City shrinkage in China: scalar processes of urban and hukou population losses

Analysis of the latest census data for 2000 and 2010 shows that 88 out of 336 Chinese municipalities suffered combinations of total, urban and hukou population loss. A general ordered logit model examines the ways manufacturing decline, services growth and demographic vitality interact in a specifically Chinese context of population control, contributing empirically and theoretically to studies of city shrinkage. Chinese experience shows that while some cities act as growth engines in emerging economies, others may shrink, and this process may happen before the completion of a rural–urban transition. These findings call for a modification of China’s growth-oriented urban policy.