Unprecedented pace of urbanization presents challenges,opportunities to China | | Renata Lok-Dessallien, United Nations Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative in China, delivers a speech at China’s 2013 National Human Development Report launch in Beijing on Aug. 27, 2013. (People's Daily Online/ Gao Yinan) |
People’s Daily Online Aug. 28, Beijing –“China is experiencing urbanization at a speed andscale that is unprecedented in human history,” said Helen Clark, UNDP Administrator, atChina’s 2013 National Human Development Report (NHDR) launched on Aug. 27 in Beijing.
The report said that in 2011, there were more people living in China’s cities than in itscountryside for the first time, when only six decades earlier a mere 10 per cent lived in anurban setting. “By comparison, this same demographic transition took 150 years to occurin Europe and 210 years in Latin America,” said Clark.
According to the report, the urban population is forecast to grow by an additional 310million people to 70 percent of the total population by 2030. By this point, over 1 billionChinese people will live in cities. By 2030, cities will be home to 70 percent of China’spopulation and generate 75 percent of its Gross Domestic Product.
According to this report, China’s urbanization comes at a critical time on all three fronts,with pressures accumulating in matters such as the efficient use of natural and energyresources, the development of urban governance systems, employment, transportation,housing and access to basic social services, security, the livelihoods of migrant workers, anageing population, structural economic transformation, and air and water pollution. Howurbanization is managed in China will determine the outcome of many of these challenges.
“Sustainable human development is about enlarging people’s choices by expanding theircapabilities and opportunities in ways that are sustainable from economic, social andenvironmental points of view, benefiting the present without compromising the future. Webelieve urbanization should be guided by the same principle”, said Clark.
Framed in the context of urbanization, the 2013 NHDR entitled Sustainable and LiveableCities: Toward Ecological Civilization examines the interconnectivity between China’seconomic, social and environmental challenges, and stresses that all three are pillarscontributing to the government’s focus on human development.
“The vision and principle of eco-civilization should be fully integrated into the wholeprocess of urbanization, and we should take a new urbanization path which is intensive,smart, green and low-carbon,” said Wang Weiguang, President of the Chinese Academy ofSocial Sciences (CASS) during the launch event. The report is a joint effort between UNDPand the Institute of Urban and Environmental Studies of CASS.
The concept of Ecological Civilization has been adopted by the country’s leadership.Chinese Premier Li Keqiang stated during his visit to Shanghai and Jiangsu in March 2013that the core of the urbanization is to improve the quality of urbanization; the purpose ofurbanization is for the benefit of the rural people. Urbanization should not be creatingcities; instead, the new model of urbanization should be human-centered and shouldensure the prosperity of the people.
The report also draws attention to the opportunities created by urbanization in China. Itargues that urbanization can accelerate the modernization process and economic structureupgrading, and be the strategic focus in changing the country’s development profile from aGDP-focused export-orientated economy to a more stable, human development-basedone.
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（Editor：GaoYinan、Yao Chun） Related reading
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