Events and What's On

Inaugural Lecture - Professor Ya Ping Wang, School of the Built Environment

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Urbanisation in China: achievements, problems and future prospect

Sustained economic reform and growth have been accompanied by a greater speed of urbanisation in China. The urban population has increased from less than 20 percent in 1978 to 45.7 percent in 2008. The country now has 655 cities, of which 118 have over 1 million residents.

It is expected that technological advances and improvement in rural management will release more farmers from the land, and about 1 percent of the population will be urbanised over the next 25 years.

This fast speed of urbanisation has produced some remarkable urban landscapes. At the same time it has brought serious socio-economic and environmental problems.

This talk will present some of the major characteristics of Chinese urbanisation and discuss the socio-economic and environmental problems faced by Chinese planners and policy makers.

The talk will draw on recent research projects on housing for migrant workers and suburban land development process. It will emphasise the unique values of the two track urban development process