China¿s New Urbanization : Developmental Paths, Blueprints and Patterns

This book answers the call for New Urbanization, and proposes a “5+9+6” national spatial layout plan for the urbanization of the 770 major cities in China. This macro pattern is based on a few major metropolises at the center, and other cities supporting and benefitting from these metropolises to form a pyramid-like urban hierarchical system. The book also presents a comprehensive regionalization plan for China’s New Urbanization and strategic approaches to improving the quality of this New Urbanization. 

Currently, China is aggressively promoting a so-called New Urbanization, which has been regarded as one of the primary ways to build a moderately prosperous society, to address critical issues related to agriculture, rural regions and farmers, to expand domestic demand and promote industrial innovation, and to realize the China Dream. From a systematic perspective and using recently released urban data, the authors analyze the current status of New Urbanization in China and also investigate the various potential problems and obstacles to its concrete implementation. Based on the analyses and investigations, the authors propose strategic directions, paths and basic principles for China’s New Urbanization. In addition, they clearly identify the three different modes of New Urbanization, namely, the general mode, differentiated mode, and gradual mode.

Today, many scholars argue that China’s urban regions are experiencing a highly unsustainable mode of development. Chinese cities are heavily burdened by the so-called “urban diseases,” which are characterized e.g. by congested traffic, polluted water and air, and a lack of open and green spaces. Traditional urbanization, which primarily focuses on economic development, must be fundamentally reformed. New Urbanization, which focuses on integrated economic development, social integration and space/environmental sustainability, or simply put, on the quality of urbanization, has been called for to provide a potential “cure” for these urban diseases. Due to the vastness of China’s population and its rapidly growing economic, political and cultural relationships with the rest of the world, the book demonstrates that the success of this New Urbanization is critical not only to the future of urban China, but also the future of urbanization worldwide.

Dr. Chuanglin Fang obtained his Ph.D. in Geography in 1998 from the Institute of Geography at the Chinese Academy of Sciences-National Planning Committee. Dr. Fang is a professor of the Institute of Geographic Science and Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences. He is also a Distinguished Professor of “Changjiang Scholars” and “Tianshan Scholars” and a doctoral faculty. Dr. Fang is currently a member of the International Society of City and Regional Planners, executive council member of the Regional Science Association (RSA) China Division, director of the Human Geography Specialty Committee of the Chinese Geographic Society, Vice President of the Chinese Urban and Rural Development Think Tank Association, executive council member of the Chinese Urban Science Association, executive council member of Chinese Urban Economics Studies, council member of Chinese Urban Planning Association, council member of China’s Urbanization Promotion Association, and council memberof the China’s Geographic Society. In recent years, Dr. Fang has mainly engaged in the research and teaching of urban geography, sustainable development of urban agglomerations, the process of urbanization and its impact on the eco-environments. Dr. Fang has served and is still serving as the principal investigator of over 120 various projects funded by the Chinese National Natural Science Foundation (Key Projects), Chinese National Social Science Foundation (Key Projects), and the Chinese National “973” Projects, among many others. Dr. Fang is a very prolific scholar with a publication record of over 20 edited manuscripts or monographs, and over 330 peer-reviewed journal articles (among them, 50 are published in journals that are indexed in SCI/SSCI).

Dr. Danlin Yu obtained his Ph.D. in Geography from the University of Wis-consin-Milwaukee in 2005. He is currently a tenured Associate Professor of Urban Geography and GIS at Montclair State University. Dr. Yu’smain research areas include urban and regional development planning, spatial data analysis, geographic information science and technology, geocomputation, simulation of complex systems, big data mining and analysis and its application in human and natural systems. So far, Dr. Yu has published more than 60 journal articles/book chapters in these areas in both Chinese and English, among them, more than 40 papers are published in SCI / SSCI indexed journals. Dr. Yu’s research in these areas has gained domestic and international influences. Dr. Yu has been actively using R language to write freely available spatial data analysis software packages. He is one of the co-authors of the SPGWR package that is for Geographically Weighted Regression Analysis. The package has already received a wide range of applications in the world. Since 2008, Dr. Yu was invited by the Georgia National Science Foundation as international evaluation experts. Dr. Yu currently serves as an Associate Editor for the Journal of Urban Planning and Development since 2012. From 2013 onwards, Dr. Yu was awarded the “Tianshan Scholar” title by the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and housed in Xinjiang University.