundation on issues of
‘anti-poverty’ and ‘urbanization’. In addition to providing useful research results
to relevant government departments within China, the process influenced interna-
tional scholarship on the subject in a very positive way. With the publication of
this current report, I would like to express not only my congratulations but also
the hope that the research results will be fully employed in actual practice.
Chen Yuan
Chairman of the Board of Directors
China Development Bank
2 August 2010
Acknowledgements
After a year and a half of concerted effort, the China Development Report 2010
can finally be presented to its audience. This year’s Report has chosen to focus
on the topic of ‘China’s urbanization’ for the reason that this subject is of imme-
diate but also ultimate significance to China. Urbanization has not only propelled
rapid economic growth in the country and profoundly changed its social and
economic structures in the process, but also affected the course of development
in the rest of the world.
After experiencing the impact of the global financial crisis, people in China are
fully aware of the significance of urbanization in general, but fierce debate
continues as to how to accomplish it and what kind of urbanization it should be.
The title of this Report is Strategy for a ‘New Style of Urbanization that Enhances
Human Development’. The aim is to emphasize that, while land, water, financing,
and basic infrastructure are important, at the end of the day, ‘urbanization’ relates
to human beings. Most importantly, it relates to those people who are newly
coming into cities, and specifically to the provision of public services for rural
migrant workers.
This Report combines theory and practice with respect to many aspects of this
primary subject. These include turning rural migrant workers into ‘urban citi-
zens’, evaluating the spatial configuration of cities and the main forms that
urbanization might assume, evaluating industries and employment, the provision
of public services, the ‘greening’ of urban areas, and effective ways to manage
and govern urban areas. We hope that the Report will make a definite contribution
to both academic discourse and the formulation of policy.
The smooth completion of this Report is due to the hard work put in by all
members of the core team as well as the strong support of many outside authori-
ties and entities. The two authors of the main part of the Report are Yang
Weimin, Secretary-General of the National Development and Reform
Commission, and Cai Fang, President of the Institute of Population and Labor
Economics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. The depth of their
professional knowledge and experience in this field, their hard work, and their
extensive experience in the actual practice of policy formulation, provided a firm
basis for successfully completing the Report.
xxii Acknowledgements
Wang Mengkui, former President of the Development Research Center of the
State Council and Chairman of the Executive Board of the China Development
Research Foundation, carefully read the entire text of the Report four times and
offered important guidance. As Project Leader, Tang Min, Secretary-General of
the Foundation, was thoroughly engaged in the drafting and editing of the differ-
ent sections of the text.
This Report also represents the crystallization of the cooperative efforts of people
from many disciplines. The China Development Research Foundation asked schol-
ars from a number of government departments and academic institutions to prepare
17 Background Reports as part of the preparatory process. Much of the informa-
tion, analysis, and recommendations from these reports has been incorporated into
this master Report. The Background Reports and their authors are as follows:
• Liu Minquan and Ji Xi: Theories of Urbanization and Human Development

• Li Shantong: The Impact of Urbanization on Economic Growth
• Gu Chaolin: The International Experience of Urbanization, Including
Policies and Trends
• Gu Chaolin: Spatial Configuration of Urbanization in China, and Determining
Mechanisms
• Zhang Zengxiang: Report on Monitoring of China’s Cities through Remote
Sensing
• Han Jun: Turning Rural Migrant Workers into Legitimate Urban Residents:
Current Status and Future Prospects, Including Policy Options
• Liu Shouying and Liao Bingguang: The Urbanization of Land: Moving from
a ‘Sprawl’ Mode to More Rational Growth
• Yue Xiuhu: Urbanization in China as Seen from the Perspective of Human
Development: A Review of Events to Date and Discussion of Challenges
Ahead
• Du Yang and Wang Meiyan: People, Industrial Development and Jobs in the
Course of Urbanization
• Wang Yanzhong: Improving Social Welfare Systems in the Course of
Establishing China’s ‘New Form’ of Urbanization
• Chen Huai and Pu Zhan: Improving Urban Housing Systems in the Course
of Urbanization
• Liu Jingsheng, Li Ming, and Yang Hao: Meeting the Challenge of Building
Urban Infrastructure That Is Going to Cost Some RMB 18 Trillion
• Pan Jiahua: Creating a Habitable Urban Environment.
• Ye Xiafei: Creating Rail Transport Systems That Enable Urban Development
• Li Shi: 2010 China Human Development Index
• Du Zhixin: China’s Strategy for a ‘New Form’ of Urbanization, and a
Comparative Analysis of China, Japan and South Korea
• Yu Jiantuo: The International Experience with Respect to Urbanization
The above authors of Background Reports also participated in discussions at

various stages of the project, and provided invaluable comments and advice.
Acknowledgements xxiii
In August 2009, the Project Team conducted field investigations in order to
gain a more accurate grasp of the problems and processes accompanying China’s
rapid urbanization. The first was in Guangzhou and the second in Chongqing, and
the municipal governments of those two cities provided strong support to the
project. In addition, three other municipalities provided the Team with their
assessments of the actual costs of transforming ‘rural migrant workers’ into
‘urban citizens’. Those three were Wuxi in Jiangsu Province, Shuangyashan in
Heilongjiang Province, and Yantai in Shandong Province.
A number of other authorities within China also participated in the discussions
at various points and provided very valuable and constructive ideas and recom-
mendations. Among others, these included Lu Dadao, Lu Xueyi, Zhao Renwei,
Niu Fengrui, Li Tie, Wang Xiaolu, Han Wensiu, He Yupeng, Mao Qizhi, Huang
Luxin, Ni Pengfei, Feng, Changchun, Ye Jianping, Lu Ping, Zhang Wenzhong,
Fang Chuanglin, Xie Yang, Lu Fengyong, Shen Bing, Wang Zeying, and Wang
Xiaoming.
In order to draw on the experience of countries within the OECD with respect
to urbanization, the Foundation invited the OECD to write a study on Urbanization
Trends and Policies in OECD Countries. This was the first time the Foundation
had ever invited an international organization to contribute a Background Report
to its annual China Development Report. The team preparing the study was led
by Ms Lamia Kamal-Chaoui, Head of the Urban Development Programme of the
OECD. The Background Report was jointly prepared by Javier Sanchez-Reaza,
Tadashi Matsumuto, Olaf Merk, Daniel Sanchez-Serra, Mario Piacentini, Alexis
Robert, Dorothee Allain-Dupre, Michael Donovan, Wang Xiao, and Kasuko
Ishigaki. It provided large amounts of information on the latest trends in urbaniza-
tion in OECD countries, as well as information on the actual practice of formulat-
ing policy. Much of the useful experience as described in this Background Report
has been incorporated into the China Development Report 2010.
On 26 June 2009, the Project Team held a forum on ‘China’s Urbanization’
with OECD representatives. On this occasion, a number of authorities provided
critiques and described the OECD experience, including Mark Drabenstott,
Federica Bussillo, Jeong Ho Moon, Marco R. Tommaso, Lamia Kamal-Chaoui,
and Olaf Merk. Irene Hors did a tremendous amount of work in coordinating the
proceedings, culminating in a very successful cooperation. In addition, Professor
Dwight Perkins and Professor Alan Altshuler of Harvard University in the USA
offered constructive opinions on the Report.
The China Development Research Foundation assumed all responsibility for
organizing the actual work of preparing the Report. Du Zhixin, Yu Jiantuo, and
Du Jing did a wonderful job not only of organizing but also of assembling mate-
rials, conducting supplementary research, and editing.
The China Development Bank provided generous funding for this project. In
addition, starting in 2008, the China Development Research Foundation estab-
lished a ‘China Policy Research Fund’ in order to support its annual Reports
and associated research. The Starr Foundation in the USA and the Vodafone
Group provided strong financial support for the fund in the years 2009 and 2010.
xxiv Acknowledgements
The company GTZ in Germany provided enthusiastic funding for the English
publication of this Report.
On behalf of the China Development Research Foundation, I wish to take this
opportunity to express appreciation to all members of the Project Team and all
the individuals and organizations involved in bringing this Report to successful
completion!
Lu Mai
Secretary-General
China Development Research Foundation
25 August 2010
Introduction
More than 2000 years ago, Aristotle is said to have noted that people come to
city-states in order to make a living and then stay there in order to enjoy a better
life. The ‘city-states’ of Aristotle’s day differ from today’s municipalities, and
New York may be quite different from Guiyang, but it is an indisputable fact that
more and more people around the globe are saying farewell to the countryside
and gravitating into cities.
With its 5000 years of civilization, China was one of the earliest states to
develop cities of a certain size and number. The historic cities of Chang’an,
Bianling, Luoyang, Jinling, and Beijing were among the most notable on earth for
hundreds of years. Starting in the nineteenth century, however, China’s urban
development fell behind that of the world’s advanced industrial nations.
Since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, urbanization has
passed through a somewhat erratic development process. Development was very
slow in the 30 years preceding the start of ‘opening up and reform’. In the 30
years since that process began, urbanization has been taking place at a pace that
has been unprecedented in the history of humankind. The speed with which
China is urbanizing makes it one of the fastest-urbanizing countries on the globe.
This rapid urbanization has provided a powerful impetus for China’s social and
economic development. Economies of scale in China’s cities and the ‘concentra-
tion effect’ have tremendously improved the efficiency with which resources are
allocated. They have propelled economic growth and raised people’s standard of
living. In addition, the process of urbanization has contributed to improving
public services for urban residents and to narrowing income disparities between
urban and rural areas.
Even more important, however, is that the process of urbanization has created
tremendous job opportunities. It has released hundreds of millions of Chinese
farmers from having to depend on the earth for a living, generation after genera-
tion. It has allowed them the right to live and work in urban areas. As a result,
upwards of hundreds of millions of ‘rural migrant workers’ have ‘turned their
backs to the old well and left their homeland’ to start a new chapter and try to
realize their dreams in China’s cities.1
All the products ‘made in China’ have been created through their hard work;
the splendour of China’s cities has been the result of their sweat. These people
2 China’s new urbanization strategy
are the ones who have created the extraordinary achievement of China’s
economic growth.
And yet, even in the midst of rapid urbanization, China faces unprecedented
challenges as well. Rural migrant workers may be living and working in cities,
but their children do not receive equal educational opportunities, and they them-
selves are accorded a different class of treatment when it comes to compensation,
social security, and housing. They lack such political rights as the right to vote
and the right to be elected. They exist in a kind of ‘quasi-urbanized’ status and
are unable to truly enter into urban society. Although they are physically living
in cities, modern urban life is far removed from their reality. One could say that
they already have ‘one foot over the threshold’, and yet the other remains
excluded from the benefits of urban prosperity.
Urbanization brings with it other challenges as well. Changes in how products
are produced and in how people live are leading to increased use of land for urban
purposes, increased energy consumption, environmental pollution, and climate
change. Accelerating urbanization requires ever more job positions and a chang-
ing industrial structure, which puts its own demands on China’s industrial
makeup in the future. It also may lead to a worsening of such urban syndromes
as increased traffic congestion, crime, social conflict, and urban poverty. All of
these require innovative approaches to forms of urban governance that are in
accord with China’s circumstances at this specific stage of its development.
This Report proposes a strategy for a ‘new form of urbanization’ that focuses
on enhancing human development. The strategy is grounded in the idea of ‘taking
the human being as fundamental’. It aims to promote the process of urbanization
on the basis of social fairness and equity and ‘harmonious development’. The
main features include furthering the process of turning rural migrant workers into
urban citizens in an orderly way, creating a link between ‘people’ and ‘land’ in
how land is used in urban areas, with rural migrant workers included among the
people under consideration; creating a link between ‘people’ and ‘funds’ in terms
of fiscal expenditures; making ‘urban clusters’ the primary shape or form of
urbanization; planning for a spatial configuration of urbanization in China that is
distributed along what are called the ‘two horizontal axes and three vertical axes’,
while regional characteristics and diverse industrial and employment features are
taken into account; strengthening a more equitable distribution of municipal
public services; and using innovative modes of urban management and urban
governance in order to accelerate the ‘new form’ of urbanization in China and
achieve more harmonious social development.
The most important goal of the strategy to develop a ‘new form’ of urbanization
involves promoting human development. The crux of this issue lies in transform-
ing the ‘social status’ or shenfen of several hundred million rural migrant workers.
Taking a proactive stance in turning rural migrant workers into urban citizens is
necessary in order to address urban–rural discrepancies and improve social equity.
In addition, it is through this process that China will be able to increase domestic
demand and stimulate social and economic development. ‘Promoting human
development’ must be made manifest in specific ways. All citizens must have the
Introduction 3
guarantee that they will be able to enjoy the fruits of urban development. They
must know that the development potential of each new generation will be
enhanced by the process of the country’s urbanization.
By the year 2030, China is expected to be 65 per cent ‘urbanized’, that is, its
‘level of urbanization’ should reach 65 per cent. We anticipate that the problem
of ‘quasi-urbanization’ will be resolved over the next 20 years, starting with the
beginning of the 12th Five-Year Plan. That is to say, at an average rate of 20
million people per year, within 20 years, China should resolve the issue of ‘urban
citizenship’ for some 400 million rural migrant workers. Rural migrant workers
should be able to take up true residency in cities, with all the rights that residency
entails. ‘Rural migrant workers’ should include those already in cities and those
moving into cities, and it should include family members who wish to accompany
these workers.
By 2030, all rural migrant workers living in urban areas should be receiving
the same treatment in terms of public services as those originally living in the
cities. At the same time, during this period of two decades, the country should
make every effort to improve public-service systems for all urban inhabitants. It
should create environments that are conducive to urban life; it should broaden the
range of people’s basic rights, increase participation in public affairs, and
improve the quality of urban life in general. Only when this is accomplished will
a society that has been agrarian for thousands of years give way to one that truly
represents a modern urban society.
China is in a period of very rapid urbanization. The transformation from
‘quasi-urban’ to ‘fully urban’ is a task of unprecedented significance and diffi-
culty in the history of humankind. The magnitude of China’s population and the
scarcity of the country’s resources require that the country proceed along a path
that is unique to itself. It must turn population pressure into an engine for devel-
opment and it must focus on human development as the core task, if it is to be
successful in its process of urbanization.
Note
1 The concept of rural migrant workers is related to China’s household register system and
refers to the people who have their household register in rural areas but work mainly in
non-agricultural sectors in urban areas.
1 Urbanization in China
Process, trends, and challenges
A process of ‘urbanizing’ has been going on in human societies for thousands of

