
In recent years, Jiangxi Province has accelerated the new urbanization with people as the core, increased green nodes and public open spaces, and comprehensively improved the quality of the city. The picture shows the Aixihu Wetland Park in Nanchang High-tech Zone, which was filmed on March 24th.
Photo by Zhu Haipeng (people’s picture)

Since last year, Minle County, Zhangye City, Gansu Province has combined ecological and geological disasters with urbanization to promote the integration of urban and rural development. The picture shows the children who moved to Lemin New Town in Minle County playing in the community.
Wang Jiangshe (people’s picture)
In the past five years, the urbanization rate of permanent residents has increased from 60.2% to 65.2%— — This set of data in this year’s government work report has attracted much attention.
This is the first time that the urbanization rate of permanent residents in China has exceeded 65%, which means that the goal of "increasing the urbanization rate of permanent residents to 65%" proposed in the 14th Five-Year Plan has been achieved ahead of schedule.
What are the changes behind 65%? Over 65%, how big is the space and motivation for urbanization? To promote the new urbanization with people as the core, where will China focus next?
In 10 years, 140 million rural people settled in cities and towns.
Urbanization is the only way to modernization. Since the reform and opening up, China has experienced the largest and fastest urbanization process in the world.
In terms of scale, the urban population of China increased by 748.26 million from 172.45 million in 1978 to 920.71 million in 2022, which exceeded the total population of Europe.
Looking at the speed, the urbanization rate of permanent residents in China was 17.92% in 1978 and 65.2% in 2022, which increased by over 47 percentage points in more than 40 years. It took more than two times for many developed countries such as Britain and the United States to realize the urbanization rate in the same period.
With the rapid development of urbanization, more and more rural people have settled in cities. "When we live in a new house, we become new citizens." In dushan county, Guizhou Province, Cen Qunchang came to work in a new energy technology company in the county town two years ago. "The salary is quite good, and the social security is also paid normally. Now, the whole family has moved from their hometown in the countryside, and it is quite convenient to go to work and live. "
According to the relevant person in charge of the Development and Reform Commission of Guizhou Province, in recent years, Guizhou has adhered to the policy of fully liberalizing the household registration for urban settlement, so as to promote the stable employment of migrant workers and their accompanying families in cities and towns. Promote the implementation of the residence permit system and accelerate the implementation of the policy of equal treatment of public services for agricultural transfer population based on residence permit. Since the "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan", more than 3 million people have been transferred from agriculture to cities and towns, and more than 2 million residence permits have been issued.
The primary task of promoting urbanization is to promote the orderly citizenization of permanent residents who have the ability to work and live stably in cities and towns. The data shows that tens of millions of rural people move to cities and towns every year, and a total of 140 million rural people have settled in cities and towns in the past 10 years.
Gao Guoli, director of China City and Small Town Reform and Development Center, analyzed that with a series of relevant documents coming out, the reform of household registration system in China has made a historic breakthrough. Cities with a permanent population of less than 3 million in urban areas have basically abolished the restrictions on settlement, and the conditions for settlement in cities with a permanent population of more than 3 million in urban areas have been greatly relaxed. Many places have actively explored and implemented more relaxed settlement policies such as cross-regional coordination, mutual recognition of residence and social security payment years. "In 2021, the urbanization rate of registered population reached 46.7%, an increase of 1.3 percentage points over the previous year, which was higher than the increase of 0.83 percentage points of the urbanization rate of permanent population. This is ‘ Thirteenth Five-Year Plan ’ Since the two urbanization rates have narrowed the gap for the first time, the urbanization of agricultural transfer population has achieved remarkable results. " Gao Guoli said.
Still in the rapid development range
What are the prospects for continuing to promote urbanization? Experts believe that problems, challenges and opportunities coexist.
The urbanization rate is 30%— 70% is generally considered as the rapid development range of urbanization. In 1996, the urbanization rate of permanent residents in China reached 30.48%, entering this range for the first time. After more than 20 years of development, it is gradually approaching 70%.
Gao Guoli believes that next, the increase in urbanization rate will slow down compared with the previous period. From the international law, in the middle and late period of urbanization development, the growth rate of urbanization rate showed a trend of high before and low after. Judging from the domestic situation, the scale of migrant workers and their accompanying families directly related to the growth rate of urbanization has been decreasing since 2018. Among them, the number of people affected by the epidemic decreased by 6.83 million and 3.8% in 2020. Although the number increased slightly in 2021, it still decreased by 6.14 million and 3.5% compared with 2019, which was about 169 million. In the future, the growth scale of migrant workers and their accompanying families will be further reduced, which will bring about a gradual slowdown in the urbanization rate of permanent residents.
