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Urbanisation
and Urban Development in China By Marissa
Koop Posted to Web Site: 25 October 2001 |
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She travelled extensively in Asia -- including China, Hong Kong
and Thailand -- so she enjoys studying and learning more about Australia’s neighbours
and about the places where she travelled. |
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As a result China has
experienced a rise in the trend of rural-to-urban migration. The rate of this trend has accelerated over
the last thirty years with the growing income disparity between urban and
rural areas being a key contributor to this pattern of population movement. With such massive amounts of
people flocking to the hundreds of cities and thousands of towns across China
this is creating increasing pressure for urban development and urban renewal
in these areas. The Chinese government is
struggling to meet all of the demands on it in this area and so is actively
seeking additional and alternative means of adequately providing for urban
dwellers. The involvement of the
private sector in the provision of public facilities is an option that is
currently being explored, but is an option not without conflict and
difficulties that are yet to be solved.
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Since China adopted its reform
and open-door policy in the late 1970s, the pace of urbanisation has
continued to accelerate. The number
of cities soared from 223 in 1980 to the 1997 statistic of 668 cities and
17,000 towns. Three Chinese cities, Beijing,
Shanghai and Tianjin, are among the world's megacities, those with more than
10 million residents.1 China’s urban population mounted
from 191 million (9 per cent of the whole population) in 1980 to 380 million
(30 per cent of the whole population) in 1997. Another 80 million people
originated from rural areas stay and work in the cities all year around. Currently the pace of urbanisation is
progressing at 0.5 per cent yearly, one of the highest rates in the world.2 By the turn of the 21st century
it is forecasted that some 90 per cent of the population will live in towns
and cities. In absolute terms, the
urban population is expected to peak at 1.2 billion in 2060, which is broadly
the same as China’s total population today. This near tripling of the urban
population will have clear implications for construction and resource
management.3 |
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After the founding of Communist
China in 1949, former years of fast urbanisation came to a halt when Chairman
Mao Zedong proclaimed the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s. Thousands of young intellectuals were
forced to go to the countryside and learn from peasants how to build a
socialist life, creating a tide of ''reverse urbanisation''. Urbanisation picked up again in
the early eighties, when Deng Xiaoping launched economic reforms that
heralded one of the world's largest migrations of people from the countryside
to the towns.4 The success of the agricultural
reforms under Deng Xiaoping in the late 1970s and early 1980s dramatically
increased the food supply in China's cities, making it possible for more
people to come in from rural areas. Due to the increased food
supply, the authorities temporarily relaxed the enforcement of migration
restrictions. This relaxation, however,
was short-lived, and in 1984 new measures strengthened residence regulations
and reinstated official control over internal migration. Nonetheless, migration from
rural areas to urban centres continued. The problem of too-rapid urbanisation was exacerbated by the
agricultural responsibility system, which forced a reallocation of labour and
left many agricultural workers unemployed. Thus, authorities permitted
temporary mobility because it simultaneously absorbed a large amount of
surplus rural labour, improved the economies of rural areas, and satisfied
urban requirements for service and other workers. The pace of urbanisation in
China from 1949 to 1982 was relatively slow because of both the rapid growth
of the rural population and tight restrictions on rural-urban migration for
most of that period. From 1982 to
1986, however, the urban population increased dramatically to almost 30
percent of the total population. This large jump resulted from a
combination of factors. One was the migration of large numbers of surplus
agricultural workers, displaced by the agricultural responsibility system,
from rural to urban areas. Another was a 1984 decision to
broaden the criteria for classifying an area as a city or town. During 1984
