What lessons can other developing countries learn from China's Urbanization?

1. What lessons can other developing countries
learn from China’s urbanization?
Presented by: Shahana Jabeen (沙哈娜）
Southeast University-School of Architecture

2. o The Process of China's Urbanization
o Urbanization in China 1980-2020
o Urbanization in international comparison
o China’s urbanization achievements
o Development with Chinese Characteristics
o Key points to learn from Chinese Urbanization lesson
o Conclusion
Outline

3. The Process of China's Urbanization
China's urbanization is an important process which has
significant impact on the world’s development. Since the reform
and opening up, the urban resident population has increased
from 170 million to 730 million. The urbanization rate has
increased from 17.9% to 53.7% with an average annual increase
of 1.02%. Over the past 35 years, the high-speed urbanization
has promoted China's economic and social transformation in an
unprecedented way, which makes more than 500 million people
in China get out of poverty and realizes an average annual
economic growth of 10%.
Meanwhile, China's urbanization has helped avoid large-scale
urban unemployment, poverty or slums.
China’s Urbanization Cycle

4. Urbanization in China 1980-2020
According to the Seventh Population Census
conducted in 2020, about 63.9 percent of the total
population in China lived in cities in 2020. The
urbanization rate has increased steadily in China
over the last decades.
Degree of urbanization in China
Urbanization is generally defined as a process of people migrating from rural to
urban areas, during which towns and cities are formed and increase in size. Even
though urbanization is not exclusively a modern phenomenon, industrialization
and modernization did accelerate its progress. As shown in the statistic,
The urbanization rate varies greatly in different parts of
China. While urbanization is lesser advanced in western or
central China, in most coastal regions in eastern China
more than two-thirds of the population lives already in
cities. Among the ten largest Chinese cities in 2019, six
were located in coastal regions in East and South China.

5. Urbanization in international comparison
Russia: Degree of urbanization from 2010 to 2020 Brazil: Degree of urbanization from 2009 to 2019
Brazil and Russia, two other BRIC countries, display a much higher degree of urbanization than China.

6. On the other hand, in India, the country with the worlds’ second largest population, a mere 34.5 percent of the population lived
in urban regions as of 2019
India: Degree of urbanization from 2010 to 2020
Similar to other parts of the world, the progress of
urbanization in China is closely linked to
modernization..

7. China’s urbanization achievements
In 2012, the report of the 18th National Congress of the CPC pointed out that we should adhere to the road of the new
urbanization with Chinese characteristics. Later, China formulated and promulgated the "National New Urbanization Plans".
What are the "new points" in new urbanization? I personally think that, compared with the "old" urbanization, new urbanization
shows "new features" in the following seven aspects:
1. Lay emphasis on improving the quality of development,
regarding citizenship the transfer of the agricultural population as the
core, taking the higher value-added, efficient, inclusive and sustainable
urbanization road, rather than high investment, high resource-wasting,
high pollution and low benefit or non-inclusive urbanization;,
2. Lay emphasis on innovation effects, agglomeration effects,
factor mobility effect, specialization effects as the main driving
force, rather than to rely mainly on investment growth as the
driving force;
3. Lay emphasis on innovative city, encouraging and supporting
innovation system, creative system, business-starting system
construction, encouraging and supporting differentiation,
personality development, rather than similar or homogenization
development;

8. 4. Lay emphasis on the compact city, encouraging high-density, transit priority, mixed land use,
infill & content development, rather than low-density, extended development ;
5. Lay emphasis on the layout of small and medium cities around the urban centers, with two
horizontal axis formed along the Yangtze River, the new Eurasian Continental Bridge
channel, three vertical axis along coastal, Beijing-Guangzhou Beijing-Harbin, Baotou-
Kunming channels, in order to promote the urbanization with the city clusters as the main
form, rather than the large cities, distributed medium and small urbanization;
6. Lay emphasis on the integration of space, advancing infrastructure interoperability between
cities, between urban and rural areas, the equalization of basic public services, establishing
an inter-regional regional common market and co-governance structure, rather than the one
which is fragmented, divided from each other.
7. Lay emphasis on market-orientation, emphasizing the free movement of people, land, and
capital, and allowing the market to play a decisive role in the allocation of resources, so that
urbanization could become a market-oriented, natural development process, rather than the
government-oriented process. The government needs to play the counseling role of guiding,
compensating and regulating the market.

9. We all know urbanization is important: Nearly 80% of gross domestic product is generated in
cities around the world. Countries must get urbanization right if they want to reach middle- or
high-income status.
But urbanization is challenging, especially because badly planned cities can hamper economic
transformation and cities can become breeding grounds for poverty, slums and squalor and
drivers of pollution, environmental degradation and greenhouse gas emissions.
That’s why it’s important for us to build cities that are livable, with people-centered approaches
to urbanization and development. That will allow innovation and new ideas to emerge and enable
economic growth, job creation and higher productivity, while also saving energy and managing
natural resources, emissions and disaster risks. When the process is driven by people, it can lead
to important results, the same way London and Los Angeles addressed their air pollution
problems.
Development with Chinese Characteristics:

10. Development with Chinese Characteristics:
Countries all over the developing world, from Ethiopia and Rwanda to Kazakhstan and Bolivia, are increasingly looking to
China as a model for how to launch, sustain, and manage rapid economic growth. Top officials visit China on study trips.
National planning bodies issue ambitious documents modelled on China’s experience.
First, the new model of urbanization will boost efficiency. With better use of land, higher mobility of people and
healthier incentives for local officials, the largest cities will move their economic structure up the value chain, while
smaller cities can attract more industries, and can generate employment for migrants closer to their place of origin.
Second, the process will boost social inclusion, an issue that resonates from New Delhi to Latin American cities.
The government has adopted the report’s recommendation to reform the rigid hukou household-registration system.
Land reforms will give stronger property rights to rural citizens, and eventually provide compensation at market-
based land prices to help reduce the urban-rural divide.
Third, it will lead to a more sustainable urbanization process, because the new reforms will boost domestic
demand, improve productivity and raise people’s living standards. The new model also opens the broader discussion
on how to pay for urbanization. As local governments become less reliant on land conversion to generate revenue, our
report suggests that cities turn to new sources, such as property taxes or environmental fees, to help fund new services
to more migrants.

11. 1. Start with small farmers and rural areas
China started by breaking up collective farms and empowering small-scale farmers. Yields soared. But China did not simply
“unleash” agricultural markets. Instead, the state remained in control of prices (increasing them to spur effort), the distribution
system, and the supply of fertiliser.
Only in the 1990s did more widespread market liberalisation reach the farm sector. Benefiting from local officials’ help, township
and village enterprises became the most dynamic part of the Chinese economy in the 1980s and 1990s.
Today, leading firms such as the Hope Group (agribusiness), Huanyuan (air conditioners), and Chery (cars) are based in areas that
are still mostly rural. And whereas 95% of Chinese villages have roads, electricity, running water, natural gas, and phone lines
(compared with fewer than 50% of villages in India), many developing countries have ignored their rural areas, chronically
underinvesting in agriculture and rural infrastructure.
2. Invest heavily in knowledge infrastructure
With 80% illiteracy as recently as 1949, China now has a well-educated workforce replete with skilled specialists. More than a
quarter of college-age Chinese are now enrolled in higher education.
China emphasised health and education from the 1950s on, achieving human-development levels comparable to those of richer
countries by the late 1970s and accidentally equipping its people to take advantage of the reform era’s opportunities.
China has prioritised knowledge infrastructure in ways that go well beyond basic schooling. It has set up advanced research
centres that have helped it to learn foreign technologies, build the world’s fastest supercomputer, send astronauts into space, and
develop its own satellite-navigation system.
Key points to learn from Chinese Urbanization lesson:

12. 3. Priorities cohesion
China’s polity is authoritarian, but many of its leaders accept more de facto accountability than do top officials in some
developing countries that hold regular elections while ignoring accountability during the intervals between them.
In effect, China’s leaders stake their legitimacy on results rather than votes. Communist ideology has waned, and the ruling
Party promotes officials who produce growth and rising incomes.
 While many developing countries begin from a different starting point, the Chinese experience makes clear that social
cohesion and an organic sense of elite accountability are critical – though the latter may prove inadequate at higher levels of
development.
4. Build a competent government committed to inclusive development
1.China has far greater state capacity than any other developing country.
2.China is by developing-world standards unusually inclusive in key ways. Economic growth has sown fairly widespread
benefits, and nearly every child gets basic schooling while nearly every village enjoys paved roads and electricity.
3.The state is “all in” when it comes to development, framing aggressive policies to promote growth, investment, exports,
technology, and human-capital formation.
 In many developing countries, the state – corrupt, inept, slow, mercurial – is the biggest barrier to national development.
China’s government has its problems (some serious), but it is nothing like that.

13. 5. Use financial markets to promote development and stability
Beijing views unconstrained financial markets with suspicion and wants them to serve policy needs. It has emphasised the role of
banks and a postal savings system, and limits financial market competition.
By reducing risk and increasing convenience for small and rural depositors, the state has stimulated one of the world’s highest
savings rates (40% for the average household). Such saving fuels one of the world’s highest investment rates.
The country has also tightly managed its capital controls and currency value. There are no wild cross-border currency flows such
as those that caused the Asian financial crisis of 1997. Export competitiveness is protected.
6. Pave the road to riches-literally
Much to the joy of investors and its own bottom line, China spends tons of money on roads, ports, railways, electricity, telecom
networks, and airports.
China knows that world-class transport and export facilities are crucial. Modern infrastructure has cut the costs of doing
business and helped China’s huge and well-trained yet cheap workforce to make the country the world’s workshop with 2010
exports worth more than US$1.5 trillion. Investments in electricity, running water, and phones have also reduced inequality.

14. Crowding, but few slums. A cornerstone of China’s urbanization strategy has been the hukou, or household registration
system to control migration and to try to channel migrants to small or medium-sized cities.
"One of China’s greatest successes in its rapid urbanization has been that it has managed to contain the process to the extent
that there are crowded living conditions but very few slums,”
“This is an important achievement for a developing country.”
To distil the essentials: developing countries need leaders who can leverage a certain degree of cohesion, develop a
reasonably competent government, and roll intelligently with local and national circumstances.
Conclusion

15. Thank you for your attention!