China’s Urban Transition at the Dawn of the New Millennium: Dual-Track Urbanism in the Making

Globalization and market reforms have significantly facilitated urban transition and urbanization in the People’s Republic of China, greatly affecting the structural and spatial redistribution of Chinese cities since the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949. Prior to the 1978 economic reforms, the system of cities created by the Maoist regime was dominated by large and extra-large cities because of the imperatives of optimum industrialization. For the strategic national defense considerations, most new cities were created in the central and western interior rather than along the eastern coast. Market reforms and relaxation of state control over local development since the late 1970s have allowed a large number of small cities to emerge as a result of bottom-up rural changes and development. The intrusion of global market forces has helped re-consolidate the dominance of the eastern coast in China’s urban development. Although small cities and towns have absorbed a large number of migrants from rural areas, large and extra-large cities have remained the most efficient and active economic centers for capital investment and production. China’s urban transition over the past five decades has been a direct outcome of state articulation and reconfiguration against different political and economic contexts. A dual-track system of urban settlements integrating the Maoist legacy of large city dominance at the top with the rapidly expanding array of small cities and towns in the bottom is quickly coming to characterize China’s continued urban transition and urbanization.