years, but ‘urbanization’ in the modern sense began only with the Industrial
Revolution in the mid eighteenth century. Similarly, China has had a long history
of urban civilization, but in the modern sense urbanization began only after New
China was founded [in 1949]. Over the past 60 years, and particularly in the
period of rapid economic growth after the start of the programme of ‘reform and
opening up’, China’s level of urbanization began to increase dramatically. By
now, the process can be said to be in a middle stage of development.
The urbanization that has been accomplished to date in China, however, is
mainly represented by what can be seen in material form. It can be recognized in
such things as an increase in the number of cities, the increased amount of land
being used, the host of buildings being constructed, and so on. The kind of
urbanization that focuses on human development is still in its infancy, and this
second kind of urbanization is where the real challenges lie. It is also where China
will find the ability to increase its domestic demand and thereby drive the coun-
try’s ongoing development.
Urbanization and human development

The term ‘urbanization’ indicates the process by which a population of people
concentrates in cities. This process can be manifested in two ways: by an increase
in the number of cities and by an increase in the populations of each city
(Encyclopedia Britannica). Urbanization accompanies structural changes, namely
a decline in agricultural activities and a commensurate rise in non-agricultural
activities, and a gradual shift of the population from rural to urban areas. The
process includes further socialization, modernization, and intensification of both
the social and economic aspects of cities (Gu Chaolin, 2009).
Each step in the process of urbanization is a product of human effort and intel-
ligence. Human actions permeate every aspect of the formation, expansion, and
shaping of cities. At the same time, from the moment a city begins to form, that city
itself also begins to shape and profoundly change the ways in which human society
is organized. Cities change how goods are produced and how lives are lived.
The positive effects of urbanization
International experience indicates that urbanization is closely related to levels of
human development. Figure 1.1 is a graphical presentation of the positive correla-
tion between a human-development index and rates of urbanization in 171 coun-
tries and regions around the world.
Among 78 countries that are considered to be more highly developed (in which
the human-development index is 0.8 or higher), 72 have an urbanization rate that
is more than 50 per cent. Only one-tenth of these more highly developed coun-
tries have an urbanization rate of less than 50 per cent. Of the 77 countries and
regions that have an even greater urbanization rate of more than 60 per cent, only
two are low to middling in terms of development, with a human-development
index of less than 0.8.
Urbanization is a major driving force behind modern economies. Urban
concentrations of people have a pronounced effect on economies of scale, which
dramatically reduce the average per capita investment and the marginal invest-
ment required of both individuals and the public in any given activity. Urban
concentrations create larger markets and higher profit margins. As both human
populations and economic activities concentrate in cities, market demand rises
swiftly and also diversifies, spurring a division of labor and specialization that
again improves economic efficiencies (World Bank, 2009).
With the ongoing globalization of economies, many industries and activities
are increasingly dependent on cities for growth and expansion. Vital urban contribu-
tions include such things as research and development, modern service industries,
1.00
0.90
Human development index in 2007
0.80
0.70
0.60
0.50
0.40
0.30
0.00 20.00 40.00 60.00 80.00 100.00
Urbanization rate in 2005 (%)
Figure 1.1 Urbanization and human development index.

Source: UNDP: Human Development Report 2007/08 (2009).
Urbanization in China 7
finance and insurance industries, and information and computer services industries.
Moreover, higher returns on urban industries attract more investment, technol-
ogy, and human talent, which stimulates new technical innovations and transfers.
This in turn stimulates the formation of whole new industries, making cities the
most dynamic zones of activity in modern economies (OECD, 2010).
One can see at a glance the impact that concentrating populations has on
economic growth by looking at a map that compares the economic densities of
urban areas.1 Figure 1.2 shows the economic densities of various regions in
Japan. The cities of Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya have the largest populations in
the country and their economic output per square kilometer is also greatest. A
similar pattern applies in other industrialized countries around the world, includ-
ing the USA (World Bank, 2009).
Urbanization contributes to more widespread application of public services, as
well as to improved quality of those services. As a result, it contributes to better
levels of education and good health. Average costs of providing basic public-
service infrastructure, education, medical and healthcare services and so on are
dramatically reduced by having populations concentrated in cities. The quality of
such services is also clearly improved over what is found in rural areas. This is
due not only to a better economic base in urban areas, but also because such areas
concentrate superior human resources.
Figure 1.2 Economic densities in Japan.

