The challenge of millions on the move
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"In Beijing urban planning in the past has been moving outwards from First to Second to Third Ring Road and beyond and it is not really sustainable," she said. She believes new cities could provide the key and pave the way to a lower carbon future.
"They provide a way of integrating low carbon solutions into the urbanization process. New satellite cities have to be workable for people. People have got to be able to shop, have leisure facilities and go to work there," he said.
Dominic Bettison, managing director of international architects Wilkinson Eyre's China operations, insists new cities provide opportunities for groundbreaking architectural solutions which address climate change.
"You can look at having district cooling or district heating where a series of buildings or streets have linked systems, which use very little energy," he said. "In smaller cities you can also have smaller-scale buildings rather than having the necessity to build huge skyscrapers. Smaller buildings can make greater use of natural ventilation with less reliance on air conditioning."
Baum, the US author and academic, now living in France, said it is inevitable urbanization will cause further climate damage, whether smaller cities take the lead or not.
"You might see a reduction in the pace of environmental degradation but not a reversal of it. Maybe 40 or 50 years down the road carbon intensity may be reversed to the point where you see some improvement but that is a long way off," he added.
"People trumpet China's wind and solar panel industries but most of that is for export and is not being used domestically. Coal remains China's biggest energy resource and coal is not clean energy - yet, at least."
Li Dexiang, professor at the school of architecture at Tsinghua University, said the solution to China's urbanization process was to create sustainable cities and living environments.
"The key is to build basic infrastructure and provide job opportunities locally, to ease the traffic pressure from workers moving between areas all the time," he said.
He said it was important there was still a focus on rural areas rather just rural migration into the cities.
"It is important to balance the urban and rural development. Lots of the rural labor force will be transferred to cities during the urbanization process. But you have to remember that agriculture is still a major primary industry and will remain a main determinant of the Chinese economy in the future," he added.
Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom, author of China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know, and professor of history at the University of California, Irvine, argues urbanisation is becoming something of a muddied issue.
"In many parts of the country it is difficult to draw a line between what is a rural and an urban area. Even in rural areas there are very few families where at least one family member isn't working in a city, at least for part of the year," he said.
China's urbanization process remains a unique event in history. Never before have so many people moved from the countryside to cities. In just over a generation China has moved from being a largely agrarian society to urbanization levels of more than 40 percent.
Britain, the first industrial nation, took 80 years to achieve this more than 200 years ago and the United States needed 80 years. Policymakers are having to cope with challenges never dealt with before.
Li at Tsinghua University said it is a steep learning curve for everyone but he believes smaller sustainable cities are part of the solution.
"It is an inevitable trend to develop small cities around large ones such as Beijing, Shanghai and Chongqing. They don't even have to be satellite cities but can form long ribbons, depending on the local geographic situation," he said.
But he warns climate damage remains the big headache for everyone.
"The current development model uses up significant fossil energy and can create severe pollution. These problems provide a bottleneck to the urbanization process," he said.
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