China: A unique urbanization model

Abstract

In recent decades, many third world countries have been experiencing rapid rates of urbanization resulting in an explosion in the siae of their urban population. China, however, has been a striking exception to the general patterns. The Government of China has intervened in order to keep the process of urbanization under control. Since the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949, the Government has taken measures to control gradually the rapid growth of population and to regulate by various means the increase of the urban population and the level of urbanization. The low level of urbanization in China has thus been well recognized in recent studies of the demographic, geographic, social and economic development of this country (Chen, 1973; Thompson, 1975; Chang, 1976; Chiu, 1980; Yeh and Xu, 1984; Chen, 1988).