Authors(s): Adriana Akers, Anthony Gao, Xiujun Li, and Molly Lindsay et al. (China Urban Initiative) 2011 Urban Sustainability Index April 1, 2012 The 2011 Urban Sustainability updates data from the inaugural report and further develops insights into the relative sustainability of China's rapidly growing cities while highlighting case studies of successful policies and outcomes. Analysis revealed a positive correlation between a city's income level and its sustainability scores, indicating that in some cases China's continued economic development may have a positive impact on sustainable urbanization.

8/05/2012 On May 3, Gengtian Zhang, Director of Research at the Urban China Initiative (UCI), gave a lecture on how to promote healthy urbanization for the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) in Sichuan Province. Most of the 100 delegates at the talk were urban planning and policy directors and professionals, mainly from the NDRC offices for Sichuan Province, Kuoquan County, and individual cities in Sichuan. Zhang's lecture described the direction and focus of urbanization development inChina, including some research results from an international perspective, and proposed how to promote healthy urban development in China's cities. The lecture focused on six main ideas critical to China's continuing urbanization, including promoting a healthy model of urban development, improving the quality of urban planning, promoting the welfare of migrant workers and their integration into urban areas, improving China's city layouts, advancing urban agglomeration and megaregion development, and improving urbanization policies and regulations. Zhang opened by discussing the significance of promoting the urbanization process from the perspective of expanding domestic demand and enhancing economic and social development. He also described the main findings of UCI's recent report, "The 2011 Urban Sustainability Index", particularly relating to its implications for sustainable development. He stressed that we should regard migrant worker integration into cities as most important task in the next phase of China's urbanization. In regards to urban layout and physical planning, he described the future Functional Area Plan for Chinese cities, including the "two horizontal and three vertical" urbanization strategy pattern (to make Lianyungang-Urumqi channel and Yangtze channel two horizontal axis, and make coastal line, Haerbin-Beijing-Guangzhou channel and Baotou-Kunming channel three vertical axis of Urbanization zoning strate

[From: Scientific.net] Author(s): Cai Gui Zheng et al. Source: Advanced Materials Research. Advanced Manufacturing Technology, 472-475, p. 231-238, 2012. DOI: 10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMR.472-475.231 ABSTRACT: This paper, based on the current state and problems of saving and intensive land use system of urban-rural integration in Chongqing, in which methods of theoretical approach and system analysis are applied, brings up three mechanisms as: (1) the connecting of the increase of urban construction and the decrease of rural residential area; (2) the connecting of sprawling and farmland consolidation; (3) the connecting of intensive land-use in urban-rural area. At last, the paper builds up the saving and intensive land use system of urban-rural integration follow as: (1) perfecting land surveying system; (2) strengthening land statistics system; (3) perfecting land evaluation system; (4) clearing land property right system; (5) improving land registration system; (6) refining land use system; (7) building land tax system; (8) explicating land consolidation system.

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.

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 [...]

Authors: Cai, Jianming; Yang, Zhenshan; Webster, Douglas; Song, Tao; Gulbrandson, Andrew Source: Asia Pacific Viewpoint, Volume 53, Number 1, 1 April 2012 , pp. 38-55(18) Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell Abstract: The spectacular growth of Chinese cities since the 1980s is often theorised as reflecting the advantages of latecomer development (ALD). ALD has been more effective in cosmopolitan, globally accessible coastal cities than outer cities. As leading cities, like Shanghai, close the development gap, the potential for `easy' ALD growth falls off rapidly. Because institution building is more difficult than firm-based growth, ALD strategies may generate rapid short-term economic growth but not sustainable development. Accordingly, Chongqing municipality, with a population of 33 million, in West China, is pursuing a beyond latecomer advantage model. This is characterised by: (i) reducing poverty and rural-urban disparity through accelerated urbanisation, rural-urban integration and emphasising human resource development; (ii) upgrading the value added of Chongqing's economy through targeting of FDI and incentives to local start-ups; (iii) endogenous development, reducing risks from external shocks; (iv) Hukou reform; (v) establishing a land use conversion certificate market to rationalise land use; (vi) emphasis on morality to address crime/corruption; (vii) recognition of the importance of amenity in attracting investment and talent; and (viii) establishing a longer developmental time perspective. This paper explores this Chongqing model in detail.

Building local ties and creating a long-term future in Chongqing is the goal of BritCham's development forum, notes Thomas Vincent. Chongqing is urbanising at a tremendous rate. Two thousand people a day are moving into built up areas across the Municipality, maintaining a steady stream of demand for the construction of residential and commercial property. It could be said that Chongqing is currently at the forefront of urbanisation in the entire world, and so there is nowhere more fitting to educate and inform people about the need for sustainability.

August 19th, 2011 Author: Kam Wing Chan, University of Washington In the popular media and the business world, urbanisation is often cited as the fundamental driver of global economic growth, especially for the next few decades. The assumption is that a rural-urban shift will transform poor farmers into industrial and office workers, raising their incomes and creating a massive consumer class. Imagine farmers who once led simple, subsistence lives becoming workers in the city, buying up apartments and furnishing them with appliances.

June 23rd, 2012 Author: Kam Wing Chan, University of Washington Last year, for the first time in Chinese history more people lived in cities and towns than in the countryside. Some 690 million urban dwellers now account for 51.3 per cent of China's total population. Nobel laureate in economics Joseph Stiglitz has said this urban transition will be one of the two main forces shaping the world in the 21st century.

Source : Academic Search Premier Auteurs : Yong, Liu, Yue Wenze, and Fan Peilei DO I: 10.1068/b37009 Résumé: In this research we assessed the urban land conversion, and identified the factors responsible for the conversion, from 1995 to 2009 in Hangzhou, a large city located in the lower Yangtze River Delta of China. We mapped urban land from satellite images by using a hybrid approach of spectral mixture analysis, unsupervised classification, and expert rules. We employed binary logistic regression to model the probability of urban land conversion as a function of spatial independent variables. In recent years Hangzhou started its transformation from a compact, monocentric city to a polycentric city. We found that accessibility to the central business district, industrial centers, roads, Qiantang River, the amount of built-up area in the neighborhood, locations of markets, and spatial policies were the major determinants of Hangzhou's urban land conversion. Moreover, the availability of land in the neighborhood has become increasingly important in recent years. We identified several major institutional forces underlying Hangzhou's urban development: administrative annexation and development zones, the increasingly important role of the market, and the unique role of local government. The results from our research indicate the need for policies and plans that can better manage and reduce urban sprawl in Hangzhou. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]