Source: World Bank: World Development Report 2009.
Composite enrolment rate (%) 120.00
100.00
80.00
60.00
40.00
20.00
0.00 20.00 40.00 60.00 80.00 100.00
Urbanization rate (%)
Figure 1.3a Urbanization and education.
Figure 1.3a indicates that the overall enrolment rate in school rises progres-
sively with increases in the urbanization rate. Once urbanization rises above 60
per cent, only a very few countries exhibit an enrolment rate lower than 60 per
cent. Figure 1.3b indicates that life expectancy shows a similar trend. Moreover,
when the urbanization rate of a country is relatively low, the range of life
expectancy can be very large, scattered broadly between 40 and 70 years.
90.00
Average life expectancy (years)
80.00
70.00
60.00
50.00
40.00
0.00 20.00 40.00 60.00 80.00 100.00
Figure 1.3b Urbanization and average life expectancy.

Source: UNDP: Human Development Report 2007/08 (2009).
When urbanization rises above 60 per cent to 70 per cent, however, a sample of
such countries shows the average life expectancy to be confined to a band of
65–80 years. This indicates just how important urbanization is in mitigating
health risks.
Urbanization also plays a constructive role in improving governance. Once a
farming population leaves rural areas and begins to concentrate in cities, it has a
far greater opportunity to influence the conduct of government. Urbanization
shortens the distance between the government and the ‘people’. Every action
taken by government and by officials is far more susceptible to scrutiny and over-
sight. Concentration of populations contributes to greater organization and divi-
sion of labour in terms of all socialized conduct, and the ‘will of the people’
similarly is expressed with greater specificity and professional focus.
The costs of transmitting public opinion are vastly lower in cities and it
becomes easier for people to carry out collective actions in asserting their opin-
ions. Rural populations in developing countries may be larger in terms of actual
numbers, but they also face very high transaction costs when it comes to collec-
tive actions since their homes are more dispersed. As a result, farmers lack the
influence of urban people when guiding policy, even though a farming population
may be far greater in actual numbers. (Olson, 1985).
Over the long run, urbanization can contribute to improvements in social
equity and can gradually reduce disparities between urban and rural as well
as among regions. As long ago as 1776, Adam Smith (in Volume 3, Chapter 4
of The Wealth of Nations) made a penetrating observation about the effect of
urban commerce on rural reform. He believed that industrial and commercial
cities provided ever greater markets for rural products, and also provided
urban markets that were more convenient to access. This spurred greater develop-
ment of land resources in rural areas. It also enabled rural areas to break through
traditional constraints, which contributed to more conscientious and better
organized governance, as well as to greater personal safety and freedom for
individuals.
Korea urbanized at a very fast pace between 1975 and 2005, during which
period the rural population declined by 76 per cent. The amount of land used in
farming also fell by 16 per cent, yet grain production rose by 61 per cent. This
can be attributed to more consolidated management of land, dramatic improve-
ment in the level of education of the rural population, the adoption of agricultural
technologies, and greater mechanization (Spencer, 2010).
Many countries experience increasing income disparities in the early period of
urbanization, but these disparities gradually decrease as urbanization continues.
Differences in urban and rural incomes, consumption, and general benefits begin
to decline. In the Philippines, for example, although the overall difference
between urban and rural incomes is still fairly large, regions with a higher level
of urbanization show a gradual income convergence between urban and rural
populations. The higher the level of urbanization of a given country, the smaller
the disparities are in such things as availability of potable drinking water and
healthcare facilities (World Bank, 2009).
The negative effects of urbanization
The positive effects of urbanization notwithstanding, a high degree of urbaniza-
tion does not necessarily signify a more advanced level of human development.
The Republic of Djibouti in Africa has an urbanization rate that actually exceeds
86 per cent, but its human development index is only around one-half of what it
is in New Zealand, a country with a comparable urbanization rate. Trinidad and
Tobago and Burundi both have urbanization rates of less than 16.5 per cent,
which is roughly equivalent to the world average back in 1900. The human
development index of Trinidad and Tobago is 0.84, however, whereas that of
Burundi is 0.4. These examples show that urbanization is not the sole factor
influencing human development (Liu Minquan and Ji Xi, 2009).
Urbanization is sometimes accomplished at the cost of unbalanced develop-
ment, and sometimes also at the cost of sacrificing the interests of certain
segments of the population.
In the course of industrializing and urbanizing, some countries achieve fast
economic growth while overlooking or failing to provide adequate public services.
They also lack rational planning mechanisms for urban development and environ-
mental protection, which then leads to an increase in urban poverty, environmental
degradation, higher incidence of contagious diseases, and more crime. In England,
for example, the terrible situation with regard to public health services in the early
period of industrialization and urbanization led to a dramatic increase in the mortal-
ity rate, to the extent that it was higher in cities than it was in rural areas (Davis,
1965). Farmers who had lost their land, and other vulnerable groups, generally were
most directly affected by urban syndromes due to their lack of any social security.
Negative aspects of urbanization are also manifested in social changes. When
farmers leave rural settings and begin to work in factories and live in cities, this
profoundly changes the entire organizational structure of society, as well as its
underlying systems. Social relationships that formerly existed are now disrupted
and the former social order disintegrates. This leads to disorientation among ‘new
urban people’ with respect to a sense of values and it can lead to aberrant behav-
ior. Social ties among people become more attenuated, to the point that confron-
tations and conflict occur more easily. Individuals in industrialized societies are
susceptible to feelings of isolation and helplessness, given the faster pace and
greater stresses of urban life, which can have a negative impact on mental health.
Crime rates and suicide rates can increase. Side-effects of urbanization in many
countries can include an increase in the numbers of people suffering from a
prevailing sense of anxiety and depression (Lin Minquan and Ji Xi, 2009).
Urban slums represent a concentrated reflection of unbalanced and unequal
development in the course of urbanization. In many cities, poverty is an unavoid-
able consequence of urbanization. According to a World Bank estimate, in 2002
there were 746 million people living in poverty in the cities of developing coun-
tries (this figure is based on the international poverty line of US$2 per day per
person) (Ravallion et al., 2007). The term given to concentrated populations
living in poverty-stricken conditions is ‘slums’, These are characterized by crowded
living conditions, a shortage of housing, a severely polluted environment, a lack
of clean drinking water and other social services, and a high incidence of crime.
These are common features of urban slums around the world, but the problems in
developing countries are more pronounced and more urgent.
The formation of slums is related to a host of economic and social factors. First
and foremost is the matter of how land is distributed and managed. In many Latin
American countries, annexation of land has caused large numbers of farmers to
lose their land, forcing them to migrate into cities as a result. Once in cities, unable
to find jobs or receive public services, they have no alternative but to assemble in
certain areas and live in crowded shacks (Gu Chaolin, 2008). Secondly, the chaotic
way in which land and housing is managed in many cities also contributes to the
development of impoverished slums. In India, most slums start out in places
where people simply occupy public land or privately-owned land.
The vast slum area next to the World Trade Tower in Mumbai, for example,
was initially the location of workers’ quarters when the workers were building the
Tower. The rent-control system of the government created a shortage of rental
housing in Mumbai, which was one of the important reasons for the spread of the
slum. It has been 15 years since the city of Mumbai built any new rental housing.
Even as seven million people are living in worsening conditions of impoverished
slums, 400,000 living units are standing empty (Yao Yang, 2007). The scale of
Mumbai’s slums also reflects the inadequacies of public policy in terms of equity
and inclusiveness. When large numbers of people who are poorly educated and
unskilled come into cities with only the most modest resources, or even when
they are utterly destitute, a swift expansion of slums is unavoidable if the govern-
ment does not provide basic education, job training, and health insurance in addi-
tion to safe drinking water and health facilities.
Looking back over the course of more than two hundred years of urbanization,
worldwide, it can be seen that the process has provided people with a tremendous
potential for overall human development. Positive aspects can include propelling
economic growth, raising people’s standard of living, broadening the provision
and quality of public services, improving social governance, narrowing dispari-
ties between urban and rural and among various regions, and so on. Nevertheless,
whether or not this potential can be turned into reality depends to a large extent
on the guidance of a country’s government and its public policies. Such policies
include those that govern land, those that determine mode of economic develop-
ment, and those that relate to the provision of public services, including employ-
ment, housing, and social security.
The experience of urbanization in China, and its main

accomplishments
Urbanization prior to the founding of New China

China’s cities are nearly as ancient as the history of China itself. Until the start of
the Industrial Revolution in the West, China’s cities generally set the record for
global urban population statistics, in each of China’s succeeding dynasties. These
cities developed under the aegis of an agrarian civilization and so occupied a
unique position in the world history of urban development. Cities in the earlier
part of China’s history were generally fairly small, but once the Qin unified the
country, social developments and the evolution of a centralized political system
led to rapid increases in the populations of important economic centers as well as
the capital cities of each dynasty.
The population of the capital of the Han dynasty, Chang’an, totalled between
400,000 and 500,000 people. By the Tang dynasty, it is estimated that the city of
Chang’an had no fewer than 800,000 people and may have contained more than
one million people at its height. During the Southern Song dynasty, the city of
Ling’an (today’s Hangzhou) contained more than 300,000 ‘households’, from
which the population can be estimated to have been around 1.5 million. During
Ming and Qing times, three cities had populations of more than one million,
namely Beijing, Nanjing, and Suzhou. In addition, more than ten regional ‘core
cities’ had populations that totaled between 500,000 and one million.
In contrast, Western cities were much smaller at the time. Until the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries, only a few cities north of the Alps had populations that
exceeded 50,000. These included Paris, Cologne, and London. The industrial and
commercial centers that were to become famous later still only had populations
on the order of twenty or thirty thousand, including Brussels, Nuremberg, Lübeck
and Strasbourg (Zhang Guanzeng, 1993). Chinese cities of this time [prior to the
Industrial Revolution], were around 20 times larger than the feudal cities of the
same period in western Europe, whether one compares only the largest cities or
the second tier of regional centers (Ma Jiwu and Yu Yunhan, 2004).
After the conclusion of the Opium War, China’s traditional industries and
mode of commerce in cities began to be bankrupted by the combined impact of
foreign capital and an industrial mode of production. Cities in the interior, in the
meantime, faced problems of inconvenient transport and unstable political condi-
tions, which often led to stagnant economies or outright decline. The population
of Xi’an in 1930, for example, was a mere 125,000 people, barely one-tenth of
what it had been during the height of the Tang dynasty. Chengdu’s population in
1930 was just 350,000, yet it had been 500,000 at the height of the Tang dynasty.
Meanwhile, such centers as Shanghai, Tianjin, and Guangzhou began to
develop into ultra-large cities of over one million people as a result of their advan-
tageous geographic conditions and the resulting commercial advantages. Generally
speaking, however, urbanization developed only slowly in China prior to the
founding of New China. This could be attributed to the slow pace of industrializa-
tion, the political turbulence, and other factors including geography and culture.
China’s urbanization rate when New China was founded in 1949 was only 10.64
per cent,2 far lower than the world average at the time, which was 28 per cent, and
also lower than the average developing country at the time, which was 16 per cent.
The process of urbanization once New China was founded
Urbanization prior to the start of reform and opening up