the number of towns meeting the new urban criteria increased more than
twofold and the urban town population doubled. Although China's urban
population, 26 percent of the total population in the mid-1980s, was
relatively low by comparison with developed nations, the number of people living
in urban areas in China was greater than the total population of any country
in the world except India and the Soviet Union. The four Chinese cities with the
largest populations in 1985 were Shanghai, with 7 million; Beijing, with 5.9
million; Tianjin, with 5.4 million; and Shenyang, with 4.2 million. The disproportionate distribution of
population in large cities occurred as a result of the government's emphasis
after 1949 on the development of large cities over smaller urban areas. In 1985 the 22 most populous
cities in China had a total population of 47.5 million, or about 12 percent
of China's total urban population. The number of cities with populations of
at least 100,000 increased from 200 in 1976 to 342 in 1986.5 However this focus was to change
and in the years of Deng's reforms, the country favoured smaller, not larger,
cities, based on the assumption that large and medium cities could not absorb
the vast surplus of rural labour. This sets China's urban profile
apart from other big developing countries. Unlike Mexico for example, China has a much larger number of
small and medium-sized settlements. But while small cities and towns
are still hailed as the hallmark of urbanisation in China, they also excel at
irrational use of land, which the country cannot afford. China must feed one- fifth of the world's
population on just seven percent of the world's arable land.6 |
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Though more and more people are
moving to and living in the cities, living conditions have not always kept up
with urbanisation. There is a severe
housing shortage in many urban areas, a need to upgrade the backward public
welfare facilities and a need to increase the green coverage in growing urban
centres. Amenities associated with city
life are still lacking. The first
nationwide survey of ''municipal facilities and urban ecology'' of more than
600 cities completed in 1998 showed that China's cities by and large resemble
cities of developed countries in the mid-1960s. Only 70 percent of urban
households use gas. The rate of
''safe disposal'' for garbage stands at only 40 percent, and for treatment of
water, just 19 per cent. Public green
areas average 5 square meters per head.
In urban transportation, there is an average of seven public vehicles
per 10,000 persons.7 So, while urbanisation is
accelerating across China cities are struggling to provide adequate infrastructures
that are the necessary details of a functioning urban centre. Impact of the growing income disparity between rural and urban areas While urban residents face a
lack of facilities it is in fact the rural dwellers that are faced with the
biggest problems. By the end of 1992,
there were 80 million Chinese still living in poverty and these people (8.8
per cent of the total rural population) were mostly living in the rural areas
of central and western China or in the remote mountains.8
The steadily widening income gap
between China’s urban and rural areas features the contrast between the
extravagant spending by the high-income urban group and the tremendous
financial difficulties facing many others.
Figures from 1999 show the following: First, the average annual income in the postal and telecommunications
sector, 14,400 yuan (US$1,741.82), was more than three times the income of
the forestry sector, 4,580 yuan (US$554). Second, the average annual income in Shanghai, 16,600 yuan (US$2,007.93),
was just slightly less than three times the average wage in rural Shanxi
province, 6,065 yuan (US$733.62).9 The division of China into rural
and urban worlds discriminates against 900 million farmers in favour of 400
million city-dwellers. Stagnating
returns from the land, coupled with rising tax burdens, threaten to send
millions more peasants in the wake of the 120 million who have descended on
towns and cities nationwide in recent years. The rural population, 70 per
cent of the country's total, buys just 30 per cent of products. Some experts argue that freer
population flows could slow the widening income gap between town and country,
and relieve the pressure on the fragile environment of western China. Since the ban on internal migration was
eased in the 1980s, millions of peasants have swapped farm work for hard but
more lucrative labour in the cities.10 However it is the freeing up of
