Polarization in China’s Urbanization: Tendency and Outlook

Wei Houkai
Institute for Urban & Environmental Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, China

Abstract: This paper provides an analysis of the rapid expansion in number and population of large cities in the process of China’s urbanization and the relative decline of small and medium-sized cities and examines the root causes of such polarization,including the preference of government resource allocation towards political centers and large cities, market effect underlying the self-reinforced agglomeration of large cities, desire of migrant workers to settle in large cities, as well as the lack of government regulation. Regarding the outlook of China’s urbanization, the paper believes that the appropriate ratio of new urban population absorption should be 30:18:18:34 among mega, large, small and medium-sized cities and designated towns.

Keywords: urbanization, polarization, new path of urbanization

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