China’s government focused on industrial development once New China was
founded, in order to create a national economic and industrial structure that could
be relatively complete and therefore independent. The government also began the
process of urban development. The First Five-Year Plan period lasted from 1953
to 1957, during which time 156 ‘key projects’ were fully launched. This brought
large numbers of farmers into cities to work in factories and also into mining
districts. By the end of 1957, the number of cities in China had increased to a total
of 176, or 44 more than there had been in 1949. The urban population in the coun-
try had increased to 99.49 million, bringing the urbanization rate to 15.4 per cent.
The Great Leap Forward, a three-year event that began in 1958, ‘blindly’ went
after high-speed economic growth. This brought a surge of the agrarian popula-
tion into cities to ‘build up industry’, which caused an excessively rapid and
explosive style of urbanization. During the period of the Great Leap Forward,
China’s urbanization rate increased at a rate of 1.5 percentage points per year. In
1960, the urban population reached 130.73 million people, a net increase of 31.24
million over 1957, and the urbanization rate reached 19.8 per cent.
The failure of the Great Leap Forward, together with natural disasters, forced
the country to carry out adjustments to the national economy. The super-fast
increase in the urban population had clearly exceeded the capacity of grain supply
at the time. Starting in 1961, a large-scale effort began to reduce the urban popu-
lation in an attempt to mitigate famine. Urban populations were ‘mobilized’ and
returned to rural areas. The urban population was reduced by roughly 20 million
in the two years of 1961 and 1962. The urbanization rate declined from 19.8 per
cent in 1960 to 14.6 per cent in 1964. Only in 1965, by which time the national
economy had basically recovered, did it rebound to 16.8 per cent.
The Great Cultural Revolution began in 1966, again damaging a national econ-
omy that had just recovered. The urbanization rate in 1966 was 17.8 per cent and it
hovered around the same level for the next 12 years, reaching 17.9 per cent in 1978.
During this period, between 1968 and 1972, around 40 million ‘educated youth’,
cadres, and other urban dwellers were ‘sent down’ to the countryside. This was
done to resolve employment problems in cities and also for other considerations.
The process led to a successive decline in the urbanization rate over those five years.
Viewed overall, urbanization in China between the founding of the country and
the start of reform and opening up went through a circuitous process that included
speedy recovery and rapid growth and then stagnation. During this period, urban
structures also changed. Medium- and large-sized cities expanded, while
resource-based and industrially based cities were set up to integrate energy and
mineral resources. Cities were also built in what were called ‘third-line’ areas [in
the interior of the country, for strategic defense].
A household registration policy was strictly enforced, however, which limited
movement of the rural population into cities. This, in addition to an economic
policy that emphasized heavy industry, led to severely retarded levels of urbani-
zation. The ‘people’s commune’ system, and the restrictions placed on selling
agricultural goods, meant that many smaller cities and towns declined. Meanwhile,
in terms of urban construction, the bias was towards industrial building rather
than urban housing and services, so that those functions remained under-developed.
The development of service industries was grossly inadequate and many cities
had highly incomplete urban functions.
Urbanization in China once reform and opening up began
The emphasis of the work of the Party and the State again shifted toward building
up the economy [‘economic construction’] once reform and opening up began to
be implemented in 1978. Economic reforms in rural areas were highly effective
in releasing their productive capacities. What were called ‘town-and-village
enterprises’ began to flourish, which led to ferociously rapid growth of smaller
towns and villages. The ‘opening’ [or allowing] of collective markets in these
places drew in large numbers of farmers who now began to migrate toward the
cities. In addition, a series of policies that were implemented from around 1979
now permitted those ‘educated youth’ and ‘cadres’ who had been ‘sent down to
the countryside’ to return to the cities. All of these factors led to a swift rise in
urban populations.4 In the six-year period between 1978 and 1984, the cities
swelled by more than 100 million people and the urbanization rate rose at an
average annual rate of 0.85 percentage points to reach 23 per cent.
Starting in 1984, the emphasis of economic structural reform shifted from rural
to urban areas. ‘Urbanization’ now began to feature the rapid development of
coastal cities and what had been small towns. As the rural economy prospered,
the problem of what to do with an excess labour force in the countryside again
became a pressing concern.
In 1984, the State gave its approval and support to policies favouring the devel-
opment of small towns. A strategy of ‘opening up’ coastal cities was put into effect
that now established 4 ‘economic zones’ and 14 ‘open cities’. This brought substan-
tial and swift change to the growth of cities along the coast. In the decade between
1979 and 1991, a total of 286 new cities appeared in China, a number that was 4.7
times the entire number of cities created in the country prior to reform and opening
up. By 1991, the urban population had increased to 312.03 million, an increase of
80.9 per cent over 1978, and the urbanization rate had reached 26.9 per cent.
In 1992, as symbolized by the ‘inspection tour of the south’ conducted by Deng
Xiaoping, China’s reform and opening up entered a whole new phase. Since cities
occupy a core position in market economies, their standing and role in China now
came into full play. In May 1993, the State went further in ‘adjusting and improv-
ing’ the standards by which cities could be established. In that year, it approved
the declaration of 48 new cities, administered at the county level. By 1995, there
were a total of 640 ‘cities’ in the country, while the number of ‘administered towns’
had increased to 17,532. The total urban population was 351.74 million, and the
urbanization rate had risen to 29 per cent.
China’s process of urbanization entered a period of rapid growth upon moving
into the twenty-first century. The Tenth Five-Year Plan, begun in 2001, specified
that the country would be following a path of ‘coordinated development’ of large,
medium-sized, and small cities as well as smaller towns. Between 2000 and 2009,
urbanization on a nationwide basis rose from 36.2 per cent to 46.6 per cent (see
Figure 1.4.) Large urban clusters in the eastern part of the country, as well as
‘core cities’ in the middle and western parts, began to grow quickly.
Urbanization rate (%) Number of cities

50 1000
Urbanization
rage (%) Number of cities
40 800
First
Second stage Third stage
stage
30 600
Fourth
stage
20 400
10 200
0 0
1949 1959 1969 1979 1989 1999 2009
Figure 1.4 Level and number of China’s cities.

Source: Li Shantong and Xu Zhaoyuan: Options for China’s Urbanization Road, China 2020:
Development Goals and Policy Options. China Development Publishing House, 2008.
Specific features of the process of urbanization in China
Scale and speed of growth

The process is characterized by large-scale, high-speed, growth. In the 30 years
since the beginning of reform and opening up, China’s scale of urbanization has
risen dramatically, with the urban population increasing to 607 million people.
Urbanization has increased at an annual rate of 0.9 per cent, making China one of
the most rapidly urbanizing countries in the world. China’s urbanization is in fact
an event of epic proportions, a human migration of enormous magnitude. The
flow of several hundred million rural residents from countryside to cities is
unprecedented in the world.
Population distribution
The process is also characterized by having a population distribution that is ‘large
at both ends and small in the middle’. China’s urban system is in the early stages
of forming a structure that has ‘extra-large cities’ as the main component, with
medium-sized and smaller cities as well as smaller towns as the ‘foundation’.
(See Figure 1.5.) At the end of 2007, there were 140 ‘extra-large cities’ and ‘large
cities’, the extra-large cities having populations of over one million people, and
the large cities having populations between 500,000 and one million people.
There were 232 medium-sized cities with populations between 200,000
Ultra-large city
Large city
Medium-sized city
Small city
South China
Sea Islands
Figure 1.5 Map of structural distribution of grades and scales of urban populations.
Source: Gu Chaolin: Background Report, 2009.
and 500,000. There were 283 small-sized cities with populations under 200,000,
and there were 19,234 ‘small towns’ that are now termed ‘towns that have set up
administrative systems’, referred to below as ‘administered towns’.
In terms of the distribution of China’s urban population, it can be seen that
there are more people in extra-large cities and small towns, and relatively fewer
in medium-sized and small cities. Two metrics can be used to measure the size of
China’s urban population. One is a looser measure of ‘urban populations in
general’, which includes the number of people in all cities as well as administered
towns. The other is a stricter measure of just the ‘urban’ populations living in the
655 ‘cities’. Using the looser measure, there are just 316 million people living in
the 655 cities, while a total number of 268 million people reside in county-level
cities and administered towns. People living in county-level cities and adminis-
tered towns therefore comprise 45 per cent of the total urban population of some
600 million.
Using the tighter metric, which adds up to a total urban population of 360
million, 47 per cent of the urban population live in extra-large cities that exceed
one million people. An additional 17.7 per cent live in large cities that encompass
more than 500,000 people. Added together, these two come to 65 per cent of the
urban population of 360 million people. (See Table 1.1.)
Table 1.1 Population distribution in cities of different sizes (2007)
City scale Number of Urban non-agricultural population
administrative cities
Number Ratio Population Ratio Average
(per cent) size (10,000 (per cent) size (10,000
people) people)
>1,000,000 58 8.85 14,830.12 46.93 255.69