internal migration that contributed significantly to the explosion of China’s
cities that are already struggling to provide adequate facilities for their
current residence. As China’s urban population
increases so does the income gap between urban and rural citizens. According to economic figures of the first
three quarters of 2000, issued by the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics,
disposable per capita income of urban residents reached Rmb 4,719
(US$569.90), climbing 8.4 percent, while income for farmers only rose 2.5
percent to Rmb 1,500 (US$181.20). As more rural citizens leave the
farm to pursue work in the city, the remaining rural citizens earn a per
capita income equal to just 30 percent of urban residents’ earnings.11 It can therefore be understood
that the growing disparity between average rural and urban incomes is a major
driver of China’s high rates of rural-to-urban migration. Urban infrastructure development in China With its rapidly increasing urbanisation
China has experienced continuous reform of investment, construction and
management systems of urban infrastructure. China's urban infrastructure has also embarked on a fast growing
track and the investment in urban infrastructure has witnessed a continuous
expansion. Total fixed-asset investment
(FAI) in urban infrastructure projects climbed from 2.483 billion yuan in
1990 to 12.83 billion yuan in 1997. Based upon 1990 constant prices, the average annual growth rate
from 1990 to 1997 was 17.23 per cent, nearly 10 percentage points higher than
the GDP growth rate during the same period of time.12 Although the pace of urban
infrastructure development continues accelerating, the gap between supply and
demand remains substantial. Until
recently, the government fiscal expenditure has been the primary source of
investment in this field. Unfortunately, government
investment alone and conventional sources of financing such as government
transfer and borrowing from banks in particular can no longer satisfy the
rapidly growing demands for investment in urban infrastructure. It is apparent that urban
infrastructure cannot be treated as pure social-welfare matter any longer and
market-based approaches must be introduced into construction and operation of
urban environmental infrastructure. Various forms of the
public-private partnerships, such as subcontracting, licensing, confessional
projects and build-operate-transfer (BOT) provide new opportunities for
resolving the dilemma.13 Most certainly, private participation
in urban infrastructure delivery will only be likely to take place on a
profitable basis.14 Public-private partnerships in China The inability of the government
to adequately respond to the growing needs for urban infrastructure services
presents business opportunities for the private sector. Very often the private sector possesses the
financial capability as well as technologies and expertise. Under appropriate conditions,
the private sector will mobilise these resources and help governments to
offer adequate and quality services to urban residents. This can include all kinds of companies,
from large-scale trans-national corporations to locally based companies. Such an environment opens
windows of opportunity for public-private partnerships. The private sector provides the resources
and the public gets the urban infrastructure services. Through these innovative win-win
partnerships, the advantages of the private sector dynamism, access to
finance, technical expertise, managerial efficiency and entrepreneurial
spirit are combined with the concerns and responsibilities of governments to
foster social responsibility, environmental awareness, local knowledge and
job creation.15 Although there is an increasing
number of success stories of such public-private partnership in delivering
urban environmental services in China, the investment framework in general
could further facilitate partnerships. Put simply, there is still too
high a risk for both the government and the private sector. Accordingly many
initiatives are not identified or pursued. To reduce these risks, the institutional and economic frameworks
need to be improved. The recent experience in China
indicates that the following four principles should underline this
improvement: Profit: The government is still somewhat reluctant to allow profit in the
urban infrastructure sector. In part, this is because of the belief that poor
people cannot afford to pay for these services. Stability: Both nationally and in some localities, the institutional framework
is changing quickly. These changes often develop in a non-transparent way.
