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Wei Yang, Panos Kanavos Abstract Background Health inequality has been recognized as a problem all over the world. In China, the poor usually have less access to healthcare than the better-off, despite having higher levels of need. Since the proportion of the Chinese population living in urban areas increased tremendously with the urbanization movements, attention has been paid to the association between urban/rural residence and population health. It is important to understand the variation in health across income groups, and in particular to take into account the effects of urban/rural residence on the degree of income-related health inequalities. Methods This paper empirically assesses the magnitude of rural/urban disparities in income-related adult health status, i.e., self-assessed health (SAH) and physical activity limitation, using Concentration Indices. It then uses decomposition methods to unravel the causes of inequalities and their variations across urban and rural populations. Data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS) 2006 are used. Results The study finds that the poor are less likely to report their health status as "excellent or good" and are more likely to have physical activity limitation. Such inequality is more pronounced for the urban population than for the rural population. Results from the decomposition analysis suggest that, for the urban population, 76.47 per cent to 79.07 per cent of inequalities are driven by non-demographic/socioeconomic-related factors, among which income, job status and educational level are the most important factors. For the rural population, 48.19 per cent to 77.78 per cent of inequalities are driven by non-demographic factors. Income and educational attainment appear to have a prominent influence on inequality.

International Comparative Analysis of Poverty in Asia: Urbanization, Migration and Social Policy Symposium held at Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu, China, November 1-4, 2012 Southwest Jiaotong University (SWJTU) and the Institute for Poverty Alleviation and International Development (IPAID) are jointly organizing a symposium in October 2012 on the effects of urbanization and poverty alleviation in Asia. The main purpose is to address the widening income gap between rural and urban areas in Asia in the past thirty years. Development scholars, researchers, and practitioners are invited to submit high-quality papers with a focus on the symposium theme of urbanization and migration in Asia and its affect on poverty in both rural and urban areas. The symposium aims to create a dialogue among scholars of Asian development studies to address effective urban and rural poverty reduction strategies. The symposium will focus on the following set of issues which include (but are not limited to): Rural development and urbanization in Asia International standards of poverty alleviation Access to land and land right education (rights, inequity, and poverty) Labor mobility and poverty Gender based income inequality Social policy to tackle poverty and inequality Housing, transportation and infrastructure development National policies and measures for the eradication of poverty The symposium will conclude with an excursion to disaster areas in Chengdu affected by the 2008 earthquake which killed an estimated 69,000 people. SWJTU has taken a lead in the recovery efforts and research cooperation in the field of poverty alleviation in Western China's less developed areas. Selected papers from the symposium will be published in a special edited volume of the Journal of Poverty Alleviation and International Development (JPAID) in 2013. Submission Deadlines Submission of a 500 word abstract is due by September 15, 2012. If accepted, SWJTU will communicate with you in

Abstract Taking Beijing as a case study, this paper analyses new trends in peri-urbanisation and the city's planning responses after 2000 in China. The results of the analysis show that the percentage of temporary migrant residents continues to grow in the peri-urban region and the social inequalities in relation to quality of life between local people and migrants have increased there. In particular, there is a concentration of thousands of young and well-educated migrants in the peri-urban region, resulting in a new kind of urban slum. Sprawling development still dominates Beijing's fringe. New planning policies related to an urban-rural integration strategy have played a positive role in improving living conditions in rural areas and reducing the social and economic gaps between urban and rural areas in the peri-urban region. However, planning in the peri-urban region is still facing new challenges due to vertically and horizontally fragmented management, growing market forces, and social discrimination caused by the remnants of the hukou mechanism. This suggests that it will not be easy to achieve the planning goal of urban-rural integration and harmony society unless further actions are taken to enhance political capacity of planning system in Beijing. The capacity-building of planning should be facilitated if institutional innovations can be made in arrangements of power, rights, public resources, accountability, and legitimacy in the planning system. Highlights ► Many new trends in peri-urbanisation have appeared after 2000 in Beijing. ► Peri-urbanisation contributes to growth in social inequalities. ► It will not be easy to achieve the planning goal of urban-rural integration. ► New urban-rural integration policies are facing challenges. ► The institutional capacity of planning needs to be reinforced.

