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By Molly McElroy Feb. 29, 2012 News and Information The number of people living in China's cities, which last year for the first time surpassed 50 percent of the national population, is considered a boon for the consumer goods market. That is based on the assumption that there will be more families with more disposable income when poor farmers from China's countryside move to cities and become middle-class industrial and office workers. But the assumption overlooks a policy from the era of Chinese leader Mao Zedong that restricts the upward mobility of its rural citizens, says a University of Washington geographer. This calls into question China's strength in the global market and its ability to overtake the United States as a global superpower, according to Kam Wing Chan, a UW professor of geography. Skyline of Shanghai, the largest city in China. China's urban population is expected to reach 1 billion in the next 15 years. tyler_haglund, Wikimedia Skyline of Shanghai, the largest city in China. China's urban population is expected to reach 1 billion in the next 15 years. His findings are published in the current issue of the journal Eurasian Geography and Economics.

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.

DOI : http://dx.doi.org.gate3.inist.fr/10.1016/j.apgeog.2011.11.006 [ScienceDirect, via Biblio-SHS] Auteur : Kai-ya Wu, Hao Zhang Paru dans : Applied Geography, Volume 34, May 2012, Pages 137-145 Abstract In this study, Hangzhou, the capital city of Zhejiang Province in eastern China was selected as a case study. Based on time series Landsat MSS/TM/ETM + imagery and historical census data, analysis of the relationship between land use dynamics, built-up land expansion patterns, and underlying driving forces from 1978 to 2008 was performed, using an integrated approach of remote sensing (RS) and geographic information system (GIS) techniques and statistical methods. The results showed that rapid expansion of built-up land in the Hangzhou Metropolitan Area (HMA) led to accelerated land use conversion. The built-up land increased from 319.3 km2 in 1978 to 862.5 km2 in 2008. Expansion patterns of built-up land in the HMA were essentially characterized by axial expansion centered on the former city proper before 1991. In 1996 and 2001, two significant administrative division adjustments for the former city proper and two neighboring municipalities occurred. This led to the success in implementing strategies of "frog-leaping development along the Qiantang River" and "crossing the Qiantang River and developing southward". Spatially, a closer linkage between the former city proper and two neighboring municipalities was established. Consequently, rapid development of infrastructures, facilities, intensive industrial parks, and urban and rural settlements along the Qiantang River resulted in the eastward and southward expansion of built-up land. Thus, from 1991 to 2008 the model of urban expansion resulted in a multi-nuclei pattern. Furthermore, as shown with detailed analysis, the growth pattern of built-up land of the HMA is highly correlated with socio-economic factors, including the gross domestic product (GDP), per capita disposable income, popul

Author : Nate Berg Feb 29, 2012 Why China's Urbanization Isn't Creating a Middle Class Nate Berg Feb 29, 2012 11 Comments Why China's Urbanization Isn't Creating a Middle Class Reuters Share Print Share on emailEmail The rapid rate of development in China manifests itself most clearly in its cities. With some populations rising into the tens of millions, China's cities are the economic powerhouses of the country, and are helping to create a whole new era of financial prosperity. For some observers, this translates into 1.3 billion people who now have the money to afford the sort of commercial goods many of the country's factories had previously been producing for the affluent populations of other countries. China is seeing its own affluence rise, and some surmise that this will translate into a Western-style nation of relatively well-off consumers; that, as this report from the McKinsey Global Institute suggests, China's middle class is emerging to help propel the country's economic success even higher. The only problem is that this middle class doesn't actually exist. And unless decades-old rules change, it won't. In a recent paper published in the journal Eurasian Geography and Economics, geographer and University of Washington professor Kam Wing Chan argues that all of the country's urban growth and prosperity is not actually filtering down to the majority of the rising urban population. The reason is that the majority of the urban population is prevented from fully participating in the booming urban economy because of a Mao-era rule that draws a harsh line between those from urban areas and those from rural ones [...]

DOI : http://dx.doi.org.gate3.inist.fr/10.1016/j.foar.2012.02.013 [ScienceDirect, via Biblio-SHS] Auteur : GU Chaolin, WU Liya, Ian Cook Paru dans : Frontiers of Architectural Research, Volume 1, Issue 2, June 2012, Pages 101-149 Abstract This paper is a comprehensive study on the progress in research on Chinese urbanization. On the basis of the concept and connotation of Chinese urbanization defined by Chinese scholars, the paper systematically collects the research results on the issues concerning urbanization in China from the different approaches of demography, geography, city planning, economics and history, reviewing the process of research on Chinese urbanization made both domestically and internationally. In this paper, the domestic studies fall into five periods as follows: the initial period of research on urbanization in China (1978-1983); the period with both domestically constructed and borrowed theories on urbanization (1984-1988); the period of research on leading urbanization factors and localization (1989-1997); the period with the research greatly promoted by the government (1998-2004); and the period featuring flourishing studies on the science of urbanization in China (2005 till today). In contrast, the overseas research on Chinese urbanization can be divided into three periods: the period studying the history of urbanization in China (before the 1970s); the systematic research on Chinese urbanization (1970-1999); and the comprehensive research on Chinese urbanization (2000 till today). The paper focuses on the key results of research on Chinese urbanization, including nine issues as follows: the guidelines and road for urban development in China, the features of Chinese urbanization, the mechanism driving the growth of Chinese urbanization, the process of Chinese urbanization, the spatial patterns of Chinese urbanization, the urbanization in rural areas in China, the comparison of urbanization in China and other co