500,000~1,000,000 82 12.52 5,601.53 17.73 68.31
200,000~500,000 232 35.42 7,410.09 23.45 31.94
<200,000 283 43.21 3,760.12 11.90 13.29
Total 655 100 31,601.86 100.00 48.25
Note: Gu Chaolin: Background Report 2009; data originate from the urban-rural planning department
of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development: China’s Cities and Population Statistical
Data in 2007.
Regional distribution of population

China’s urbanization is characterized by having a highly uneven regional distribu-
tion of population. Figure 1.6 shows the regional disparities in population in the
country in the year 2008. Seen in overall terms, the urbanization rate becomes
progressively less as one views the country from east to west. The three centrally
administered cities of Shanghai, Beijing, and Tianjin rank as the top three in the
country, with urbanization rates of 88 per cent, 85 per cent, and 77 per cent respec-
tively. The regions that contain the fourth- to tenth-highest rates of urbanization
are: Guangdong, Liaoning, Zhejiang, Heilongjiang, Jiangsu, Jilin, and Inner
Mongolia. All of these are in the eastern or northeastern part of the country, with
the exception of Inner Mongolia, which is considered to be in the ‘western region’.
Using a simple average, the urbanization rate of the top ten regions in the
country comes to 64.64 per cent (which does not take into consideration regional
differences). The bottom ten regions, those that rank last in terms of ‘urbanization’,
show a markedly lower rate of merely 34.95 per cent. These include Qinghai, Anhui,
Xinjiang, Guangxi, Sichuan, Henan, Yunnan, Gansu, Guizhou, and Tibet (Gu
Chaolin, Background Report, 2009).
Social and economic development

Urbanization in China is providing an extremely powerful engine for driving
social and economic development.
To a large extent, the fast pace of social and economic development in China
since the start of reform and opening up can be attributed to the speed with
which industrialization and urbanization are proceeding in the country. Figure 1.7
shows the positive correlation between urbanization rates in all provinces of the
country and the ‘human development index’. The higher the level of urbanization
100
Regional urbanization rates (%)
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Shanghai
Beijing
Tianjin
Guangdong
Liaoning
Zhejiang
Heilongjiang
Jiangsu
Jilin
Inner Mongolia
Chongqing
Fujian
Hainan
Shandong
National
Hubei
Shanxi
Ningxia
Hunan
Shaanxi
Hebei
Jiangxi
Qinghai
Anhui
Xinjiang
Guangxi
Sichuan
Henan
Yunnan
Gansu
Guizhou
Tibet
Figure 1.6 China’s provincial urbanization rates in 2008.
Source: China Statistical Yearbook 2009.
0.95
0.90
Human development index
0.85
0.80
0.75
0.70
0.65
20.00 40.00 60.00 80.00
Figure 1.7 China’s provincial urbanization rates and human development indices in 2008.
Source: The data about urbanization rates originate from the China Statistical Yearbook
2009, while the data about human development were produced by Li Shi for this report.
50 20000
45 Urbanization Per capita 18000

rate (%) GDP (yuan)
40 16000
35 14000
30 12000
25 10000
20 8000
15 6000
10 4000
5 2000
0 0
78
80
82
84
86
88
90
92
94
96
98
00
02
04
06
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
20
20
20
20
Figure 1.8 Relationship between urbanization and GDP growth.
Source: China Statistical Yearbooks.
in a given province, the more notable its accomplishments in terms of human

development.
The role that urbanization plays in spurring human development relates not
merely to the way in which it drives economic growth but also to the way it leads
to improved basic public services and to reducing disparities between urban and
rural within any given region.
Urbanization has brought with it rapid economic growth. Indeed, the speed of
economic growth since the start of reform and opening up has been closely allied
with the whole process of urbanization (see Figure 1.8). The ‘concentration effect’
of cities, combined with economies of scale, has had a powerfully stimulating
effect on the economy. In the first place, urbanization has made a massive contri-
bution to improving the efficiency with which resources are utilized. It has led to
efficiencies in how land is used, including land for production, land for housing,
and land for other facilities. It has enabled public use of basic infrastructure and
improved the ‘public usage rate’ and ‘comprehensive usage rate’ of public services.
It has enabled pollution-control efforts to be more concentrated, thereby reducing
costs, raising efficiencies, and improving levels of pollution-control results.
In the second place, urbanization has generated a huge amount of consumption
and investment demand, which has propelled economic growth. Rural labor has
migrated into cities in large numbers, with a corresponding increase in consumer
demand. For every 1 per cent increase in the number of people migrating from
rural areas into cities, China’s total personal consumption goes up by between
0.19 and 0.34 percentage points (Cai Fang, 2006). Statistics indicate that expen-
ditures on personal consumption on average in China in 2008 came to RMB 3661.
Random-sample surveys show that average annual consumption in county-level
cities came to RMB 8869, while average personal consumption in 36 large and
medium-sized cities came to RMB 14,326.
At the same time, an increase in urban populations requires a corresponding
increase in investment for municipal infrastructure and urban housing. Investment
in real estate and basic infrastructure in urban areas has maintained rapid growth
over recent years in China, which has played a major role in ‘pulling forth’
economic growth. The virtuous cycle [or positive reinforcement] created by this
kind of consumption and investment provides a very powerful inherent impetus
for economic growth.
In addition, urbanization has been furthering the process of economic restruc-
turing. Rural labour, once employed in low-efficiency primary-industry occupa-
tions, has now shifted to secondary- and tertiary-industry occupations, which in
turn has also stimulated economic growth. The results of World Bank research
indicate that this shift in the labor force may account for as much as 16 per cent
of China’s GDP growth. (World Bank, 1998). Some Chinese scholars feel that
the shift in the labor force may be contributing as much as 20 per cent to GDP
growth every year. (Cai Fang and Wang Dewen, 1999).
Urbanization has played a positive role in reducing development disparities
between urban and rural populations in China. Since the start of reform and open-
ing up, income disparities have maintained a constantly increasing trend overall,
but on a provincial level we can see that those provinces with a higher degree of
urbanization are those that have smaller income disparities between rural and
urban areas. Figure 1.9 shows the relationship between income disparities in
provinces and urbanization. The higher the level of urbanization, the smaller the
4.50
Intra-provincial urban-rural income ratio
4.00
3.50
3.00
2.50
2.00
20.00 40.00 60.00 80.00
Figure 1.9 Urbanization rate and urban-rural income gap.

Source: The data about urban and rural per capita incomes originate from the China
Statistical Yearbook 2009 and the data about human development were produced by Li Shi
for this report.
25.00
Urban-rural ratios of health and technical personnel
20.00
for per 1000 people
15.00
10.00
5.00
0.00
20.00 40.00 60.00 80.00
Figure 1.10 Urbanization rates and urban:rural ratios of health and technical personnel
per 1000 people.
Source: The data about the urban:rural ratio of health and technical personnel per 1000
people originate from the China Health Statistical Yearbook 2007, and the data about
urbanization rates originate from the China Statistical Yearbook 2008.
contrast between urban and rural incomes. This finding is consistent with World
Bank conclusions on the subject as well (World Bank, 2009). At a time when China
is putting considerable effort into narrowing income disparities, speeding up the
process of urbanization provides greater room for different kinds of policy options.
The role of urbanization in reducing development disparities can be seen not
only in terms of income but also in terms of public services. Figure 1.10 shows
the relationship between urbanization and the number of health and technical
personnel per thousand people in various provinces. It can be seen that the greater
the degree of urbanization in a region, the lower the differential between health
personnel in urban and rural areas.
Urbanization has proved helpful in spurring an improvement in China’s basic
public services. Government departments in cities have a better economic base
and more access to high-quality human resources. This, plus the fact that policies
have favored cities for a long time, means that public services enjoy a clear advan-
tage in cities, as opposed to rural areas. This holds true in both quantitative as well
as qualitative terms. Many public services and products share the nature of ‘public
goods’ to a certain degree, which means that the concentration of people in any
given place enables more individuals to enjoy the benefits of public services.
Healthcare services in 2008 can serve as an example. The higher the level of
urbanization in a given region, the more healthcare personnel are available to attend
to every 10,000 people (see Figure 1.11). In Shanghai, which has the highest
120.00
Number of health and technical personnel for
100.00
per 10,000 personnel
80.00
60.00
40.00
20.00
20.00 40.00 60.00 80.00
Figure 1.11 Urbanization rates and medical and health service popularization.
Source: China Statistical Yearbook 2009.
urbanization rate in the country (approaching 90 per cent), there are 86 healthcare
personnel available for every 10,000 people. In contrast, Guizhou, which has an
urbanization rate of less than 30 per cent, has only 28 per 10,000 people.
Challenges facing urbanization
The problem of ‘quasi-urbanization’

