Urbanization and Urban Governance in China

Issues, Challenges, and Development

Lin Ye

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9781137582072
• eBook ISBN:
  9781137578242
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Asian Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Offers a more tightly knitted and concrete analysis on the governance issues of China's urbanization

Examines how China's urban governance needs to evolve and respond to the challenges of urbanization. 

Explores practical recommendations for China's future urbanization 

© The Author(s) 2018

Lin Ye (ed.)Urbanization and Urban Governance in ChinaGoverning China in the 21st Centuryhttps://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57824-2_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction: A New Path of Urbanization and Urban Governance in China

Lin Ye¹

(1)

Center for Chinese Public Administration Research, School of Government, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China

End Abstract

Urbanization in China: A Brief Review

China has undergone a remarkable process of urbanization since the mid-1980s. The speed, scale, and size of this process has received world-wide attention (LeGates 2014; Savitch et al. 2014). Figure 1.1 shows the growth of the urban population in China between 1950 and 2015. In 2011, China’s urban population exceeded the rural population for the first time in the country’s history. In 2015, over 56% of the total population in China resided in urban areas. The rapid reduction of the rural population since 1995 occurred for two reasons. The first is the vast number of migrants moving from the countryside to cities. The second is so-called “localized urbanization” (jiu di cheng shi hua), which refers to the phenomenon whereby rural residents obtained urban household registration after the collectively owned village land was taken over by the municipalities. In both cases, it is difficult for these previously rural residents to receive equal social welfare as urban residents, which poses a significant challenge for urban management (Ye 2011).

Fig. 1.1

China’s demographic urbanization , 1950–2015

Data source: China Statistical Yearbook, various years

An even more important indicator of China’s urbanization is the exponential development of land and the expansion of urban areas. Figure 1.2 shows the growth of built-up areas in Chinese cities. In 1996, there was 20,200 square meters of built-up areas in China. The figure grew to 52,100 in 2015, recording a 160% increase in under two decades. Such land-centered development has been the most prominent pattern in China’s urbanization.

Fig. 1.2

The expansion of urban areas in China, 1996–2015

Source: China Statistical Yearbook, various years

China’s urbanization was driven by a network of endogenous and exogenous forces and thus formed unique spatial patterns, which has made governing urban regions both a challenge and an opportunity for carrying out new modes of governance (Xu and Yeh 2010; Ye 2014; Zhang 2007). In his thematic book, Friedmann (2005) characterizes China’s urbanization an “endogenous development,” which was driven by high rural population density, excess supply of labor, historical pursuit of industrialization, resourceful local leadership, entrepreneurial talent, and high saving rates for infrastructure investment (pp. 38–50). In the meantime, intertwined factors including globalization, technological change, demographic movements, and market and political development all contributed to the urban development of a transitional economy such as China’s. The country’s new-found globalism is especially significant because nation-states often achieve world status through the economic capacity of their city-regions. Cities now find themselves as spearheads of global processes—whether by promoting financial services, by serving as shipping ports, or by producing material goods (Savitch et al. 2014).

Under the dual forces of globalization and urbanization, mega urban regions in China extend their boundaries well beyond the traditional central–suburban agglomeration into rural areas along inter-metropolitan corridors, making up several mega-regions such as that of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei , the Yangtze River Delta , and the Pearl River Delta (Ye 2013). Under the strong drive for urban expansion and development, local governments in China perform an entrepreneurial role and actively engage in economic growth matters, establishing a complex web of public collective enterprises, town and village enterprises (TVEs) , and rural collective cooperatives (Walder 1995). Municipalities have exploited land as a source of capital formation, acted as the representatives of the state to control urban land and its commodification processes, and produced urban-oriented accumulation through the commingling of labor intensive industrial production with heavy investment in the built environment (Shin 2014; Ye and Wu 2014).

China’s urban growth is occurring not only in large cities but also in peri-urban areas, such as expanding villages, towns, and small cities. It is important to understand the scale and tempo of growth in these varied areas across China and to envisage what form cities with populations of different sizes might ideally take (LeGates 2014). These clusters of contiguous cities, connected by small swathes of land that have been developed to house millions of people working in and around the urban areas, give rise to extended metropolitan regions (Ye 2009, 2014). The development of these metropolitan regions has been an important part of China’s burgeoning urban development (Wu and Zhang 2007; Xu and Yeh 2010; Ye 2009; Zhang 2006). From the 1990s to the 2010s, these regions underwent significant transformation due to market reform, globalization, and rapid urbanization.

