冥想

Ensuring Efficiency and Equality in China's Urbanization 
and Regional Development Strategy
 
Zhao Chen and Ming Lu

 
The Importance of Being Urbanized Correctly

There is not a modern country in the world that is not highly urbanized. It is no exaggeration that a sustained increase in the level of urbanization is the prerequisite for China to achieve modernization.  China must go beyond merely increasing the urbanization level to formulating an efficient urban system and an efficient urban spatial distribution. The core of an urbanization and regional development strategy that is both efficient and equitable lies in ensuring that factors of production are freely mobile across the urban-rural divide and across the different regions. This free mobility of production factors will generate a regional economic growth pattern that is driven by mega-cities and city clusters to achieve agglomerated economic development and effective division of labor in regional economies. This growth pattern will be characterised by balanced urban-rural development, and by convergence in per capita income across regions.
Current policies in China restrict the mobility of production factors in multiple ways in order to slow down the process of urbanization, and restrict the population size of big cities.  In the “12th Five Year Plan (12-FYP)”, the goal is to increase the proportion of urbanized population (the urbanization rate) from 47.5% in 2010 to 51.5% in 2015, an increase of 4 percentage points in 5 years, which is lower than the 2000-2010 average rate of about 1 percentage point a year. This official target is contrary to the international experience that the urbanization rate normally accelerates when it reaches around 50%!  Specifically, the 12-FYP promotes the development of small and mid-sized cities and towns, and restricts the development of mega-cities: “Mega-cities should control their population size, big and mid-sized cities should continue to play an important role in absorbing migrant population. Midsized and small cities and small towns need to relax Hukou[1] requirements according to actual circumstances.”

The growth of towns and cities necessarily mean the reduction of land zoned as rural; and rural land are zoned for either agriculture-use or construction use. (Construction-use land includes rural residential land.)  The central government maintains a strict control on the amount of agricultural land in order to ensure adequate land for food production. The conversion of agricultural land into construction-use land is generally a difficult thing to do.
Right now, Chongqing and Chengdu are conducting experiments in land-swap schemes within their municipal boundaries called the "balance between occupation and compensation of agricultural land" scheme.  Under this scheme, the amount of agricultural land converted into construction-use land in district A could be increased as long as district B increases agricultural land by an equal amount (i.e. district B reduces the amount of construction-use land by an equal amount). Under this land-swap scheme, the total amount of land for each use is kept the same by consolidating land use in district A and district B.  In this process, district B receives an economic compensation from region A.[2]

This "balance between occupation and compensation of agricultural land" scheme is currently only operational only at the municipal level and cannot be employed to ameliorate the inefficiency of construction-use land quota allocation across regions. At the same time, given the insufficient interregional population mobility, the central government supports the development of underdeveloped regions by allocating to them relatively larger construction-use land quotas and fiscal transfer payments.

Three wrong assumptions are behind the policies and institutions that restrict the interregional mobility of production factors, and they are (1) China’s big cities are overly large and are hence marked by inefficiencies; (b) the development of mid-sized and small cities and the development of big cities are two competing urbanization paths; and (3) economic agglomeration in the eastern regions contradict the ideal of balanced regional development. This article will first discuss these three misunderstandings concerning China’s urbanization and regional development mode; and then propose an agenda on urbanization and regional development that is efficient and equitable.[3]

Please see the downloadable attachment for the complete report.

兼顾效率与平等的城市化和区域发展战略
 
陈钊  陆铭*

 
摘要：对于中国未来的发展，应制定战略，实现兼顾效率与平等的城市化和区域发展模式。这一战略的核心是以生产要素在城乡间、地区间自由流动为前提，形成以大城市和都市圈为带动的区域经济增长格局，实现经济的集聚发展和地区经济的有效分工，从而走向城乡间和地区间在人均收入水平和生活质量上的平衡发展。为此，必须在思想上正确认识大城市的合理规模，中小城市发展和大城市发展的关系，以及经济集聚与地区间平衡的关系。相应地，必须在实践上加快推进户籍与土地制度的联动改革。
 
关键词：效率、平等、城市化、区域发展、户籍、土地
 
    世界上没有一个现代化的国家不是高度城市化的国家，中国如果要实现现代化，城市化水平的持续提高也将是一个必然的趋势。对于中国这样一个大国来说，比城市化水平持续提高更为重要的是，应当形成有效率的城市体系和城市空间布局，这就需要制定战略，实现兼顾效率与平等的城市化和区域发展模式。这一战略的核心是以生产要素在城乡间、地区间自由流动为前提，形成以大城市和都市圈为带动的区域经济增长格局，实现经济的集聚发展和地区经济的有效分工，从而走向城乡间和地区间在人均收入水平，特别是生活质量上的平衡发展。
    与兼顾效率与平等的城市化和区域发展战略相比，当前的中国还存在着多方面的阻碍生产要素自由流动的政策。实际政策往往偏向于控制城市化进程和限制大城市人口规模。在城市化速度方面，政府似乎有意压低城市化的速度，具体的体现是，“十二五规划”提出，到2015年城镇化率由现在的47.5%提高到51.5%，5年提高4个百分点，低于当前大约每年1个百分点的速度。而国际经验却是，在城市人口比重达到50%左右的时候，恰恰应该是城市化进程加快的时期。在城市体系的调整方面，政府的政策导向是重点推进中小城镇的发展，而限制特大城市的发展，具体体现在城市人口规模和户籍制度方面，“十二五规划”提出，“特大城市要合理控制人口规模，大中城市要加强和改进人口管理，继续发挥吸纳外来人口的重要作用，中小城市和小城镇要根据实际放宽落户条件。”而在实际操作中，大城市人口限制政策主要针对的是低技能者，这一点，在各个地方的落户条件上均有体现。[1]在农村土地制度方面，目前仍然对农村集体建设用地（包括宅基地）的使用权流转存在制约，跨地区地进行农业用地的占补平衡[2]更是制度所不允许的。与此同时，在人口不能跨地区充分流动的背景下，中央政府则通过相对更多的建设用地指标以及财政转移支付来支持欠发达地区的发展。
    在这些限制生产要素跨地区流动的政策和制度背后，有一系列的认识误区必须突破。具体来说，以下三个方面最为重要：首先，不能简单地认为中国的大城市已经太大了；第二，不能认为中小城市发展和大城市发展是相互对立的两条城市化路径；第三，不能将经济向东部地区集聚与地区间的平衡发展对立起来。如果能够解放思想，通过户籍和土地制度的联动改革，促进生产要素的跨地区再配置，那么，中国的城市化和区域发展模式就将能够兼顾效率与平等两个目标，促进中国经济与社会的全面、协调和可持续发展。否则，在生产要素不能充分自由流动的制度制约下，城市化的道路可能会效率与平等兼失。
    为了实现兼顾效率与平等的愿景，本文将从大城市的合理规模、中小城市发展和大城市发展的关系，以及经济集聚与地区间平衡的关系三个方面，反思当前有关中国城市化和区域发展模式的认识误区，并且在此基础上提出相应的战略性政策措施。[3]

此报告中文版发表于：
胡永泰、陆铭、杰弗里•萨克斯、陈钊（主编），2012，《跨越“中等收入陷阱”：展望中国经济增长的持续性》，格致出版社和上海人民出版社。

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