By the metric by which we currently measure urbanization statistics, urbanization
since the start of reform and opening up has been happening very quickly. Many
rural migrant workers are included in these statistics as urbanites, however, since
they have worked and lived within cities for a long time. At the same time, they
and their families fail to enjoy the public benefits and political rights that are
associated with urban household-registration status.
This is demonstrated in two primary ways. First, the way we currently account
for urban residents in our statistics is to say that anyone who has lived in a city
for more than six months is considered part of the ‘urban population’. Rural
migrant workers who live in cities for more than six months are therefore ‘urban
people’, which means that rural migrant workers now constitute 26 per cent of
China’s total urban population.
Under China’s current governing system, however, while these people are
indeed living and working in cities, they are not allowed to receive the same treat-
ment as ‘regular urban people’ in terms of workers’ compensation, their chil-
dren’s education, social security, housing, and so on. They do not have political
rights, such as being entitled to vote or to be elected to office themselves, and
they are in fact far from truly being absorbed into urban society.
Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
I fear Jeanie cried most of that journey home. But I, as is the way
of man, was happy.
We got back to Knoxville in the early morning. They did not wish
me to go home with them from the station; so I put them in a
carriage, and sat upon the box. We drove up to the piazza of the little
house upon which sat a man in a black frock-coat, smoking a cigar.
He threw it away, and took off his hat to the ladies. We both assisted
them out; and Jeanie ran quickly into the house, Mrs. Judge
Pennoyer following. I paid the carriage, and it drove away.
“Now, sir,” said Mr. Kirk Bruce.
“Now, sir,” said I.
“I will request you, sir, for to give me that ring that is on your
finger.”
“That ring does not belong to me.”
“That is why, sir, I ask you as a gentleman, fo’ to give it up.”
“That is why, sir, I am compelled as a gentleman, fo’ to refuse.”
Insults to one’s diction come next to those that touch the heart.
Mr. Bruce had me, forthwith, “covered” with his revolver.
“Are you engaged to Miss Jeanie Bruce?”
“I am not.”
“Then, sir, as a gentleman, you have no right to wear that ring.”
I had heard vague stories of firing through one’s coat pocket; and
I felt in mine for the little revolver Jeanie had given me. But the
miserable little toy was turned the wrong way, and I could not twist it
about.
“He is engaged to me—he is,” cried Jeanie, bursting out from the
front door. “He asked me on the train.”
“And you refused me,” I said, turning my eyes for one moment
away from Bruce to look at her.
“I did not—I only——”
How it happened, I do not know; but at that instant the
confounded revolver went off in my pocket. With a cry, Jeanie threw
up her arms and fell upon the floor of the piazza. Bruce and I were at
her feet instantly. Mrs. Pennoyer rushed out. The neighbors rushed
across from over the way.
“Is she killed?” said Bruce and I, together.
As we spoke Jeanie made a dart, and picking up Bruce’s
revolver, which he had dropped upon the grass, threw it over a high
board fence into the neighboring lot. Then turning, “Give me your
ring,” said she.
I gave it to her.
“And now,” she said, replacing it on another finger, “Cousin Kirk,
let me introduce to you the gentleman to whom I am to be married—
Mr. Higginbotham, of Boston.”
“Salem,” I corrected, in a dazed way.
“Of Salem. Cousin Kirk—congratulate him.”
Cousin Kirk looked at her, at me, and at the board fence.
“As a gentleman, sir, I have no other thing to do. Of course—if my
cousin loves you—you may keep the ring. Though I must allow, sir,
you shoot rather late.”
With this one simple sarcasm he departed. Jeanie and I watched
him groping in the long grass of the next lot for his revolver and then
go slouching down the road. We turned and our eyes met. I tried to
take her hand; but suddenly her face grew scarlet. “Oh, what have I
done?” and she rushed into the house.
I went back to Salem.
I stayed there just four days. In New York I met Jerry Sullivan and
had a talk with him. He will, in future, suppress his sense of humor
when inditing telegrams.
Then I wrote and asked Jeanie if she would accept me, save at
the pistol’s mouth.
Mr. and Mrs. Raoul accompanied us on our wedding journey; and
we were married at White Sulphur by the genial justice de céans.
LOS CARAQUEÑOS
BEING THE LIFE HISTORY OF DON
SEBASTIAN MARQUES DEL TORRE
AND OF DOLORES, HIS WIFE,
CONDESA DE LUNA
I.
Paganism was the avowal of life; Christianity the sacrifice of it. So
the world civilized has always separated at the two diverging
roads, according as brain or blood has ruled their lives; the Turanian
races, and after them the Latins, to assert life; the Semitic races, and
after them the Teutons, to deny it. So the Church of Rome, as
nearest in time to Paganism, has been nearer the avowal of life, has
recognized, through all its inquisitions, human hearts; the Sects have
sought to stifle them; the Puritans have posed to ignore them. Thus
cruelty may be the crime of priests; hypocrisy has been the vice of
preachers.
Hence my poor friend Tetherby, spinning his affections from his
brain, tired with a mesh of head-wrought duties, died, or rather
ceased to live, of a moral heart-failure. His heart was too good to be
made out of brains alone; and his life was ended with the loss of that
girl of his—what was her name, Myra, Marcia?—born, in the
Northland, of a warmer blood, who fell a victim there, as the rose-
tree does in too cold a climate, to the creeping things of earth. Now it
happened that that same year I was told the story of Dolores,
Marquesa del Torre y Luna, almost the last of the old Spanish
nobility of Carácas, called la doña sola de la casa del Rey—as we
should say, the lonely lady of the house of the King—for she lived
there, married and widow, fifty years, and left no child to inherit the
thick-walled city house, four square about its garden, and the
provinces of coffee-trees, and, what she prized more and we prize
less, the noble blood of Torre and of Luna, now run dry.
There are two things in the little city of Carácas that go back to
the time when the Spanish empire made a simulacrum of the Roman
round the world—one is the great round-arched Spanish bridge,
spanning the deep arroyo on the mountain slope above the present
town—useless now, for the earthquake clefts are deeper on either
side than this gorge of the ancient river of the city, and have drained
its stream away—and the other this great stone fortress in the centre
of the present town, with walls eight feet thick, its windows like
tunnels cut through to the iron unglazed casement—for this was the
only house that was left standing on the evening of the great
earthquake; and so the modern city clusters timidly about it, its
houses a modest one- or double-story, and, on the clay slope where
the older city was, the cactus grows, and the zenith sun burns the
clay banks red, and the old “gold-dust road,” over the Cordillera to
the sea, now but a mule-path of scattered cobble-stone, winds lonely
and narrow across the splendid bridge, among the great fissures that
the earthquake left. And both bridge and house still bear the
sculptured blazonry, the lions and the castles, and the pious
inscription to the greater glory of the Virgin.
Carácas lies in a plain, like the Vega of Granada, only green with
palms as well as poplars; but through its rich meadows a turbid
mountain torrent runs, and south, and west, and east are mountains;
and north the mighty Silla lifts almost to the snows, half breaking the
ceaseless east wind of the sea; trade-wind, it has been called in
history; slave-wind were better. And by the little city is the palm-clad
Calvareo, the little hill gay with orchids and shaded by tree-ferns, in
whose pleasant paths the city people still take their pleasure (for the
name of Calvary but means the view, not any sadness), and took
their pleasure, eighty years since, when this story begins. And one
evening, in the early years of the century, there walked alone, or with
but a nurse for her dueña, a girl whose beauty still smiles down
through sad tradition and through evil story, to lighten the dark
streets of the old Spanish town, whose stones for many years her
feet have ceased to press. And the memory of the old Casa Rey, the
castle, all is hers; and the people of the town, the Caraqueños, still
see her lovely face at the window; first at one, and then at the other,
but mostly at the grated window in the round tower of the corner, that
projects and commands the two streets; for there her sweet, pale
face used to show itself, between the bars, and watch for the cavalry
her noble husband led, returning from the wars. For then were wars
of liberation, when freedom was fought for, not possession and
estates; and the Marquis Sebastian Ruy del Torre led in all. And
days and days she would watch for him returning, after battles won,
she sitting with her golden needle-work at the corner window, her
night-black hair against the iron bar (for there are no glass window-
panes in Carácas), her strange blue eyes still watching down the
street. So she sat there, and broidered chasuble or altar-cloth for the
holy church of Santa Maria de las Mercedes, where she prayed each
dawn and evening, yet cast her eyes down either street between
each stitch, to watch the coming of him she loved on earth. And the
people of Carácas used to gather her glances to their hearts, like
blue flowers, for of herself they saw no more than this.
But her husband, from their wedding-day, never saw her more.
For fifty years she sat at this window, working chasuble and stole,
and always, when the distant trumpet sounded, or the first gold-and-
scarlet pennon fluttered far down the street, she would drop her work
and rise. And then she would wave her hand, and her husband
would wave his hand, at the head of his column far away. This was
for the populace. But then she would go from the window; and be
seen there no more while he stayed at Carácas.... But those that
were beneath the window used to say (for the husband was too far
off then to see) that before she left the window, she would cast a
long look down the street to that distance where he rode, and those
that saw this glance say that for sweetness no eye of mortal saw its
equal, and the story is, it made little children smile, and turned old
bad men good, and even women loved her face.
Then she vanished from the tower, and they saw her no more.
During all the time that might be the Marquis’s stay, no more she
came to the window, no more to the door. State dinners were given
there in the King’s house; banquets, aye, and balls, where all that
was Castilian in Carácas came; but the custom was well known, and
no one marvelled that the châtelaine came not to meet them; the
lovely Lady Dolores, whom no one ever spoke to or saw. Some
dueña, some relation, some young niece or noble lady, cousin of
either the del Torre, was there and did the honors. And of the
Marquesa no one ever spoke, for it was understood that, though not
in a convent, she was no longer in the world—even to her husband,
it was said, at first with bated breath, then openly.