Uneven development is another challenge. According to the Statistical Yearbook of China in 2022, the urbanization rate of 12 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) is higher than the national level, among which Shanghai, Beijing and Tianjin rank among the top three, accounting for 89.3%, 87.55% and 84.7% respectively. 19 are below the national level, of which 10 are below 60% and the lowest is 35.73%.
According to experts’ analysis, the quality of urbanization needs to be further improved, the reform of household registration system and its supporting policies have not been fully implemented, the basic public services in cities and towns have not covered all permanent residents, the development of large, medium and small cities is not coordinated enough, the scale of megacities is expanding too fast, and some small and medium-sized cities and towns are facing the reduction of economic and population scale, and the integration of urban and rural development has a long way to go.
"Despite the challenges, China is still in a period of rapid urbanization, and the driving force for urbanization is still strong." Gao Guoli said that from the domestic situation, the labor productivity of non-agricultural industries in China is more than four times that of agriculture, the per capita disposable income of urban residents is 2.45 times that of rural residents, and there is still a clear gap between urban and rural infrastructure and public services. These objective realities continue to attract agricultural transfer population to cities, and it is still a general trend for farmers to enter cities. From the international experience, many developed countries that have completed urbanization have maintained rapid development for more than 10 years after the urbanization rate reached 60%. In 2022, the per capita GDP of China reached US$ 12,741, and the urbanization rate of permanent residents in the same period was 65.2%, which was lower than the average level of 67.59% in middle and high-income countries, and even lower than the average level of 80% in high-income countries. There is still room for growth.
Accelerate the "citizenization" of agricultural transfer population
Entering the "second half", how to make urbanization go steadily and well? Accelerating the urbanization of agricultural transfer population is still a key link.
"The urbanization of agricultural transfer population is a systematic project, which involves not only the interest pattern of inflow and outflow areas, but also the transfer and connection of social security, mutual recognition and the protection of rural rights and interests." Gao Guoli said that at present, there is still a gap of about 18 percentage points between the urbanization rates of the permanent population and the registered population, and more than 200 million agricultural migrants have not yet fully integrated into the cities. Efforts should be made to improve the supporting policy system for the urbanization of agricultural transfer population, promote its full integration into cities in an orderly manner, and let the agricultural transfer population "be willing to settle down, be able to settle down, and dare to settle down".
The relevant person in charge of the Planning Department of the National Development and Reform Commission said that it is necessary to adhere to the priority of stocks and promote the increment, promote the reform of the household registration system in a steady and orderly manner, promote the equalization of basic public services in cities and towns, improve the supporting policy system, and improve the quality of urbanization of agricultural transfer population. We will relax the restrictions on settlement except in a few megacities, and cities will promote the agricultural transfer population who have stable employment and life in cities and towns to settle in cities and towns according to local conditions, and enjoy the same rights and fulfill the same obligations as urban residents.
Focusing on accelerating the urbanization of agricultural transfer population, liberalizing the restrictions on settlement, and recently introducing new policies in many places. On March 13th, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province solicited opinions on the implementation of further deepening the reform of the household registration system in the local area, and proposed to further liberalize the academic qualifications and the conditions for the settlement of towns in Tonglu, Jiande and Chun ‘an. In February, Shenzhen, Guangdong issued a document to restart the three-year suspension of the points-to-household policy; Sichuan recently proposed that it will adjust and optimize the settlement policy of Chengdu, and other cities and counties will completely cancel the settlement restrictions.
Perfecting the spatial layout of urbanization is another key point. Gao Guoli believes that enhancing the economic and population carrying capacity of economically advantageous areas such as urban agglomerations and central cities is not only in line with the international law of population economic agglomeration and distribution in the process of urbanization, but also in line with the resource and environmental conditions and the changing trend of population economy in China. We should strengthen policy measures to promote the rational distribution of population economy among cities and promote the coordinated development of large, medium and small cities and small towns. Classification promotes the development of urban agglomerations, cultivates modern metropolitan areas in an orderly manner, changes the development mode of megacities, improves the functional quality of large and medium-sized cities, enhances the development vitality of small cities, and promotes urbanization with county towns as an important carrier.
Even if China basically realizes urbanization, there will still be about 400 million people living in rural areas. Experts reminded that it is also necessary to improve the system, mechanism and policy system of urban-rural integration development, adhere to the principle of supplementing agriculture with industry, taking the city as the township, taking the county as the basic unit and taking the national urban-rural integration development pilot zone as the breakthrough point, promote the free flow of urban-rural factors and the rational allocation of public resources, and gradually narrow the gap between urban-rural development and the living standards of residents.