Governing such urbanized regions poses complex challenges for all levels of the Chinese government. In 2014, China formally adopted the national New Type Urbanization Plan 2014–2020 , intended to fully explore the opportunities of urbanization by clarifying goals and avoiding risks throughout the process of intensified urbanization. One of the key strategies that was established by this strategic plan was the people-oriented urbanization model , which emphasizes equality within and sharing the benefits of urbanization. With regard to the spatial development of urbanization, more coordinated planning of urban regions is required to optimize land utilization, encourage compact development, and improve land use efficiency. The integration of urban and rural areas should help maintain the identity of the countryside, while promoting tailored local development cultures for cities with varying characteristics.

In order to pursue such objectives, administrators of Chinese cities have tried to develop innovative governance approaches. As early as the late 1990s, decentralization of decision-making power enabled leading Chinese cities such as Shanghai to adopt a rearranged structure in their urban management, addressing the dynamics between the central and provincial/municipal governments, between municipal and district governments, and between district and subdistrict governments of street offices. A significant number of urban management authorities were delegated to the lower levels of government, namely at the urban district level. In Shanghai, a district government can not only collect revenue from district-owned enterprises but also share tax revenues with the municipal government (Zhang 2007, pp. 120–121). In addition, non-governmental actors such as the Property Owners Association (POA), Business Owner Association (BOA), and other social organizations are invited to participate in urban management issues in the city. This type of bottom-up urban governance reform gradually took place in other Chinese cities as well.

Outline of the Chapters

So, it can be seen that a top-down formation of urban regions and a bottom-up reform of urban governance jointly shape urban transformation and direct the new type of urbanization development in China. The chapters in this book focus on these two dimensions by providing both theoretical construction and empirical tests.

Part I of the book describes the regional outlook and urban transformation in China over the last three decades. In Chap. 2, the authors examine the changing pattern of industrial development in the nine Pearl River Delta (PRD) cities since the late 1990s. The PRD region is one of the most developed in China and showcases its rapid urbanization process. Its previous model of development, focusing on export-processing based on cheap labor and light industrial manufacturing, is no longer viable for the long run. The “Outline of the Plan for the Reform and Development of the Pearl River Delta, 2008–2020” laid the foundations for future development since early 2009 by partnering with Hong Kong and successfully lobbying the central authorities. Hence, the external situation and policy environments confronting the PRD are undergoing major changes and offer both serious challenges and opportunities for existing paths of development. The governmental responses to the challenges of industrialization have been highly visible and direct. The PRD cities have all been urged to adopt a variety of policy measures to address their industrial problems and to coordinate among themselves as well. This model of regional governance entails both strong vertical directives and horizontal cooperation, which is enlightening for other regions in China.

Chapter 3 focuses on one of the upcoming regions in central China. The authors consider how this emerging urban-region is affecting the state’s rearticulation in space formation on the regional scale. In the Upper Yangtze River Delta , the central state reasserts its sophisticated functions in building national economic coherence in a global system, enabling entrepreneurial local states to brand their locales as strategic nodes with perceived new ranks in the hierarchical national urban system. With resource allocation increasingly based upon regional plans, a more realistic entrepreneurial strategy for individual locales to survive inter-urban competition is to coalesce with one another to construct city-regions and be incorporated into regional plans made by the central state. Thus, building urban-regions becomes a new form of urban entrepreneurialism that unfolds on the provincial scale.

In Chap. 4, the authors argue that the extended metropolitan regions (EMRs) have become the core platforms in China’s urbanization . This chapter analyzes the main characteristics of the unfolding global economy and explores its impact on China’s urbanization. It brings an understanding of the possible new urbanization of China, which would likely be embedded in a low-carbon economy and various local forces in the context of the country’s transition into being a major global economy.

Part II of the book focuses on the issue of urban redevelopment, inequality, and city place-making, before new urban governance experiences are carried forward. In Chap. 5, the author examines the ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Frontmatter
• 1. Introduction: A New Path of Urbanization and Urban Governance in China
• 1. Regional Outlook and Urban Transformation
• 2. Urban Redevelopment, Housing Inequality and City Branding
• 3. Urban Governance and Informal Dynamics in the New Age
• Backmatter