Underurbanization Policies Assessed: China, 1949-1986

Underurbanization may be defined as the extent to which the actual rate of urban growth falls short of the rate that would have occurred if there had been perfect and instantaneous adjustments of the population to urban-industrial productivity advantages. Eastern European scholars argue that underurbanization has been sought and achieved as an explicit policy objective by socialist governments. In this paper, the Tolley model is used to estimate productivity-based urban growth rates. These, in turn, permit an examination of whether, and to what extent, underurbanization may have been characteristic of China since 1949. Underurbanization was found throughout the Maoist period with three explainable contrary episodes. However, pent-up demand for urbanward migration has been released during Deng's Four Modernizations, and China now appears to be overurbanizing.