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      Landscape Urbanization and Economic Growth in China: Positive Feedbacks and Sustainability Dilemmas

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      , , ,
      Environmental Science & Technology
      American Chemical Society

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          Abstract

          Accelerating urbanization has been viewed as an important instrument for economic development and reducing regional income disparity in some developing countries, including China. Recent studies (Bloom et al. 2008) indicate that demographic urbanization level has no causal effect on economic growth. However, due to the varying and changing definition of urban population, the use of demographic indicators as a sole representing indicator for urbanization might be misleading. Here, we re-examine the causal relationship between urbanization and economic growth in Chinese cities and provinces in recent decades, using built-up areas as a landscape urbanization indicator. Our analysis shows that (1) larger cities, both in terms of population size and built-up area, and richer cities tend to gain more income, have larger built-up area expansion, and attract more population, than poorer cities or smaller cities; and (2) that there is a long-term bidirectional causality between urban built-up area expansion and GDP per capita at both city and provincial level, and a short-term bidirectional causality at provincial level, revealing a positive feedback between landscape urbanization and urban and regional economic growth in China. Our results suggest that urbanization, if measured by a landscape indicator, does have causal effect on economic growth in China, both within the city and with spillover effect to the region, and that urban land expansion is not only the consequences of economic growth in cities, but also drivers of such growth. The results also suggest that under its current economic growth model, it might be difficult for China to control urban expansion without sacrificing economic growth, and China’s policy to stop the loss of agricultural land, for food security, might be challenged by its policy to promote economic growth through urbanization.

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          Most cited references4

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          China's environment in a globalizing world.

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            The urban transformation of the developing world.

            Sometime in the next 20 to 30 years, developing countries in Asia and Africa are likely to cross a historic threshold, joining Latin America in having a majority of urban residents. The urban demographic transformation is described here, with an emphasis on estimates and forecasts of urban population aggregates. To provide policy-makers with useful scientific guidance in the upcoming urban era, demographic researchers will need to refine their data sets to include spatial factors as well as urban vital rates and to make improvements to forecasting methods currently in use.
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              Urbanization and the wealth of nations.

              The proportion of a country's population living in urban areas is highly correlated with its level of income. Urban areas offer economies of scale and richer market structures, and there is strong evidence that workers in urban areas are individually more productive, and earn more, than rural workers. However, rapid urbanization is also associated with crowding, environmental degradation, and other impediments to productivity. Overall, we find no evidence that the level of urbanization affects the rate of economic growth. Our findings weaken the rationale for either encouraging or discouraging urbanization as part of a strategy for economic growth.
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                Author and article information

                Journal
                Environ Sci Technol
                es
                esthag
                Environmental Science & Technology
                American Chemical Society
                0013-936X
                1520-5851
                21 November 2011
                03 January 2012
                : 46
                : 1
                : 132-139
                Affiliations
                []Fenner School of Environment and Society, simpleAustralian National University , Canberra, ACT 0200 Australia
                []State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resources Ecology, simpleBeijing Normal University , No. 19 Xinjiekou wai street, Beijing 100875, P. R. China
                Author notes
                [* ]Phone: 61-2-61257825; fax: 61-2-61250746; e-mail: xuemei.bai@ 123456anu.edu.au .
                Article
                10.1021/es202329f
                3251221
                22103244
                c2df87c9-5ce0-4561-bce4-6a0b9b2f7765
                Copyright © 2011 American Chemical Society

                This is an open-access article distributed under the ACS AuthorChoice Terms & Conditions. Any use of this article, must conform to the terms of that license which are available at http://pubs.acs.org.

                History
                : 21 October 2010
                : 21 November 2011
                : 31 October 2011
                : 06 December 2011
                : 03 January 2012
                : 21 November 2011
                Categories
                Policy Analysis
                Custom metadata
                es202329f
                es-2011-02329f

                General environmental science
                General environmental science

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