For the servants told, and the family, and it was no secret, how
days and weeks before her lord returned the lady would busy herself
with preparations. And their state suite of rooms, and their nuptial-
chamber (into which, alas! she else had never come!) were prepared
by her, and made bright and joyous with rich flowers, and sweet to
his heart by the knowledge of her presence, and the touch of her
dear hand. Then, when all was done, and one white rose from her
bosom in a single vase (and in a score of years this white rose never
failed), she darkened the rooms and left them for his coming, and
went back to her seat in the stone-floored tower room, and sat there
with her gold and silver embroidery, and so watched for him. And
while he stayed in his palace, she lived in those cold, bare rooms; for
they alone had not been changed when they were married, but had
been kept as they had been a prison, and my lady Dolores loved
them best; but she came not now to the window, lest their eyes might
meet.
II.
SoCarácas
fifty years she lived there; and that is why the old Spaniard of
still points out the house, and young men and maidens
like to make their trysting-places of its gardens, which are public and
where the band plays evenings—if that can be called trysting to our
northern notions, which is but a stolen mutual glance in passing. But
hearts are warm in Catholic Spain, and they dare not more; right
hard they throb and burn for just so much as this—aye, and break for
the lack of it. I say, fifty years—fifty years she lived there, but forty
she lived alone, for at the end of ten years he died; and the manner
of her living and his dying is what I have to tell.
But after that still forty years she lived on alone. Now she no
longer worked at the window, and she came there but rarely. It
seemed she came there for compassion, that the people, whom she
felt so loving, might see her smile. For her smile was sweet as ever,
only now it bore the peace of heaven, not the yearning love of earth.
Yet never went she out her doors. And when she died—it is only
some years since—they buried her upon Good Friday, and she
sleeps in her own church, beneath the great gold shrine she loved
and wrought for, of Mary, Mother of the Pities. And all the people of
the city saw her funeral; and there is, in the church, a picture of the
Virgin, that is really her, painted by a dying artist that had seen her
face at the window many years before.
And did they not, the Caraqueños, wonder and ask the cause of
this?—What was it?—They do not know—But did they not ask the
story of the lonely lady, so well known to them?—They asked many
years since; but soon gave over; partly that the secret was
impenetrable, partly for love of her. For they had, the poorest
peasant of them, that quick sympathy to stanch heart’s wounds that
all the conventions of the strenuous North must lack. God gives in all
things compensation; and even sins, that are not mean or selfish,
have their half atoning virtues. Their silence was soothing to her
sorrow; they never knew. But the priest?—The Church of Rome is
cruel, but it keeps its secrets. And only it and Heaven know if their
lives were one long agony of misguidance, as many lives must be on
earth—perhaps sometimes the priest-confessor may help in such
affairs; if so, God speed the Jesuits. But one thing is sure: in all their
lives, after their marriage, they never met. She died old, in gentle
silence; he still young, upon a bloody field; and now their eyes at last
met in Heaven, “her soul he knows not from her body, nor his love
from God.”
And we may, harmless, venture to tell what the people of
Carácas say—with reverent memory, and loving glances at the old
stone house; the hearts that inhabited it are cold; but its Spanish
arms above the door still last, clear-cut as on the day the pride of this
world’s life first bade the owner place them there.
III.
InonlytheoldCalvareo that evening the Doña Dolores walked alone, with
Jacinta, the black nurse; black she was called, but her hair
alone was black—blue-black; her face was of that fiery brown that
marks the Venezuelan Indian; she was not fat, as most nurses, but
stood erect, with fierce lurid eyes, her hair in two tight braids, and
was following and watching her gentle charge. Jacinta had things to
do in our story; her race has nothing of the merry sloth, the gross
animality of the negro; what things Jacinta found to do, were done.
She was scarce a dozen years older than her mistress, and her form
was still as lithe, her step as firm and quick as that of that boy of
hers, now twelve, in the military school, training under the soutane’d
Jesuits for the service of the Church—or Bolivar. And in the Calvareo
also that evening were two men—nephew and uncle, both cousins of
Dolores—and not, of course, walking with her or speaking to her,
save by reverent bows; and, on the nephew’s part at least, by looks
of fire. Yet the uncle might, perhaps, have walked with her, even in
Carácas; for he, whom men called the General, despite his prouder
titles, was not her cousin only, but her guardian.
Dolores and her maid have traversed the spiral path to the
summit of the little hill; there is a little pool and fountain that the
Moors, generations back, had taught these people’s ancestors to
build; and from a bench among the orchids and the jasmine, and the
charming amaryllis lily, standing sentry by her, like a band of
spearmen, sees Dolores the lovely valley, purple in the first shadows
of the short tropic day, and, on the southern mountain, the white
walls of the Archbishop’s new convent; to the north, and higher, the
little mountain fort guarding the road to the coast, and, as she looks,
it dips its colors to the sunset, which are the yellow and red—the
blood and gold—of Spain, and the booming of its little cannon
echoes down the valley and the Angelus replies. Then she turns,
and touches tenderly (not plucks) a marvellous lonely flower that
blooms beside her. It is the Eucharis Amazonica, the lily of the
Amazon, but known to her only as the Flor del Espiritu santo—the
flower of the Holy Ghost. One moment, it seems that she will be
disturbed. The younger man has left the older on his walk—for they
are not always together, and gossip has made him suitor for his
cousin’s hand, and he stands a moment watching her, behind a
group of tree-ferns. No lovelier a girl had surely even his eyes ever
rested on, as she sat there stilly, though her wonderful eyes were
lost to him, following the sunset. And she was the greatest heiress in
all the Spanish Main.
He might have stepped forward, into the open, to her, and no one
but Jacinta would have known. Perhaps he was about to do so; but
suddenly there appeared, on the hilltop beside them, a tall figure
dressed in a purple gown, with hood and trimmings of bright scarlet,
looking like a fuchsia flower; on his head was a little black velvet
covering shaped half like a crown. It was the young Jesuit, the
Archbishop of the Guianas. Dolores rose and kissed his hand,
bending the knee respectfully; he sat down beside her.
IV.
The Condesa de Luna, the orphan daughter of dead parents who
represented both branches of a famous old Gothic family, already
known about the capital for her beauty, was known far and wide as
the richest heiress in all Venezuela and Guiana; her prairies
stretched from the ocean to the Apure, her herds so countless that
they roamed wild upon pampas which were hers, hunted by peons
who were hers. The old stone castle with the Spanish arms was
hers, and another like it stood empty for her in far Madrid. Her
guardian, the Marquis del Torre, was a poor man beside her; and his
nephew, Don Ramon, poorer still.
Dolores was brought up as follows: At five she rose, and went,
with Jacinta, to early mass—nearly always to a different church, as is
the seemly custom in Carácas, lest young men should take
advantage of it and take position behind the chairs of their adored
ones in church, where they could not be repelled; for, of course, no
young gentleman, however madly in love, would insult his lady by
accosting her in the open street. After mass, at six, being the time of
sunrise and by comparison safe, Jacinta would take her charge for a
walk, usually on the Calvareo, then deserted. At seven they would
be home, and then in the great court-yard, under the palms and
rose-red orchids, Dolores would take her lessons—French, English,
music—all from priests. At eleven, bath; at twelve, breakfast; then
reading, perhaps a siesta in a hammock made of birds’ plumage. So
she passed her days, all in the half-light of the great court-yard; only
toward sunset again would she see the open sky, driving with one of
her two governesses in the state carriage down the broad valley to
where the wheel road stopped, and back again; or more rarely, as on
this night, venturing on another walk. And all the youth of Carácas
would gaze after her carriage; the young men driving out too, by
themselves, in carriages, who had passed their days more in
gambling or cock-fighting than with books and music; never, indeed,
at mass. For here the lords of creation vent their authority in
ordaining their wives and sisters to the Church and goodness,
themselves to evil. But the most hardened duellist among them could
no more than look at Dolores; only her reckless cousin Ramon would
venture to ride athwart her carriage, and presume upon his
cousinship to bow.
Yet intercourse is possible always betwixt young people who
seek each other out; and all Carácas gave Ramon to her for her
suitor. And to-night even, as he stood and glowered at the
Archbishop from behind the tree-ferns, he had another chance. For
there is, and was, one more strange custom in this strange city; at
the sunset hour the young ladies of Carácas, all in their gayest
dresses, sit in the great open windows and look upon the street—a
curious sight it is to see the bright eyes and white throats thrust, like
birds from a cage, through the iron bars of the sombre stone
windows. (For no wind or cold ever needs a window of glass in that
perpetual perfect weather; the high sun never makes a shutter
needful in the narrow streets.) And there they sit, unoccupied; and
the young men of the city, dressed also in their best, walk by as
slowly, and look as lingeringly, as they dare; and perhaps, if the dark
shadow of mamma or the dueña does not come out too quickly from
the inner room, a few quick words are spoken, and a flower left or
given. And what says the old proverb of the Caraqueños?
“Better two words in secret than a thousand openly.”
Sebastian Ruy, Marques del Torre, too, was bred as a young
nobleman of oldest lineage should be, or should have been, in that
early eighteenth century that still lingered then in the Andes. But this
took him to Madrid and to Paris in the years VII. and VIII.; and the
eighteenth century, as one knows, ended in those wee small
numbers. Torre came back to plunge his country in a revolution
which lasted intermittently, like one of its own volcanoes, for more
than twenty years. The young Parisian étudiant began his first
émeute in Carácas itself, with a barricade after the orthodox fashion
of the years I. and II. This being quickly suppressed—partly that
there were no pavements, and partly that each house was an
impregnable fortress—but mostly that the city was of the governing
class and stood with Spain—Torre had had to leave the capital for
the pampas, where, for over twelve years, he maintained discursive
