Urbanization in China (Book)

Critical Issues in an Era of Rapid Growth

Editor(s): Song, Yan, and Chengri Ding
Publication Date: October 2007

$30.00; 320 pages; Inventory ID 175-0; English; Paperback; ISBN 978-1-55844-175-0


Introduction	1.38 MB

Abstract

Urbanization in China is taking place at an unprecedented pace and will continue over the next decades. Levels of urbanization in China has risen from 18 percent in 1978 to 30 percent in 1995 and to 39 percent in 2002. It is expected that China will quadruple its total GDP and reach 55 percent of urbanization by 2020.

Urbanization in China is a comprehensive process involving transformations in many areas, including;

Management of spatial expansion via modern urban planning

Administration of land use changes via land policy reforms
Process of rural-to-urban migration, and the development of public finance systems.

All of these changes are part of urbanization in China—a transition from a centrally planned economy to a socialist market economy.

Not surprisingly, this rapid urbanization process, along with ongoing social and economic transitions, has presented great challenges for those leading urbanization in China. Chinese urban planners and public policy makers are faced with;

Urban sprawl
Resource shortages
Urban redevelopment
Environmental pollution
Economic restructuring
Social inequity

In response to the issues surrounding urbanization in China, the Lincoln Institute held a conference in May 2006 to facilitate the search for urbanization strategies and instruments that promote urbanization in China in ways that are economically sound, environmentally desirable, politically feasible, and socially acceptable. This volume presents the proceedings of that conference in four sections that address the most pressing issues of urbanization in China: urban planning, land policy, rural-to-urban migration, and financing.

Editors Yan Song and Chengri Ding and the other chapter authors shed light on these and other issues related to urbanization in China. Their contributions enhance our understanding of the challenges at hand, and help to inform those involved in policy decisions in this rapidly changing environment.

Contents

Introduction, Yan Song and Chengri Ding

I. Urban Planning in the Face of Urbanization

1. Urban Development Patterns in China: New, Renewed, and Ignored Urban Spaces, Tingwei Zhang

2. Value Capture Through Integrated Land Use–Transit Development: Experience from Hong Kong, Taipei, and Shanghai, Ming Zhang

3. Introduction of Price Signals into Land Use Planning: Are They Applicable in China?, Paul Cheshire

II. Land Policy

4. Policy and Praxis of Land Acquisition in China, Chengri Ding

5. Assessing Farmland Protection Policy in China, Erik Lichtenberg and Chengri Ding

6. Managing China’s Arable Land Resources in an Era of Sustainability, Robert Ash

III. Rural-to-Urban Migration and Its Implications

7. The Role of China’s Urbanizing Villages in Housing Rural Migrants, Yan Song, Yves Zenou, and Chengri Ding

8. Chengzhongcun: China’s Urbanizing Villages from Multiple Perspectives, Michael Leaf

9. Housing Rural Migrants in Urban China: Lessons from the United States, Roberto G. Quercia and Yan Song

10.Efficiency in China’s Urban Labor Markets, Jeffrey S. Zax

Part IV. Financing China’s Urbanization

11. Public Finance Challenges for Chinese Urban Development, Randall Crane

12. Urban Infrastructure and Financing in China, Weiping Wu

13. Non-Performing Loan Resolution in the Context of China’s Transitional Economy, Bing Wang and Richard Peiser

Conclusion, Yan Song and Chengri Ding