Abstract We performed a bibliometric analysis of published urbanization research from 1991 to 2009, based on SCI and SSCI database. Our analysis reveals scientific outputs, subject categories and major journals, international collaboration and geographic distribution, and temporal trends in keywords usage in urbanization studies and discusses the relationships between urbanization papers and urbanization rate and offer a substitute demonstration of research advancements, which may be considered as a potential guide for future research. The growth of article outputs has exploded since 1991, along with an increasing collaboration index, references and citations. Environmental sciences, ecology, environmental studies, geography and urban studies were most frequently used subject categories and Landscape and Urban Planning was the most productive journal in urbanization studies. The United States was the largest contributor in global urbanization research, as the USA produced the most independent and collaborative papers. The geographic distribution of urbanization articles overlapped quite well with regions with high economic growth in North America, Europe, and Pacific-Asia. A keywords analysis found the USA and China were "hotspots", confirmed land-use's significant position and revealed keen interest in ecological and environmental issues in urbanization studies. In general, urbanization research was strongly correlated with the urbanization rate although there were different patterns and underlying processes across different countries. This is the first study to quantify global research trends in urbanization. Our study reveals patterns in scientific outputs and academic collaborations and serves as an alternative way of revealing global research trends in urbanization.

[ScienceDirect, via Biblio-SHS] Auteur : Adolf K.Y. Ng, James J. Wang Paru dans : Research in Transportation Economics, Volume 35, Issue 1, Pages 1-66 (May 2012) Editorial 1. Introduction Globalization has brought China ever close to the rest of the world not only through its trade and transport networks, but also many transport-related issues that seem to be in common among other countries, while simultaneously with special causes deep-rooted from its unique pathway of development especially in the past several decades. The major fundamental difference of China's development from other countries lies in its economy in general, while the transport sector, in particular, lies in the role of the government. Indeed, since the global financial crisis in 2008, advanced economies, such as the US and several EU countries, have intensified on how to redefine and strengthen the role of the state within respective economies. On the contrary, the Chinese situation is exactly the other way round: the debate is about how to reduce interferences from the very strong hands of the government towards a real regulated market. In this respect, the transport sector typifies this ongoing marketization process. On one extreme, the mode of highway transportation is fully marketized: private investors may construct toll expressways in almost any provinces, either as joint ventures partnering with state-owned firms or just as fully private developers. On the other side of the continuum, after more than three decades of 'reforms', railway infrastructures, as well as their operation, are still fully and tightly controlled by the Ministry of Railways (MOR) through its subsidiary's monopoly. In-between the highways and railways are air and maritime transportation, both of which being characterized by oligopolies with two to three state-owned listed companies taking up more than 80% of the market share. Given such situation, there is a clear interest for further understanding and re

Thématiques 1 et 2 [ScienceDirect, via Biblio-SHS] Auteur : Chunyan Shan, Tetsuo Yai Paru dans : Habitat International, Volume 35, Issue 1, January 2011, Pages 158-166 Abstract The aim of this study is to provide an understanding of the legal requirements and implementation environment of public involvement (PI) in infrastructure planning processes at the national and local levels in China. China's transportation planning is examined to understand the infrastructure planning framework stipulated in the laws and regulations on city planning. The city planning ordinances of 27 provincial capitals and 4 municipalities directly under the Central Government are investigated and their requirements for PI are classified. Factors affecting PI requirements are considered including: geographic location, population and level of economic development among others. The authors discuss the effect of the social environment, geography, economic development level and legal requirements on PI implementation. Legislative and regulatory improvements concerning planning procedures and PI are suggested, with the advanced cities to be used as models. Research highlights ► The paper examines public involvement in Chinese infrastructure planning. ► Public involvement regulations are not uniform across the country but vary among cities. ► Larger, more economically advanced Eastern coastal cities have more detailed requirements than other cities.

Université de Montréal (Faculté des arts et des sciences) Résumé: L'équilibre économique mondial repose sur une asymétrie structurelle dont les pôles antagonistes principaux sont les États-Unis et l'Asie orientale. À la base de cet axe de tension géographique se trouve la question de la représentation mondiale de la richesse. La domination du dollar permet aux États-Unis un accès disproportionné aux ressources planétaires. Les pays créanciers, dont fait partie la Chine, hésitent à laisser flotter leur monnaie et attaquer l'hégémonie du dollar. Entre temps, les déséquilibres s'intensifient, tout comme les tensions politiques, par l'effet de ce système monétaire qui participe au maintien d'un monde unipolaire. Le système monétaire actuel n'offre aucune perspective endogène quant à la résolution des déséquilibres que son équilibre requiert. Ce mémoire cherche à identifier les stratégies géoéconomiques de la Chine pour se soustraire de l'emprise du dollar. Present world economic stability rests on a structural asymmetry whose main antagonists are the United States and East Asia. Inducing the very existence of this axis is the question of the worldwide representation of value. The dollar's domination in this matter allows the United States a disproportionate access to planetary resources. The creditor countries, among which China, hesitate to adopt a floating exchange rate and challenge this peculiar dimension of hegemony directly through the foreign exchange market. As time goes by the global imbalances intensify along with the corresponding political tensions. In effect, the dollarized global monetary system acts as a pillar of a unipolar world. The present international monetary system does not offer, by itself, a resolution to this polarisation process its existence generates. This mémoire offers a perspective on China's geoeconomic strategies destined to extract itself from the dollar system. This is don