Providing some great perspectives on the process of urbanisation in China is China Urbanising: Impacts and Transitions (University of Pennsylvania Press), edited by Weiping Wu and Qin Gao, both professors at Columbia University.

The book gathers an interdisciplinary group of scholars to capture the phenomenon of urbanisation in its historical and regional variations, and explores its impact on China’s socioeconomic welfare, environment and resources, urban form and lifestyle, and population and health. It also provides new ways to understand the transitions underway and the gravity of the progress, particularly in the context of demographic shifts and climate change. Paul French caught up with editor Weiping Wu to dig a little deeper into their findings.

Where is urbanisation at right now in China in percentage terms? You speak of ‘maturity’ and even the prospect of ‘contraction’ in the introduction to the essays in the collection; do you think the urbanisation rate has peaked or will cities still continue to grow?

Over 700 million people live in cities now in China – about 65% of the country’s population – with another 200-300 million more expected to urbanise in the next decade or so. According to China’s National Bureau of Statistics, the number of cities increased from 213 in 1979 to 685 in 2020. With economic growth slowing down after the 2008-2009 global recession and during the Covid-19 pandemic, the urban sector is showing signs of maturity and, in some cases, contraction, with mounting building vacancies in interior cities and local debts across the regions. Compounding this new economic and fiscal geography is the demographic transition already underway. Before China gets rich, it is getting old, with an unprecedentedly ageing population, particularly in cities where the country’s prior one-child policy was enforced most effectively.

Nonetheless, there is still room for continued urbanisation. Historically, the rate of urbanisation begins to level off at around 75-80% among many industrialised countries. While migration has been the key driving force so far in China, and its magnitude has stabilised during the recent decade, in-situ urbanisation – i.e., places transitioning from rural to urban conditions – will likely push up the urbanisation rate.

Does the demographic shift we’re seeing in China mean cities will be increasingly older spaces that are less focused on the young and their needs and more on the elderly and their requirements?

The rapidly ageing population presents a major challenge for urban China. One in every four Chinese people will be aged above 65 by 2050, according to official projections. Large cities like Shanghai are about 20 years ahead of the national ageing trend, witnessing a phenomenon similar to that in countries with substantially higher income levels. Smaller urban family sizes, less-flexible housing, and increased numbers of women in the workplace means that the family can no longer be relied upon as the primary safety net for the elderly in urban China. A growing number of retirees demand a better pension system as well as housing and medical benefits (Wu and Gaubatz 2020).

Cities are experimenting with new ways of accommodating and caring for the older population in residential settings. There has been a significant expansion in nursing homes, with about 22 times more nursing homes today than there were in 1978. Three new institutions – “eldercare institutions”, which provide residential care outside the family; “institutions for paying respect to older adults” and “institutions for providing care for older adults” – have been designed for low-income older residents as a form of social welfare. Two other institutional types – “senior apartments” and “nursing homes” – target wealthier elderly. While institutionalisation is a continued priority as a main mechanism for accommodating older residents, some local governments have begun to focus on ageing-in-place options.

You also speak of the ‘incomplete path to urbanisation’ – mass migration from the countryside to cities but not always with full rights and access for migrants. This has clearly created a layer of urban poor – what is their current situation, and do you see it improving?

Migrant workers are highly desired for the full functioning of the urban economy, but their presence in cities is generally unwanted. This ambiguous position has been constructed not only through exclusionary institutions (especially the household registration, or hukou, system) but also through the volatile and circulatory nature of migratory flows in China. The resulting “incomplete urbanisation” restrains economic growth as much as it enables it by keeping migrants intentionally disengaged from much of the formal urban economy. The volatility of export manufacturing contributes to the temporary presence of rural migrants and the incomplete integration of this population into cities more broadly. Therefore swings in the global economy directly affect the livelihood of migrants. While the role of the hukou has diminished in small cities and towns, it continues to restrict rural migrants from accessing state-provided social housing, state employment, public education, and other services in large cities. Hukou-based exclusion has fuelled the proliferation of secondary, and most often informal, housing and service markets of considerable size.

