The size distribution and growth pattern of cities in China, 1982–2010: analysis and policy implications

ABSTRACT

China's urbanization in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries is a crucial process in transforming the country. Taking advantage of the de facto counts of city population in the last four censuses since 1982, this paper examines the city-size distribution and growth pattern of large cities in China in recent three decades. Combined with earlier data and work on the Mao era, the paper also presents some long-term trends and helps answer an important question: was China successful in controlling the growth of large cities? In addition, the paper analyzes the main features of China's urbanization policy in relation to the political economy and development strategy, and concludes with a discussion of the relevance of this study to the latest urbanization policy and the household registration system or hukou reforms in large cities.

KEYWORDS:

• China
• cities
• urbanization
• urbanization policy
• household registration
• migrants

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• R12
• R23
• R28

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank constructive comments by Peter Morgan and an anonymous referee.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. See, for example, Chan's (1994) critique of the misled ‘China model’ of urbanization in Mao's era advanced by Murphey (1975) and Ma (1976). Urban systems in socialist countries are also poorly understood as many studies have not paid enough attention to the political economy factor (Fan 1999; Davis and Henderson 2003).

2. See detailed analysis by Chan and Wang (2008). Essentially, de jure counts only include those with local hukou registration. See more detailed discussion below.

3. An explanation of the definition is in Forstall and Chan (2015).

4. For details and examples of the studies plagued by definitional problems in this paragraph, see Chan (2007), especially 396–398.

5. This group was estimated to be about 50 million in 1982, see Chan (2012b, Table 1); it would have been smaller in the 1970s.

6. Since the promulgation of this policy in early 2014, several large cities have started to discourage migrants from entering the cities. For example, many migrant workers’ children have lost their school places in the cities. The situation was so grave in Beijing that hundreds of migrant children and parents staged a three-month-long protest in front of the local education commission office in summer 2014 (Chan 2015).

7. The Gini for large market economies (Brazil, Japan, Indonesia, UK, Mexico, Nigeria, France, India, Germany, USA, and Spain) was 0.52−0.65 in 2000. Data are from Vernon Henderson (see Chan, Henderson, and Tsui 2008).

8. The non-hukou population rose from 66 million in 1990 to 137 million in 2000 (see Chan 2012b, Table 1).

9. China's per capita metrics, including GDP, at the city level in 2010 appear to be quite reasonable in general (except for Chongqing). Earlier data, especially those before mid-2000s, are problematic because of both the city boundary and the hukou issues (Chan 2010b; Orlik 2011; Holz 2013; Gibson and Li 2016).

10. Koen et al. (2013, Table A1.1) make a similar point.

11. Partly because of intense housing speculation in many large cities, tens of thousands of families own multiple vacant units as investment while millions live in substandard shelters.

Additional information

Funding

National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 71133004].

Notes on contributors

Kam Wing Chan

Kam Wing Chan is a professor of geography at University of Washington. His main research program focuses on the impact of social and political institutions on migration, urbanization, and urban labor in China. He has worked as a consultant for the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, United Nations, and McKinsey Global Institute.

Guanghua Wan

Guanghua Wan is a director of research, Asian Development Bank Institute, Tokyo, Japan. His research interests are poverty, inequality, and economic development. He has recently published articles on structural change and income distribution in China and on the growth and distributive impacts on infrastructure investment in China.