Tales of Cities: Fundamentals of Urban Development

Urbanization reflects economic growth to a considerable extent. As China’s GDP and per capita GDP do not always reveal the full picture of development, the level of urbanization generally can and should act as a key supplement when we are trying to gauge the efficiency of economic growth. Since reform and opening-up, the pace of urbanization in China has far surpassed both the world average and that of any individual country. From 1978 to 2018, China’s urbanization increased by 230.5%. Within the same timeframe, the world’s average urbanization grew by 43.4%. The figure for high-income countries was 14.4%; for upper-middle-income countries it was 90.2%, for lower-middle-income countries 60.8%, and for low-income countries 69.7%.