Economic Reforms and Urban Development in China

Abstract

M ANY URBAN STUDIES of state socialist societies such as Hungary or Poland have found that the Stalinist model of economic development has been unconducive to urban development.' Misztal and Misztal noted, for example, that the Polish government's heavy-industry-oriented development policy created intense urban discontent in smaller places that were not designated as industrial development sites, and even stifled the urban development in cities that had strong industrial development.2 Although China's urban development history has been different, the Stalinist model of economic development employed by Chinese government has also adversely affected Chinese urban ecology and urban structure. This paper investigates problems of urban underdevelopment and their association with socialist influences in Chinese cities and describes the impact of prereform economic-development organization and industrial development policies on current Chinese urban development. The paper also identifies some key socio-economic factors responsible for recent improvements in urban services. Two particular aspects of urban development, infrastructure and services, are the main foci of the paper. Recent Chinese press reports suggests that the Chinese government has been under increasing pressure to improve the country's urban conditions. Two kinds of pressure that are frequently mentioned are the effects of the economic reforms themselves and the growing aspirations and demands of urban residents. Since 1978 the economic reforms have produced high economic growth rates, but have also strained the urban system's communication and transportation capabilities, and energy supplies.3 The weakness of urban infrastructures, for example, has forced some cities to operate their factories under capacity and Chinese policy-makers now believe that