China's informal urbanisation: conceptualisation, dimensions and implications

Abstract

This article deals with the meaning and dimensions of informal urbanisation in post-socialist China, which has been undertaking reforms to its centrally planned economy while continuing the Lewis dual-economy transition since the late 1970s. It first combines the literature on economic transition of the urban labour market with Chinese experience of systemic transformation to contribute to a conceptual understanding of informal urbanisation. It demonstrates that it is both the legacy and new configurations of the Chinese reformed socialist system that have created the ‘exclusive’ and therefore informal feature of urbanisation under the economic and systemic transitions. On that basis, the article explores the extent of China's informal urbanisation, which is decomposed into demographic, employment and habitat dimensions. This shows that informality represents a constituent part of urbanisation in China. By systematically exploring the special features of China's informal urbanisation, the article also contributes to the growing body of research that emphasises the Chinese urbanisation as a unique process in studying space-economy.

Acknowledgement

This article is a partial product of the research project on public management and public policy undertaken by the State Base of Philosophy & Social Science New Initiatives, Fudan University. The financial support (EYH3548029) from Fudan University is greatly appreciated.

Notes

1. ‘Forging ahead’ industrialisation referred to the development strategy which aimed to industrialise socialist China as soon as possible in order to catch up with advanced capitalist countries in a short period. Under the conditions of a dual economy one requirement for ensuring investment in industrial sectors was to block free flows of resources (including labour) between industry and agriculture and between cities and the countryside.

2. TVEs refer to enterprises which are owned and operated by rural collectives or individual peasants.

3. Temporary population refers to those temporarily staying outside their place of regular residence under the policy of a temporary residence certificate (TRC). The policy was promulgated nationwide in 1985. It specified that people of age 16 and over who intended to stay in urban areas other than their place of hukou registration for more than one month were required to apply for a TRC. The TRC was issued usually for one year and was renewable. This policy was regarded as tacit permission for migrants to live outside the place of their hukou registration. Nonetheless, residence certificate holders were not considered as having gone through the process of hukou transfer from the viewpoint of the city government and were treated as migrant residents.

4. The housing of TVE employees is outside the scope of this section, because, as pointed out earlier, TVE-based informal urbanisation involved only a short distance of daily circulation and no residential relocation of rural population.

5. For a discussion on dormitory accommodation of migrant workers see Smith (2003).

6. This estimate was based on a rental rate of 15–20 RMB per square metre per month. This figure was learnt from an interview with project managers of the Association of Property Valuation of Shenzhen City in February 2005.