Understanding China's Urbanization: The Great Demographic, Spatial, Economic, and Social Transformation

摘要

This authored book sets itself the challenge of providing 'the most comprehensive and up-to-date description of Chinese urbanization since the period of reform and opening up that began in 1978' (12). This is the period during which China's level of urbanisation tripled from under 18 per cent to almost 55 per cent in 2014 and its urban population grew by 558 million. According to their own calculations, China now possesses three megalopolises (urban areas with at least 30 million people), plus seven 'pre-megalopo-lises' and sixteen other large city clusters (LCCs), the twenty-six together being home to 874 million people or around 58 per cent of the total population. At the other end of the scale, there were almost 20,000 official towns with a combined population of almost a quarter of a billion. The statistics on China never fail to impress.