UCI delegation participated in first annual NCF summit in Paris 25/05/2012 The Chinese delegation takes a group photo with Lady Barbara, Judge, Chairman of the UK Pension Protection Fund. The first annual New Cities Foundation (NCF) Summit was held in Paris on May 14-16. The summit brought together more than 500 urban policy makers and thought leaders to a three-day conference on global urbanization, with China as one of the core focuses. The mayor of Paris delivered a welcome speech. Other speakers including Gregor Robertson, Mayor of Vancouver; Ron Huldai, Mayor of Tel Aviv; Khalifa Sall, Mayor of Dakar; Greg Clark, UK Minister of State for Decentralisation and Cities; as well as the CEOs of General Motors, Ericsson, Cisco, and Suez gas. The Urban China Initiative (UCI), a partner of the NCF, assisted in organizing the summit by inviting and organizing 16 government delegates, enterprise leaders, and academics from China, as well as designing the plenary session "A Closer Look at Urban China: Towards the Urban Billion." Chinese delegates shared their insights as speakers at plenary and breakout sessions, including: "Securing Investments for the Urban Century: How do we Pay for the Urban Boom," which featured Li Dongming, General Manager of the Urban Fund at China Development Bank Capital, as a speaker. "Hard and Software City," which featured Jonathan Woetzel, Co-Chair of the Urban China Initiative, Senior Director at McKinsey & Co., as a speaker. "A Closer Look at Urban China: Towards the Urban Billion," which featured five speakers from the UCI delegation, including Yuan Yue, CEO and Chairman of Horizon Research Consultancy Group; James Lee, AIA LEED-AP, President of iContinuum Group; Jonathan Woetzel; Xiao Jincheng, Deputy Director of the Land Economy and Regional Research Bureau at the National Development and Reform Commission; and Xie Chengxiang, Deputy Mayor of Huangshi in Hubei Province. "Modern Urban

China is facing ecological revolution now. The basis of the revolution is establishing the ecological consciousness. Different level of ecological consciousness in urban and rural area raised our attention. According to different environment conditions and based on pollution theory, we try to find out the cornerstone of setting ecological consciousness during this changing time. Since China is on the fast urbanization period, environmental awareness change on rural-urban migrants can be this key. This paper focused on which factor(s) have significant effect to ecological consciousness. Urban and Rural residents were interviewed for data collecting, and for deep research, three groups (Urban Residents Group, Rural residents Group and Migrants Group) are split based on responders' migration experience. In this paper, ANOVA analysis and regression analysis are used. Based on pollution-driven theory, two models are given to compare the explanation strengths between within and without theory variables. We found that pollution experience and relative pollute have important effect on eco-consciousness. So Ecological Consciousness is not straight influenced by environment condition, but people think about the deterioration. We considered that, the cornerstone of setting ecological consciousness is recognizing the crisis and disruption of ecological environment.

[ScienceDirect, via Biblio-SHS] Auteur : Feng Hu [et al.] Paru dans : China Economic Review, Volume 22, Issue 1, March 2011, Pages 64-74 Abstract Although there is a rich literature on internal temporary migration in China, few existing studies deal with the permanent migration decision of China's rural labor. This paper will fill this gap and deal with the permanent migration choice made by rural migrants with the China General Social Survey (CGSS) data. Our results show that compared with their circular counterparts, permanent migrants tend to stay within the home provinces and are more likely to have stable jobs and earn high incomes and thus are more adapted to urban lives. We also find that more educated and more experienced migrants tend to be permanent urban residents, while the relationship of age and the probability of permanent migration is inverse U-shaped. Due to the restrictions of the current hukou system and the lack of rural land rental market, those people with more children and more land at home are more likely to migrate circularly rather than permanently. Research Highlights ► It's the first to examine the permanent migration choice by China's rural migrants. ► We employ a unique nationally representative dataset. ► Our findings are robust to different definitions of "permanent migrant". ► Our findings provide a new insight and have important policy implications.

