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UN report outlines China's urbanization

By Chen Boyuan: 0 Comment(s)Print E-mail China.org.cn, August 28, 2013

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The unprecedented pace of urbanization in China has raised questions about how the country is building sustainable and inhabitable cities.

The rate of urbanization in China exceeded 50 percent in 2011, according to the National Bureau of Statistics; it meant that there were more people living in cities than in the countryside for the first time.

Helen Clark, United Nations Under Secretary-General and Administrator of UNDP, takes questions from the press after the launch of China's 2013 National Human Development Report on Tuesday in Beijing. [Photo/China.org.cn/Chen Boyuan]

As China's economy grows, climate change, regional inequality, and the aging population have become major problems that the country's policymakers cannot ignore.

"How [cities] are managed will have a wide ramification for the outcomes of many China's present development challenges," said a spokesperson from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) at the launch of China's 2013 National Human Development Report (NHDR) on Tuesday in Beijing.

The report is a joint effort between the UNDP and the Institute of Urban and Environmental Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS).

UNDP Administrator Helen Clark said the transition to a predominantly urban population was not unique to China, but in China it has happened very quickly and on a great scale.

"According to China's national censuses, its urban population grew from only 11 percent in 1949 to 36 percent in 2000 and now to over 50 percent," said Clarke, who noted that by contrast, the same demographic transition took 150 years to occur in Europe and 210 years in Latin America.

She predicted that China's urban population is going to rise to 70 percent by 2030, resulting in an additional 310 million new city dwellers in the next two decades. By then, one billion Chinese will live in cities.

Framed in the context of urbanization, the 2013 NHDR examined the correlation between China's economic, social and environmental challenges, and stressed that all three are pivotal to the Chinese government's focus on human development.

China's leadership is already aware of such challenges and taking actions on many fronts accordingly.

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