The changing rural-urban divide in China's megacities

Abstract

This article analyzes the rural-urban divide in China's 14 megacities and how they have changed between 1990 and 2015. Many contemporary plans and policies to manage the rural-urban divide in developing countries are still based on experience and theory developed by Western scholars before China began to urbanize rapidly in the 1980s at a scale and pace unique in human history. New empirical research and theory investigating the changing rural-urban divide are essential for China and other developing countries. This article analyzes the urban-rural income gap and changing size of their urban and rural workforces, Gross Domestic Product (GDP), agricultural productivity, and rural income sources based on analysis of secondary data and interviews with local government officials, university researchers, local urban planners, and residents. Conditions in the rural areas of the megacities have improved greatly on every dimension studied. Absolute incomes have increased, the rural-urban income divide has shrunk, the agricultural workforce has decreased, agricultural productivity has increased and rural residents' sources of income have become more diversified. Processes for coordinating urban and rural development and the integration of urban-rural areas in China has been driven by four major forces: the economic development and urbanization level, bottom-up rural development, national government policy, and local human developmental state practices. However, China's dual economy still persists even in these most advanced areas. The article discusses the significance of our findings and what further research can do to help contribute to understanding of the relationship between urban and rural development in less developed areas of China and other developing countries.