Geographic determinants of China's urbanization

Abstract

This study exploits a unique set of satellite and other spatially explicit data to examine the role of three exogenous geographic factors in shaping and constraining urbanization: biophysical land suitability for agriculture, distance to major ports and terrain slope. The setting is China in the 1990's, the most expansive process of urban growth in history. Our empirical results suggest that these geographical factors explain nearly half of the variation in urbanization levels. However, controlling for long-run levels, we nd a weakly negative relationship between agricultural land suitability and urban expansion from 1990-2000, which is consistent with the theoretical expectations that rising opportunity costs a ect the development of fertile lands. We examine heterogeneity in the e ects of geography using interactions with province xed e ects and, even more exibly, with a localized regression technique (geographically weighted regression). Our results indicate that agricultural land suitability has opposing e ects in di erent regions, for example leading to increased urban expansion in the Pearl River Delta and restricting urban expansion along the northern coast. These results should caution scholars against assuming homogeneous e ects of physical geography across regions when doing empirical analysis of urban dynamics.

Natural Geography and Patterns of Local Population Growth and Decline in Spain: 1960–2011

“…The 20 natural geography variables together capture 52 percent of the variation of population growth in rural areas and 38 percent of the variations in population growth in urban areas. The latter result is similar to that of Christensen and McCord [10], who found for China that natural geography also explains approximately 38% of the variation in urban growth between 1990 and 2000. However, part of the explanatory power of their model is driven by the initial distribution of urban land that is included in the estimations.…”

“…Climate: Both for urban and rural areas, local population growth is positively correlated with higher average temperature and a lower temperature range. This indicates that areas with more pleasant temperate climate experience more growth, and this is consistent with the findings for the US [5,9,35], Europe [6], and China [10]. However, in the regression results, once the other geography factors beyond the climate variables are included, the coefficient for mean annual temperature turns out negative in the case of rural municipalities, indicating higher population growth in areas with colder temperature.…”

“…This suggests that population growth tends to take place at the best agricultural soils [39]. Christensen and McCord [10] found for China that while urban areas are more likely to be on prime agricultural land, urban growth was less likely in areas with better agricultural land. The findings related to proximity to aquifers are also consistent with previous studies such as Burchfield et al [9] for the US or Christensen and McCord [10] for China.…”

“…Christensen and McCord [10] found for China that while urban areas are more likely to be on prime agricultural land, urban growth was less likely in areas with better agricultural land. The findings related to proximity to aquifers are also consistent with previous studies such as Burchfield et al [9] for the US or Christensen and McCord [10] for China. As for the rock type, there are some similarities as well as differences between urban and rural population growth.…”

“…Soil also influences agricultural land use. The agricultural production potential in turn can influence the urbanization process [10]. On one hand, agricultural productivity affects the opportunity costs to transfer land from agricultural land use to, for example, housing or industrial uses.…”