Abstract
Regional differences in the character of urbanization in China are substantial. The promotion of what has been termed “new-type urbanization” cannot, as a result of these regional differences, be expected to follow a universal approach—rather, such a development must objectively adhere to locational and category-specific principles and adopt differentiated urbanization development models. Regional categorization is often used in geography, but is rarely deployed in research addressing human and social problems relating to urbanization. In March 2014, China published the National New-type Urbanization Plan (2014–2020), which calls for the scientific and reasonable planning of “new-type urbanization,” and appropriate regional categorizations are urgently needed in order to guide this reform. Responding to this challenge, this research engaged in the design of a “dominantly quantitative analysis, qualitatively supplemented” method in order to divide China into 5 main regions and 47 sub-regions in terms of new-type urbanization. The paper discusses the features and key problems of each region. This study introduces a new method for regional categorization, thereby remedying the lack of regional categorization in relation to “new-type urbanization” in China, and ultimately promoting the development of regional categorization in the humanities as a valuable reference for healthy and sustainable Chinese urbanization.
Highlights
China is presently undergoing rapid urbanization; in the past two decades, the country’s urbanization has attracted widespread international attention from politicians, academics, and business circles [1,2,3,4,5,6]
Qualitative indicators constituted the primary basis for the division of the country into regions in the study, allowing us to address two problems: how many regions there should be after division, and how should these regions be divided? In accordance with the core ideas of new-type urbanization as expressed in relevant policy guidelines, and with a view to the five key elements presented in the theoretical framework, we propose five main regions, which we see as being appropriate in meeting the goal of facilitating the healthy development of different regions through new-type urbanization processes, as well as in addressing the unique problems faced by areas across the country
Following an analysis of the factors influencing the development of urbanization processes in China, the study selected 13 indicators for analysis, including: gross domestic product (GDP)
Summary
China is presently undergoing rapid urbanization; in the past two decades, the country’s urbanization has attracted widespread international attention from politicians, academics, and business circles [1,2,3,4,5,6]. To facilitate the healthy development of China’s cities, the Chinese Government issued the first outline of their urbanization plan in March 2014: the National New-Type Urbanization. In accordance with that plan, “new-type urbanization” will form an important model in relation to China’s urban construction, social development, and economic growth in coming decades [1]. China has not yet categorized different types of urbanization regions or established specific guidelines for such a procedure [9]. For this reason, research addressing new-type urbanization and its regionalization has become essential. Such research offers the possibility of underpinning regionally specific discussions of the objective, focus, direction, and approach of new-type urbanization, and thereby of facilitating such urbanization in a manner that is responsive to the diverse conditions of China’s regions
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