Conceptualizing China's urbanization under reforms

This paper traces the new trends of urbanization in post-reform China that are incommensurate with those under the ex-socialist regime as well as those in other market and reformed socialist countries. Three paradoxical dynamics appear: a leap forward of urbanization concurrent with the under-urbanized feature, the massive and sustained flow of rural-to-urban migration concomitant with the bulk of migrants without urban citizenship, and the phenomenal reorganization of urban space and the proliferating addition of new cities with inclusion of ample rural attributes. These new developments present a challenging opportunity for theoretical construction. The paper elucidates extant studies, deciphering the ways that they interpret new features of China's urbanization under reforms. Integrating previous insightful but segmented perspectives oil various aspects of China's urban transition, the paper argues that, to conceptualizing distinctive political economy of China's urbanization, one must incorporate the fundamentals of China's economic system that account for the historically contingent causes resulting in the dynamics observed. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.