Semi-urbanization and evolving patterns of urbanization in China: Insights from the 2000 to 2010 national censuses

Abstract

Based on the prefecture-level data of the 2000 and 2010 national censuses, the spatial evolution of China's semi-urbanization is analyzed in this study. The stages of urbanization are re-examined by considering semi-urbanization. Nine types of urban development are presented according to the relations between semi-urbanization and urbanization, and China's urbanization is divided into five stages, namely, high incoordination, incoordination, low coordination, coordination, and high coordination. Results show that China's semi-urbanization rate varies significantly from one area to another; its order in 2010 from the highest to the lowest value was as follows: east, middle, west, and northeast. Urbanization and semi-urbanization rates in inland cities increase much faster than those in coastal cities. In addition, semi-urbanization displays a spatial pattern similar to that of urbanization across China, with the sole exception of the northeastern region. Through a spatial autocorrelation analysis, the spatial concentration of semi-urbanization is determined to be increasing. High-value concentration areas are expanding in the coastal east, whereas low-value concentration areas are growing in the northeast. Lastly, the evolution of China's urbanization model suggests a weakening trend of coordination between urbanization and semi-urbanization over the studied decade. Semi-urbanization can be viewed as a special production of China's hukou system, which restricts the permanent settlement of migrants in cities. As such, China's semi-urbanization trend is expected to exhibit a reversed U-shaped pattern as urbanization and citizenization develop.

Transforming the Peri-Urban Fringe in China: The Example of Xi’an-Xianyang

“…This description resembles that referred to in the so-called desakota landscapes observed by McGee [75] across south-east Asia and which are now receiving attention from researchers around China [76][77][78][79]. Another label comes from X. Liu et al [80] who describe the emerging peri-urban landscape as semi-urbanization, which they assess as accounting for around two-thirds of the urbanization in Shaanxi province from 2000 to 2010 (around the national average). In the desakota landscape the remaining farmers are part of a multi-functional environment, in which they themselves have become multi-functional in order to survive, combining intensive farming with other enterprises, notably tourism and income generation from other activities ancillary to farming.…”

Degradation of Coastlines under the Pressure of Urbanization and Tourism: Evidence on the Change of Land Systems from Europe, Asia and Africa

“…In Jakarta and Manila, land use controls are less stringent in the urban fringe areas, where developers can simply pave over farmland or forestland and easily install infrastructure [5]. In China, the coastal opening-up policy attracted a numerous foreign investment enterprises, and many economic development zones were generally built in cities and small towns [50], and most major cities have moved factories out to industrial zones on the urban edges, freeing up land for gentrification at the urban core [5]. In Europe the urbanization phases developed at different speeds and time between the north and the south [51], and the process is also more prominent in the east [52].…”

Social insurance participation and urban settlement intentions of China's floating population

“…It is necessary to distinguish the long-term settlement intention from hukou conversion intention because these two intentions do not necessarily conform to each other. Some scholars speculate that China is at a stage of "semi-urbanisation" (Liu, Cao, Liu, & Liu, 2016) The intention to settle for a long-term or permanently (via hukou conversion) in the destination city is a complex calculation for migrant workers in China. On the one hand, employment opportunities, welfare benefits (such as medical insurance and pensions), and education opportunities are generally better in the urban settings compared with the rural contexts.…”

“…It is necessary to distinguish the long‐term settlement intention from hukou conversion intention because these two intentions do not necessarily conform to each other. Some scholars speculate that China is at a stage of “semi‐urbanisation” (Liu, Cao, Liu, & Liu, 2016) and the rural migrants are in a transitional state between returning to rural areas and completing citizenisation via urban hukou conversion (Ouyang, Wang, Tian, & Niu, 2017; Wang, 2006). Indeed, the proportion of urban population without urban hukou has been increasing over the past two decades, reaching to 0.35 in 2014 (National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2015).…”