Since population mobility first increased in the early 1980s, the migrant population and their outcomes have become more diverse. Some have gained access to limited benefits in the city by signing employment contracts with urban enterprises. Others with capital and skills have found better-paid employment and prospered. Those making the gains tend to be urban-urban migrants, who are better educated and affiliated with state-owned enterprises. The more positive change is that it has become much easier to stay and work in urban areas for an extended time, while in general, policy responses toward rural migrants have slowly moved in a more humane direction. As a result, their experience in the urban labour markets – the subject of study in the chapter by Li and Wu in this edited volume – improved: more choices in urban employment, more opportunities to enter high-end service industries, and more potential to choose white-collar occupations. Their wages increased rapidly as well, although the wage growth of well-educated rural migrant workers or higher-income groups exceeded that of less-educated ones or lower-income groups.

Is the current level of urbanisation in any way sustainable in a world that cares about climate change? Are China’s cities hopelessly contributing to the problem or potentially a solution?

Although considerably smaller and less modern, the Chinese city under state socialism (1949-1979) was, in many ways, more socially and environmentally sustainable than today. By comparison, reform-era urban residents’ residential and transportation choices are vastly more energy intensive. Aside from the effect of rising income and increasing mobility, the urban landscape is moving away from the compact and pedestrian-oriented cities of the Mao era. This retreat from sustainable forms of urbanism presents a paradoxically regressive circumstance of urbanisation, further aggravated by a new type of privatised urban development known as superblocks in which massive plots of urban or peri-urban land are developed by a single private developer. There is evidence that residents living in a superblock consume more transportation energy, travel greater distances, and have higher rates of private car ownership.

On a more positive note, China’s rising role in the global discourse on climate change has generated marked progress in how cities interact with the environment and planet. Cities, as places with concentrated environmental impacts, are a primary focus of environmental planning in China. Just as establishing Special Economic Zones in the 1980s led to the near-ubiquity of development zones in cities, the hope is that an ever-widening set of ecological demonstration projects, from targeted regulatory practices to the construction of completely new cities, will normalise sustainable urbanism. Today, over 80% of prefecture-level cities have some form of eco-city project underway.

Are there any viable alternatives to mass urbanisation in China? For example, are satellite towns and garden suburbs being trialled or thought about at all?

History, location, economies of scale and policy preferences have contributed to the relative success of large cities in China. A network of urban areas surrounding a central large city reinforces agglomeration economies, as in the case of the Lower Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta regions. Together, these regions command the lion’s share of China’s urban economy. Additional in-situ urbanisation, particularly from the integration of peri-urban and satellite towns into metropolitan economies, offers further scope for increased urbanisation. However, cities also do not achieve full agglomeration economies; in fact, a majority of Chinese cities have decreasing levels of population density. There is considerable opportunity for increased efficiency and scope in cities in both coastal and interior regions. With an already intense population-to-land ratio, following the path of urban sprawl, as seen in some industrialised countries, really is not an option for China’s cities.

Could you perhaps speculate on a few future trends we may see emerging in China’s urbanisation phenomenon?

First, while Chinese cities are undergoing an economic, social, and spatial transformation resembling what we have seen elsewhere, parts of their trajectory clearly push the limits of contemporary urban theories and experience. Certain characteristics of China’s urban transformation have produced conditions contradictory to progress, such as increasing inequality, socio-spatial stratification, and environmental degradation. Global South countries at similar stages of urbanisation face some of the same urban challenges, aside from the fact that major urban conditions worldwide are increasingly converging and pointing to shared catalysts (e.g., rural-urban migration) and globally linked processes (e.g., climate change and trade-induced growth). China’s experience can be instructive. As urbanisation transitions from a land-based approach to a more human-based one, challenges abound on both fronts.

Urbanisation in contemporary China has moved towards a Western model of urban form, characterised by significant socio-spatial segregation. Many Chinese cities have begun to exhibit the spatial grouping of residents, often leading to concentrations of affluence and deprivation, a pattern that existed before 1949. This condition manifests growing income inequality, which has risen consistently during the reform era. As the urban population becomes increasingly differentiated, spaces of exclusivity that insulate privileged groups and prohibit others will continue to define the urban landscape of China. At the same time, a new social class has arisen: the urban poor, who have come to live in cities and who are usually engaged in the lowest paying and least desirable urban employment. Rural migrants make up the bulk of the urban poor and are often among the poorest and most disenfranchised inhabitants of the contemporary Chinese city.