By Cong Mu (Global Times) 08:27, September 17, 2012 For the first time in China, there are more urban citizens than rural residents in the country, but rural-urban inequalities remain, according to a research report released Saturday by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) in Beijing.

K. Sophia Woodman Ph.D. THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) October 2011 This study uses the China case to revisit some of the central assumptions of the literature on citizenship, showing how citizens and states are formed in and through the local places where citizenship is practiced. It suggests that the location of the political and of citizens have been an understudied aspect of citizenship orders, not just in relation to the growing impact of global and transnational forces, but also in sub-state entities. Through fine-grained examination of the daily interactions between citizens and state agents, this study shows how citizenship in China is embedded in local relationships of belonging, participation and entitlement anchored in institutions that organize people in workplaces, urban neighborhoods and rural villages. Based on 10 months of ethnographic fieldwork in four communities in Tianjin, China, the study examines how two such institutions, the villager and residents committees, act as a nexus for participation and formal rights, while also providing social welfare to the needy. The practices of these institutions bind citizens to the state through a face-to-face politics that acts both as a mechanism of control and a channel for claims-making and pressure from below, a mode of rule I call "socialized governance." Both enabling and constraining, this exists in tension with bureaucratic-rational forms of governance, such as the current Chinese leadership's objective of "ruling in accordance with law." While the frameworks for citizenship are set at the national level, its local, cellular character means great variation among places in both form and practice. My model of local citizenship helps explain patterns of economic and social inequality and of contentious politics in contemporary China. While the unsettling of the congruence between the national and citizenship has been widely noted, this study points to

Feature Story August 14, 2012 The year 2011 was a historic moment in the urbanization of China, as its urban population exceeded its rural population for the first time. About 350 million new urban residents are expected to migrate to cities over the coming 20 years. Urban development on such a scale is both a challenge and an opportunity for urban transport. A challenge, as current trends are unsustainable both at local and national level. Locally, the rapid growth in car ownership has enabled greater personal mobility for many but has also brought traffic congestion, accidents, and air pollution. Slow and congested transport systems are beginning to stifle the efficiency of the urban economy. The construction of new roads to accommodate traffic leads to urban sprawl and accelerated traffic growth and hampers the mobility of those who do not own a car. Nationally, excessive conversion of farmland for urban development consumes scarce land resources and impacts the country's ecological systems. Rising fuel consumption also endangers the nation's long-term energy security, while growing emissions from urban transport render the national objectives of CO2 reduction difficult to achieve. But this rapid urbanization also represents an opportunity, as the recognition of urban transport's spillover effects has led to a new policy emphasis on public transport priority and sustainable urban transport development. [...]

Posted by Kate Mackenzie on Aug 30 14:09. In our first post in this series, we examined the widely-held belief that China's steel demand will continue to rise at a rapid rate. FT Alphaville, along with others, contend that such forecasts are on shaky ground. This is, in part, because of the dubiousness of one of the underlying assumptions: that China will rapidly urbanise more of its population. (Here's a very recent example of this argument, from Stephen Roach.) The proportion Chinese living in urban areas just passed the 50 per cent mark in the past year but, the story goes, there is more to come. This will in turn mean more industrialisation, more modernisation, a bigger and consuming middle class and of course more GDP growth. In other words: [...] farmers who once led simple, subsistence-level lives now become factory and service workers in the city, reside in apartments furnished with appliances, occasionally eat out, and perhaps even send their kids to college. In the process, self-sufficient rural households are transformed into workers receiving higher wages and participating in the commodity economy of consumption. As such, urbanization is as much an economic and social transformation as it is a spatial and demographic process. Sounds great doesn't it? The above quote however comes from a paper by Kam Wing Chan in Eurasian Geography and Economics early this year. Chan is a professor of geography at the University of Washington, and he doesn't agree that this is how things will continue to play out for China.