This is a strong disincentive for many private actors. Simplicity: A private actor interested in investing or operating in urban
infrastructure may have to deal with many local authorities. This can be
compounded by involvement of other levels of government and a series of laws
and regulations. This creates large entry costs and again a big disincentive
for the private sector. Regulation: The government is, at this stage, unsure of what will happen once
they delegate some functions to the private sector. It is worthwhile to be
noticed that after this delegation, the role of the government will change,
become even more important, to serve as a regulator and supervisor, rather than
a doer. This change of role requires new skills and capabilities from
government. There are already a number of
success stories in terms of public-private partnerships in delivering urban
environmental services and controlling industrial pollution. However, the success stories are
constrained by their specific local conditions. Many barriers, such as
inhibiting regulatory framework, policy conflicts originating from different
sectors, lack of awareness and involvement of financial institutions, prevent
the establishments of public-private partnerships (PPP) on a larger scale.16 |
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While both rezoning, which has
seen a large increase in the areas classified as “urban”, and natural
population increases in urban areas, have contributed to this urban
population growth it is rural-to-urban migration that has been identified as
the driving force behind China’s urbanised population explosion. With the world’s largest
population of 1.3.billion people China’s internal migration pattern means
that millions are settling in the cities every year. Disillusioned by declining rural
returns and attracted by the disproportionately higher average city incomes
and standards of living these push-pull factors mean that rural residents are
leaving their homes in search of a better life in the cities. With such large and continuous
numbers of people entering China’s cities and towns this is creating immense
pressure on urban development and renewal. With over 660 cities and 17, 000
towns the government is struggling to provide adequate facilities and
infrastructures. Urban infrastructure in China
has long been regarded as a social-welfare issue with the government taking
full responsibility for the financing and operation of urban infrastructure
services. However, due to the accelerating
urbanisation process and improving standards of living, the conventional ways
of delivering urban infrastructure services cannot meet the growing demands
for more and better urban infrastructure services. Plans and developments involving
the private sector and private funds in the provision of urban facilities and
services have shown signs of success. These public-private
partnerships have been slow to develop because of basic conflicts of interest
by both the private and public sectors as they try to work together. However with improved
coordination they do offer a start to a workable solution to the improvement
of China’s urban development for an ever-growing urban population. |
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2. “Public-Private
Partnerships in Delivering Urban Environmental Services in China” http://www.cestt.org.cn/projects/ppp-output2.htm 3. Michel Andrieu, “China, a demographic time bomb”, International Futures Programme, September 1,1999 http://www.oecdobserver.org/news/fullstory.php/aid/40.html 4. Antoaneta Bezlova, reference cited in note 1. 5. US Library
of Congress, “China: Chapter 2. Physical Environment and Population”, 1987 http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/cshome.html 6. Antoaneta
Bezlova, reference cited in note 1. 8. Information
provided by the Government of China to the United Nations Commission on
Sustainable Development, Fifth Session, China Country Profile Implementation of Agenda 21: Review of
Progress Made Since the United Nations Conference on Environment and
Development, 1992, “Chapter 3: Combating Poverty”, April 7-25, 1997, http://www.un.org/dpcsd/earthsummit 9. ChinaOnline, “Widening Gap
Between Rural, Urban Income Grows, Raises Red Flag”, March 20, 2001 http://www.chinaonline.com/issues/econ_news/NewsArchive/secure/2001/March/C01031903.asp 10. Calum and
Lijia MacLeod, South China
Morning Post, “China's 'apartheid'’, July 2, 2001 http://china.scmp.com/lifestyle/ZZZFY1QXJOC.html 11. ChinaOnline, “Statistics
Bureau: Farmers’ Per Capita Income Only 30 Per Cent of Urbanites’’, November
13, 2000, http://www.chinaonline.com/topstories/010301/1/C01022806.asp 12. “Public-Private
Partnerships in Delivering Urban Environmental Services in China” http://www.cestt.org.cn/projects/ppp-output2.htm 15. “Public-Private
Partnerships in Delivering Urban Environmental Services in China’, reference
cited in note 12. |
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http://www.chinaonline.com/industry/agriculture/NewsArchive/secure/2000/October/c00101306.asp ChinaOnline, “Chinese Incomes Rise, but the Rural Sector is Being Left
Behind”, March 1, 2001 http://www.chinaonline.com/topstories/010301/1/C01022806.asp ChinaOnline, “Statistics Bureau: Farmers’ Per Capita Income Only 30 Per Cent of
Urbanites,” November 13, 2000 http://www.chinaonline.com/topstories/010301/1/C01022806.asp Zhongguo Xinwen She, China News Service, November 7, 2000, http://www.chinaonline.com/refer/ministry_profiles/CNS.asp |
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