There is pressure on cities to find sustained sources of income to finance urban infrastructure and development. The mismatch between revenue and expenditure responsibilities at the local level is a fundamental conundrum. Correcting this requires national tax and fiscal system changes, but drastic revamping seems unlikely. The realignment of central-local fiscal relations also may help reduce local reliance on land financing, serving as a perverse incentive for land-based growth. The so-called “land-infrastructure-leverage” has provided financing for urbanisation but also resulted in the mounting local debt that lays behind urban China’s physical transformation. In addition, the increasing tension between the loss of arable land and cities’ dependence on land leasing for revenue represents a significant challenge to the already fragile human-environment relationship aggravated by rapid urbanisation.

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As cities evolve, regenerate and modernise into futuristic high-rise and smart-enabled urban landscapes, it’s vital that developers and urban planners do not lose sight of the importance of preserving a city’s unique cultural heritage. Shougang Park in Beijing’s Shijingshan District (pictured in the lead image above) is a prime example of urban regeneration in action.

The UK and China maintain a high degree of complementarity and collaboration within the built environment sector. China’s rapid rise to become a world leader in green energy, the 14th Five Year Plan’s drive for sustained green growth and urbanisation, as well as China’s climate change commitments – notably its recent 2060 Net Zero target goal – offer UK companies opportunities within the environmental, infrastructure, and energy sectors. UK companies are highly respected in the Chinese construction sector and offer a wide range of expertise in priority areas, including the design and construction of green buildings, urban renewal programmes, green finance, low-carbon design, and eco-city development.

The UK’s strategy for carbon neutrality in the urban environment is focused on:

• Industrial decarbonisation: Construction of greener buildings, including industrial factories, office buildings, and domestic homes; developing advanced R&D in carbon capture, usage, and storage; and an overall net reduction of carbon footprint throughout the ecosystem.
• Renewable energy: Adopting cleaner nuclear energy and pursuing advances in materials for power generation.
• Clean transportation: Accelerating the transition towards zero-emission vehicles, low carbon charging infrastructure, R&D in clean Hydrogen fuel cell technologies and alternative biofuels.

CBBC, together with the UK’s energy, environment and infrastructure sector, which includes Aedas, Arup, Atkins, BRE, Foster + Partners, Savills, Mott MacDonald, RIBA, Wood, Zaha Hadid and ZEDfactory – are champions of sustainable collaboration in this area.

CBBC’s partnerships and programmes with national and regional government, free trade zones, business parks, new cities and technological development clusters continue to offer opportunities for UK companies to plug into key projects and share their experience and track record in regenerating and shaping urban landscapes.

Several key Chinese landmarks and infrastructure projects carry the hallmark of UK excellence in design and construction whether you are admiring the Guangzhou Tower or travelling through either of Beijing’s international airports.

How the UK is supporting sustainable development throughout China’s economic development zones (EDZs)

China continues to accelerate the development of forward-thinking policies across the business environment to attract businesses that deploy green and zero-carbon methods. This is not only applicable to inward investment targets for zones, but also draws in expertise from the UK to ensure the development of low carbon and green solutions at the heart of their concept.

ZEDfactory has, at the project design phase, provided zero carbon and green architectural and product design solutions to a growing portfolio of clients in China, including the Datong Industrial Park, the Qinglingtan Industrial Park, and the Jingdezhen Wentao Cultural Exchange Centre, conceptualising solutions that ensure the workspaces and surrounding areas are cool and well air-conditioned during the hot summer months.

This has included orienting buildings in a way that reduces direct exposure to the sun and installation of photovoltaic hoods and roofs to help with ventilation. Other proposed solutions have included building parking lots designed to be inclusive for photovoltaic vehicles and bicycles, using breathable insulation on the walls, installing low-speed cooling fans, and integrating a smart natural ventilation system, A++ rated equipment and LED lighting.