warfare with a changeable command of Indians and peons, which,
however, on the whole, increased in numbers, officered by a few
young gentlemen, under himself. His marquisate he forgot, and
sought to make others forget it. He was, throughout Venezuela, The
General. He had never been back within the walls of Carácas; and,
at nearly forty, he learned of his only aunt’s death following his
uncle’s, and of the little girl they left, and of his guardianship.
A little girl she appeared to his imagination on the pampas; when
he got to Carácas, she was a young woman. The General’s locks
were already grizzled and his face weather-beaten with ten years’
open life on the plains; his face was marked, close beside the eye,
with the scar of a sabre. He had one interview with Dolores, saw her
nurse, her instructors, her father confessor; heard stories about his
nephew Don Ramon, which troubled him, went back to camp.
Then intervened a brief campaign in the mountains of the Isla
Margarita; Torre went there to take command. This is the famed old
island of pearls; they lie there in the reefs amid the bones of men
and ships. Torre found no pearls, but he defeated the royal troops in
the first engagement resembling an open battle he had ventured
fight. This matter settled, he lay awake at night, and thought about
his new ward. Further tidings reached him from Carácas, of his
nephew. It was said young Ramon boasted he would marry her.
Then the King, as is the royal way after defeat in battle, made further
concessions to the “Liberals,” as the revolutionists were called; and
in the coaxing amity of the time, Torre was permitted, nay, invited, to
return to the capital. He did so, and was immediately tendered a
banquet by the royal Governor, and a ball at which his ward was
present. The royal Governor and his lady sat beneath a pavilion,
webbed of the scarlet and gold of Spain. The Countess Dolores
came and curtsied deeply to them; then she rose the taller for it, and
as she turned haughtily away they saw that she was almost robed in
pearls; three strands about her neck and six about her waist; and the
ribbon in her mantilla was pale green, white, and red. El Gobernador
only smiled at this, the liberal tricolor, and made a pretty speech
about it; but the vice-regal lady made some ill-natured reference to
the pearls, as spoils from Margarita. Don Ramon was standing by
and heard it. The General saw it not.
After the formal dance the General went up to compliment his
ward. This was the first time he had seen her since his return; for
even he could not call save in the presence of the family; and she
had no other family than himself. He could not call on her until—
unless—he married her. He said, “I am glad my lady Countess is
kinder to our colors than my nephew.” He watched her as he said
this; she started, and at the end of the sentence blushed. He saw her
blush. Then he bowed, as if to retire.
“The pearls,” she said, hastily, “are all I have; see!” And the
Marquis, bowing, saw that the neck-strands were not a necklace, but
after passing thrice around her neck, descended to be lost in the
laces of her dress.
The Marquis ended his bow, and went back to camp. Next week
there came an Indian soldier to Dolores with a box of island pearls;
they were large as grapeshot, and went thrice about her waist. But
the General no longer contradicted her engagement to his nephew.
V.
The General had never known women; he had only known what
men (and women, too) say of women. At Paris, and Madrid, he
had seen his friends see dancers, figurantes; he did not confound
other women with these, but he had known none other. Of girls, in
particular, he was ignorant. A man of Latin race never sees a girl; in
America, North America, it is different, and one sometimes wonders
if we justify it.
Some weeks after the General got back to his camp (which was
high up amid the huge mountain, the first mainland that Columbus
saw, which fends the Gulf of Paria from the sea), he was astounded
by the appearance of no less a person than his nephew Ramon. He
had broken with the royal cause, he said, and come to seek service
beneath his uncle. He did not say what statement he had left behind
him in Carácas—no explanation was necessary in the then
Venezuela for joining any war—but how he had justified his delaying
his coming nuptials with Dolores. For he loved her, this young fellow;
yet he said—allowed it to be said—that in the process de se ranger,
in the process of arrangement, for his bride, that she might find her
place unoccupied, certain other arrangements had been necessary
which took time.
He did not tell this story to his uncle, who took him and sought to
make a soldier of him. Not this story; but he told him that he loved
Dolores; and his uncle—was he not twenty years younger?—
believed him. Twenty years, or fifteen; ’tis little difference when you
pass the decade.
But the General found him hard material to work up. He was
ready enough at a private brawl; ready enough, if the humor struck
him, to go at the enemy; but not to lead his men there. And his men
were readier to gamble with him than to follow him; though brave
enough, in a way.
Yet the General Marquis blinded his faults—aye, and paid his
debts—for when he lost at “pharaon” a certain pearl he wore, the
uncle bought it back for him, with a caution to risk his money, not his
honor; at which the young captain grit his teeth, and would have
challenged any but a creditor. And when a certain girl, a Spanish
woman, followed him to camp, del Torre knew of it, and helped
Ramon to bid her go; and if the General thought the worse of him, he
did not think Dolores loved him less; for was not Sebastian himself
brought up on that cruel half-truth that some women still do their sex
the harm to make a whole one? that women love a rake reformed.
Then came a battle, and both were wounded, and more concessions
from his Catholic Majesty; and in their wake the wounded gentlemen
went back to Carácas.
The General’s hair was grayer, and in that stay again he saw
Dolores only once, and that was in church. At mass, high mass, Te
Deum, for the Catholic Majesty’s concessions, Don Ramon stood
behind her chair; and del Torre saw them from a pillar opposite, and
again the girl countess blushed. And after mass the new Archbishop
met him in the street and talked—of him, and of his ward, and of Don
Ramon.
“He is a graceless reprobate,” said this peon-priest.
The Marquis sighed. “A soldier—for a brave man there is always
hope.”
The Archbishop eyed him.
“She loves him?”
“She loves him.”
“He is poor!”
“She is rich.”
“You should marry her,” said the Archbishop, and shrugged his
shoulders.
A week after he met them all again; and this was that evening in
the garden.
VI.
Now, this arch-priest had been a peon, and a soldier in del Torre’s
army; and then he had left it, and had seen the viceroy and been
traitor to the rebels, and so became a priest; and then, heaven and
the vice-queen knew how, bishop; and but that his archiepiscopal
credentials were now fresh from Rome, del Torre, still a Catholic, had
called him traitor! Del Torre could not like the man, though he stood
between him and God; and he knew that disliking must be mutual;
and he marvelled, simple soldier! that the intoxicating message
came from him. But he put this cup of heaven from his lips.
For del Torre, from his fierce August of war, had learned to love
this April maiden with all his heart, and with all his life and his strong
soul. Were not his hairs gray, and his face so worn and weather-
beaten? And his heart—he had none fit for this lady of the light.
Enough that it was his pearls that clasped her slender waist.
The Archbishop, too, had seen his gray hairs; yet he thought that
it was best? He had said so. Perhaps he wanted her possessions for
the Church. His nephew Don Ramon cursed the Archbishop for
sitting there that night, and saying to her—what? Novitiate and
convent, perhaps, or his own sins. For the lady Dolores was devout
as only girls can be who have warm hearts and noble souls, and are
brought up in cloisters.
Del Torre stood on the other side of the Calvary hill, where the
sunset lay, and looked at it, dimly—for his heart was breaking; the
Archbishop kept close his converse with Dolores; perhaps he saw
her fiery younger lover lurking in the branches. She rose—she and
Jacinta—and the priest walked home with them. He talked to her of
nephew Ramon and his crimes—not his sins with women, for the
priest, too, was a crafty man, and did her sex no honor—but of his
gambling, his brawling, his unsaintliness. He said Ramon was a
coward; and when Dolores’ pale cheek reddened, he marked it
again; and when she broke at this, he told her a trumped-up story of
his last battle under his grave uncle. For Dolores, noble maiden, had
not yet confessed her life’s love to herself—how then to her
confessor?
The Archbishop walked slowly home with her, Jacinta just behind,
and left her under that old stone scutcheon on the door. Del Torre
and Don Ramon lingered behind; and when they had passed her
window, she was sitting there, looking weary. The old General
passed by, sweeping off his hat, his eyes on the ground. He had
been talking to the youth of all the duties of his life and love; but
Ramon was inattentive, watching for her. As they passed her window
Ramon lingered, daring a word to Dolores through the iron bars. He
asked her for a rose she wore. She looked at him a moment, then
gave it to him, with a message. The Marquis saw her give the rose;
he did not hear the message. Don Ramon did; and his face turned
the color of a winter leaf. As he walked on, he crushed the rose, then
threw it in the gutter. For the girl, womanlike, had told the rival first.
That night Ramon intoxicated himself in some tavern brawl. He
had a companion with him, not of his own sex; and when another
officer reproached him with it, for his cousin, he swore that he would
marry her, and that she had been—— Then they fought a duel, and
both were wounded.

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1 Urbanization in China: process, trends, and challenges 5

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Authors of Main Report

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Advancing the process of urbanization is a necessary part of furthering China’s

• Liu Minquan and Ji Xi: Theories of Urbanization and Human Development

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A process of ‘urbanizing’ has been going on in human societies for thousands of

Urbanization and human development

Figure 1.1 Urbanization and human development index.

Figure 1.2 Economic densities in Japan.

Composite enrolment rate (%) 120.00

Figure 1.3a Urbanization and education.

Figure 1.3b Urbanization and average life expectancy.

The experience of urbanization in China, and its main

Urbanization prior to the founding of New China

The process of urbanization once New China was founded

Urbanization prior to the start of reform and opening up

Urbanization rate (%) Number of cities

Figure 1.4 Level and number of China’s cities.

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Scale and speed of growth

>1,000,000 58 8.85 14,830.12 46.93 255.69

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Social and economic development

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Figure 1.9 Urbanization rate and urban-rural income gap.

Challenges facing urbanization

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