Non-balanced Development Of The Urbanization Process Research

The largest migration and urbanization in human history is being launched in China after its reform and open-up.China's urbanization ratio has been increased from 17.9% in 1978 to 45.7% in 2008, with an average annual increase ratio of 3%. As China entering into medium development stage of urbanization, urbanization is the mainstream of Chinese economic and social development. Migration and urbanization has not only improved people's living standard a lot, but also had profound impact on China's economic and social structures. With a new round of large-scale infrastructure expansion, it will be more convenient and frequent in resource movements, traveling and information sharing after infrastructure, logistics & information networks are established. The manufacturing industry will be transferred to middle and western regions in a large scale. Urbanization of middle and western regions will be accelerated in pace with non-agricultural industries development, employment increase and people's income standard raise. China will enter into comprehensively accelerating period of urbanization, therefore, urbanization will be the main driver of economic and social development in the future.Urbanization is a process of balanced development of industrial structure change, employment structure change, factor mobility, migration, conversion status of farmers, income levels rising of urban residents, universal access to urban public services and real transformation to urban society. Same as China's market economy reform, the process of urbanization should be mainly driven by market forces, while the governments have functions of correcting market failures and providing public services. However, non-balanced development has gone deep into China's economic and social development at all levels. As issues arising in the economic development, the issue of non-balanced development also appears in the urbanization process- the contradictions between urban economic growth and livelihood improvement, the contradictions between income distribution and universal sharing of benefit from urbanization, the contradictions between city government functions expansion and market forces, the contradictions between urban development and natural resources, etc. The real balanced development of urbanization has not been achieved yet.A few prominent contradictions being concerned and discussed in the urbanization process are selected as the objects of study in non-balanced development in the urbanization process. First, there is no social sharing mechanism of benefit from urbanization, e.g., income level of ordinary workers, especially represented by urban migrant workers is persistently low; social security system is inadequate; new urban immigrants are excluded from the equalization of public services; therefore, ordinary workers can not really enjoy the benefit from economic development and urbanization. Second, surplus of capital, as an issue of non-balanced development in economic development, also occurs in the process of urbanization. There is widespread phenomenon of building city by capital;urbanization is one-sided equivalent to urban construction and real estate development. Third, there is imbalance relationship between economic growth and natural resources, represented by contradiction between urban development and the growing demand for land in the process of urbanization; the conflicts between local governments and landless peasants is escalating due to lack of social sharing mechanism of benefit from urbanization plus local government replacing market as land supplier.Although many research works have been conducted and a lot of research results have been achieved on process of urbanization after reform and open up, the current research works are focused on discussion on reasonable urban size, summarizing the characteristics and mechanism of urbanization in China, with mainstream of applied research services such as government consultation and planning. There is relative few search works on issues of non-balanced development resulting from changes and conflicts of interests due to dramatic changes in short term after the rapid phase of urbanization.In the author's perspective, economic development mode with Chinese characteristics from gradual reform led to issues of non-balanced development of both China's economic development and urbanization as well. Economic development mode is an in-depth research perspective to analyze and study the real economic reasons of non-balanced development in the process of urbanization, and therefore, it helps us to understand deeply the cause of these changes, contradictions and conflict, and seek appropriate methods to divert and change it. Meanwhile, study on evolution and development of China's urban spatial structure in the perspective of social space continuum has been started, local governments as the main economic driving force in promoting economic development and have been widespread attention of the academic community. In this thesis, based on absorbing and drawing these findings, based on problems of China's economic development and its effects on urbanization, integrating new Marxist Urban Space Structure theoretical system and Local Government's Governance Mode, specific analysis on the non-balanced development problems in urbanization process and their causes is conducted, and policy recommendations are provided as well.The thesis comprises five chapters, which can be divided into three parts.The first part is the theoretical part-the second chapter of theory and literature review, totally four sections. Section I includes studying the non-balanced development problem in the urbanization process from the standpoint of economic development mode, a brief overview of economic development mode of the planned economy period, the gradual reform of transforming economic development mode and its problems. Section II includes discussing how capital-driven economic growth mode affects the non-balanced development problem, in urbanization process, and characteristics of space capitalizing in the current urbanization process combining political economic analysis on urban space structure and its representative school of New Marxist Urban Space Structure theoretical system. Section III demonstrates how government-led process of economic development affects non-balanced development problems in the urbanization process, includes studying on urbanization problems from the perspective of Local Government's Governance Mode, China's government-led process of economic development leads to Local Government's Governance Mode of operating as an enterprise, and Chinese local governments operate cities as enterprises during the urbanization process. Section IV demonstrates how export-oriented economic development mode affects non-balanced development problems in the urbanization process, includes studying on urbanization problems from the perspective of export-oriented economic development mode, capital-driven economic growth mode leads to overcapacity in the domestic market and dependence on export-oriented economy, local government's operating as an enterprise leads to dependence on export-oriented economy, attract foreign investment to undertake a global shift of low value-added manufacturing industries leads to China's staying at low-end in the global industrial chain. To fully understand and sort out the history of China's urbanization, the third chapter describes the process, experience and key issues of China's urbanization history, including three sections. Section I is a brief overview of mode and characteristics of China's urbanization during the planned economy period. Section II analyzes the driving force and development mode of China's urbanization after the reform and open up period. Section III analyzes characteristics, main experience and issues of China's urbanization after the reform and open up period, as a basis for further study and analysis of non-balanced development problems of China's urbanization process.The second part is the empirical part, i.e. the forth chapter which has four sections, analyzes non-balanced development problems of China's current urbanization process, including persistent low income level and inadequate social security system of ordinary workers, urbanization's one-sided equivalence to urban construction and real estate as pillar industry, prominent contradictions of confiscation and sale of agricultural land during the urbanization process, and then analyze the reason of these non-balanced development problems from the perspective of problems in economic development mode, integrating New Marxist Urban Space Structure theoretical system and Local Government's Governance Mode theory.The third part is the policy recommendations, i.e. the fifth chapter which has four sections. Based upon the theoretical and problem analysis as above, specific policy recommendations are provided, including changing economic growth mode of investment-driven and export-oriented, deepening the market-oriented reforms to transform the government-led economic development mode, conduct the reform of income distribution mode and system of confiscation and sale of agricultural land to drive the balanced and sustainable development of urbanization.