UK companies leading innovations in green leisure and lifestyle

BREEAM is the world’s foremost and most widely applied environmental assessment method and rating system for buildings, with close to 600,000 buildings certified with BREEAM assessment ratings and over 2,310,000 registered for assessment since it was first launched by BRE in 1990.

As a globally recognised third-party certification, BREEAM not only encourages and supports the sustainable improvement of buildings but also helps investors understand their asset conditions and improve the resilience of assets in a more efficient way. At present, BREEAM certification has been applied to thousands of assets in several countries to benchmark, improve and certify its performance, and to demonstrate to the public the high standard of environmental and social governance of its enterprises. In China, high profile projects have included Club Med Joyview Qiandao Lake Resort and Ikea’s Jing’an Store. Ikea also decided to use the BREEAM sustainable building certification to advance the company’s efforts in championing sustainability, setting the following goals for the construction of their Jing’an Store to meet the BREEAM standard.

For example, by adopting BREEAM at the heart of its construction, the Club Med Joyview Qiandao Lake Resort has maximised the preservation of the site’s ecological characteristics while maintaining synergy between nature, architecture, and people.

Making an impact through internationally recognised education and qualifications

China has a rich talent pool of architects, and the Royal Institute of British Architects and the Chartered Institute of Building ensure that they have access to world-class professional development from the UK and enhanced career opportunities.

The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) recently launched its International Talents Hub and is pursuing a comprehensive international strategic cooperation with the Lin Gang Special New Area in Shanghai: enriching partnerships that they have been developing across China; opening access to opportunities for aspiring architects; and aligning with China’s infrastructure and regional development policy goals.

Furthering the UK-China partnership

These examples highlight the UK’s track record as China’s long-term partner and highlight why our respective countries should continue to collaborate on regenerating urban landscapes; enhancing low carbon construction in the built environment; advancing green manufacturing; adopting renewable energy; and enabling access to first-class professional qualifications.

For further case studies and insights, please visit the links to access ‘In The Zone’ and ‘Targeting Net Zero’. These two reports present the role of UK-China business working in tandem to complement each other’s competitive advantages.

Whether you are a British or Chinese company working in the built environment sector, or an ETDZ seeking further collaboration with the UK, please contact our Industrial Economy sector leads Mark Xu (China) and James Brodie (UK).

The post Urban regeneration: Opportunities for UK-China collaboration appeared first on Focus - China Britain Business Council.

Before new recycling rules came into effect last summer, taking out the trash used to be simple for Ni Yuan, a resident of a leafy middle-class Shanghai neighbourhood. She would sort household waste into only two categories, wet and dry, and deposit it at her convenience.

On July 1, the Shanghai government enforced the Domestic Waste Management Law, making it mandatory for all citizens and businesses to recycle waste into four categories at designated times of the day.

Failure to comply now results in fines of up to RMB 200 (around £22) for individuals, rising to RMB 50,000 (£5,500) for companies. While Shanghai officially adopted a recycling policy fifteen years ago, this seems to be the first with teeth.

The recent crackdown is the latest battle in China’s war on pollution, first declared by Premier Li Keqiang in 2014. If successful, it could become a shining example of how to clean up cities in the modern digital era — and a template for Southeast Asian nations struggling to decouple their economic growth from waste production. Failure could prove the opposite: that a centralised, top-down approach to socio-economic reform has serious limitations.

The municipality of Shanghai has implemented a variety of measures to educate the population to correctly sort their waste. In a bid to win over youngsters, video games have popped up in arcades around town offering players a chance to practise their trash-dunking technique.

Along with them, gaming apps for smartphones help users navigate the new rules. Virtual Reality simulators have also appeared around town, allowing players to accrue points by dropping waste into imaginary bins.

“It’s simple and easy to understand. Residents can practice sorting garbage without actually going through their trash, and it is a more effective method than using paper materials when training volunteers,” Wu Xia, founder and chief executive of VitrellaCore, the company that created the game, told China Daily.

Not only video games, but also songs about recycling set to the tune of revolutionary-era hits have gone viral.  Even Peppa Pig has acted as a guide on the dos and don’ts of kitchen waste – often reused as animal fodder. In residential compounds, wardens go door-to-door educating people on the new protocol.

