Urbanization in China: Population and Land

1
Urbanization in ChinaPopulation and Land

• Di Chengfeng
• Beijing Normal University
• 2013.6.14-15
• Budapest

2
Urbanization

• the physical growth of urban areas as a result
  of rural migration and even suburban
  concentration into cities
• The urbanization of population
• increase of urban population
• proportion of urban population in total
  population
• The urbanization of land
• expansion of urban land

3
Overview of Chinas Urbanization

• Rate of Urbanization in China (1949-2010)
  ()
• Before economic reform(1949-1979) Crawling
  under 20
• After economic reform(since 1980) Running by
  small steps, up to 49.70 in 2010 and 51.3 in
  2011

4
Overview of Chinas Urbanization
5
Overview of Chinas Urbanization
6
Process of Chinas Urbanization

• 1950-1978 Counter-urbanization
• Major factors
• Development strategy of industrialization with
  priority of heavy-industry with limited resources
  under system of planned economy
• Institutional arrangements on Chinese urban-rural
  segregation including the household registration
  (Hukou) system
• Political arrangement of sending urban youth to
  countryside to do farm works

7
Process of Chinas Urbanization

• 1979-2002 Urbanization based on
  industrialization in rural area and development
  of small cities and towns
• Major factors
• Economic reform to market economy
• Release of rural surplus labor
• Policy of giving priority to development of small
  cities and towns with development of medium and
  big cities as supplement
• Development of rural enterprises
• Emerging of small cities and towns (See the table)

8
Process of Chinas Urbanization
Quantity of small cities and towns in China since
1981
Year Amount Year Amount
1981 2678 1993 15806
1982 2664 1994 16702
1983 2968 1995 17532
1984 7186 1996 18171
1985 9140 1997 18925
1986 10718 1998 19216
1987 11103 1999 19756
1988 11481 2000 20312
1989 11873 2001 20374
1990 12084 2002 20601
1991 12455 2003 20226
1992 14539 2004 19883
2005 19522
9
Process of Chinas Urbanization

• Since 2002 Transforming to urbanization based
  on coordinated development of towns and cities of
  various scale
• Major factors
• Increased demand for cheap rural labors due to
  deepening of economic reform and
  industrialization
• Loosening of the household registration system in
  some cities
• Need for scale of economy and market resulting
  from evolving of industrialization

10
Some Problems of Chinas Urbanization

• Imbalance between urbanization of land and
  urbanization of population
• Imbalance between urbanization of population and
  farmers citizenization

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Imbalance between land and population urbanization

• Statistics from different sources
• The build-up areas in cities has increased by
  7.2, while the population in the areas increased
  only by 4 during 1999-2007. - The National
  Development and Reform Commission
• The build-up areas above prefecture level
  expanded 70.1 but population absorbed in the
  areas increased only by 30 from 2001 to 2007. -
  China Urban Development Report 2009
• More data - China Statistical Yearbook China
  Statistical Yearbook of Urban Construction

12
Change of built-up area and population density in
Chinese cities since the 1980s
Year Build-up area of city (km2) Population in cities and towns (million) urbanization Rate () Population density in build-up area (persons/km2)
1981 7438 199.70 20.12 26849
1985 9386 250.94 23.71 26736
1990 12856 301.91 26.41 23484
1995 19264 351.74 29.04 18259
2000 22439 459.06 36.22 20458
2005 32521 562.12 42.99 17285
2006 33660 577.06 43.90 17144
2007 35470 593.79 44.94 16741
2008 36295 606.67 45.68 16715
Source China Statistical Yearbook,China
Statistical Yearbook of Urban Construction
13
Imbalance between land and population urbanization

• Problem implied in the statistics
• Low efficiency of urban construction land
  utilization
• Status of land endowment
• Arable land per capita lt 0.1 hectare
• lt ½
  of the world average
• 
  lt ¼ of the developed countries
• Result of the imbalance of urbanization
• Per capita urban land available gt 120 m2
• gt 82.4 m2
  for developed countries averagely
• 
  gt 83.3 m2 for developing countries averagely

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Imbalance between urbanization of population and
rural-urban migrants citizenization

• Measuring urban population
• Permanent urban residents (with hukou), and
• Rural population living in cities or towns over 6
  months but without identity of citizenship (urban
  hukou) the floating population
• Gap between urban population and citizens
• 300 million of nonresident migrants in cities and
  towns
• Real rate of urbanization is about 35 in 2010
  after deducting the 300 million (compared with
  49.7 of the rate of registered urban population
  in 2010)
• -- peri-urbanization

15
Imbalance between urbanization of population and
rural-urban migrants citizenization

• Migrant rural workers is the largest challenge to
  urbanization
• Less access to sufficient housing, health
  services within social security and compulsory
  education for their children because of their
  nonresidential identity
• Separation with their family, esp. children
• Age of Migrant Rural Worker in 2007

Age Population in total migrant rural workers
lt30 52.6
30-40 29.5
gt40 17.9
16
Institutional reasons for the imbalances

• Slow population urbanization resulting mainly
  from Household Registration System
• Fast land urbanization resulting mainly from the
  Land Supply System
• Land acquisition and land leasing right to use
• Local governments tax revenue

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Institutional reasons for the imbalances
Land leasing and revenue in China since the 1990s
Year Area of land leasing (hm2) Revenue of land leasing (billion Yuan ) National financial income (billion Yuan) Proportion of land leasing revenue to financial income ()
1993 57338 40.53 434.9 9.32
1994 49432 35.92 521.8 6.88
2000 161190 62.50 1339.5 4.67
2001 90394 129.59 1637.1 7.92
2002 124230 241.68 1891.4 12.78
2005 165586 218.40 3164.9 6.90
2007 234961 454.14 5132.2 8.85
Source China Statistical Yearbook, China
Statistical Yearbook of Urban Construction
18
Some conclusions

• Extensive urbanization focusing on expanding
  urban area is unsustainable, while intensive
  urbanization focusing on improving land
  utilization is necessary
• Reform of house registration system will be
  crucial for effective population urbanization
• Institutional reform of farmland transfer should
  benefit farmers with more choice and compensation