Understanding dual‐track urbanisation in post‐reform China: conceptual framework and empirical analysis

This paper examines dual‐track urbanisation in China, consisting of spontaneous urbanisation and state‐sponsored urbanisation. The paper first develops a consistent interpretative framework of urbanisation in pre‐reform and post‐reform China. The key components in the framework include the mode of industrialisation, central and local states, urban and rural economies, urban and rural citizens, the hukou system and global linkages. Dynamic changes in these components and their interactions drive the urbanisation process in China. The paper then examines how each of the two tracks of urbanisation contributed to the urbanisation process that occurred in China between 1982 and 2000.