Smart bins use this technology to weigh the amount of rubbish deposited and assign social credits in the form of gifts or cash rebates.

In Shanghai, any initial resistance to the reforms appears to have acquiesced with many embracing the call for collective action. “At first a lot of people complained that it wasn’t convenient. But this is exactly what garbage sorting means, you have to walk to a certain place at a certain time so the system can work”, says Ni.

“People have just gotten used to it, as is so often the case here,” observes one expat resident.

Ancillary news reports and social media campaigns are also dying down. Ni Yuan noted that in her residential compound wardens no longer need to instruct people on how to sort their trash. “At the beginning, I had doubts at the grassroots level that the government could do things right, but they did. People are taking this seriously”, she says.

Shanghai has invested over US$ 3 billion in the recycling system so far, according to the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development.

Artificial intelligence projects benefited from these investments. Such projects have become central to the Chinese approach, and make use of facial recognition. For instance, smart bins use this technology to weigh the amount of rubbish deposited and assign social credits in the form of gifts or cash rebates.

Conversely, facial scanning has been used to punish violators. Surveillance cameras identify in real-time people who drop litter in waste-free spaces. Perpetrators will get a fine, and in some instances, have their face humiliatingly projected onto public screens, reports the South China Morning Post.

Environmental groups agree that while it’s too soon to tell how lasting these reforms are, early signs are promising. “It is still too early to say it is successful or not, but it is absolutely a great start. According to the data the Shanghai government released, more than 8,000 tonnes of kitchen waste is being sorted every day. It is beyond the target they set” says Miao Zhang, founder of Rcubic, a Beijing-based social enterprise that tackles waste. She attributes the success to “powerful and efficient community management systems”, rather than tech aids.

“A greater share of waste is being treated according to waste management practices. It is a better situation for the environment,” says Liu Hua, a campaign specialist in waste and resources, collaborating with Greenpeace Beijing.

However, not everyone is so optimistic. Simon Ellin, chief executive of the UK’s Recycling Association, represents the interests of UK businesses which have been adversely affected by China’s ban on foreign waste imports. He believes that ­– despite the big investment – China currently lacks the capacity required to process its domestic waste output.

Chinese imports of foreign waste fibre fell by 80 percent in the past three years. The same has happened to plastic and scrap metal.

Shanghai has invested over $3 billion in the recycling system so far

“This leaves a huge capacity gap”, says Ellin. “Part of the objective is to become self-sufficient to stimulate their own domestic infrastructure, but they are a long way off.” To meet the shortfall, he says domestic manufacturers are importing more virgin fibre which “flies in the face of any environmental ambitions”.

On the other hand, green reforms are also creating new opportunities for business.

Alibaba founder Jack Ma, has promised to formulate a “green logistics standard”. Other e-giants are following suit. Jingdong, an online platform, offers buyers the option of selecting a “green box” for free, a type of packaging that can be reused up to ten times. The company estimates the initiative could save US$ 4.7 million per year if 10 percent of orders switch.

According to a 2018 study by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, circular economy policies in 2030 could save Chinese businesses and households approximately US$ 5.1 trillion on high-quality products and services.

China is the second-largest producer of urban waste globally after the US, according to research by the World Bank, which estimates that by 2030 China will have twice the volume of municipal solid waste (MWS) than America.

Despite heavy investment into incineration capacity, much pollution still ends up in landfill, waterways or the ocean. China needs better solutions to prevent cities from drowning under the weight of their own rubbish.

Last year, China launched a zero-waste cities pilot programme. The Ministry of Ecology and Environment has chosen 11 cities as model trash-cutters. Amongst them are Shenzhen, Chongqing, Hainan and Beijing’s Xiongan new area. They aim to recycle 35 percent of waste by 2020, up from less than 10 percent today. Shanghai has been the last to join the programme.

Like other rich cities, Shanghai is moving towards a circular economy, where waste is not rubbish but a potentially valuable commodity. Ni is already convinced: “Shanghai will become a study centre for a lot of Chinese cities”. Those who fail to grasp this could end up wasting a golden opportunity.

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