Seeing Chinese Cities Through Big Data and Statistics

Abstract

China has historically been an agricultural nation. China’s urbanization rate was reported to be 18 % in 1978 when it began its economic reforms. It has now become the second largest economy in the world. Urbanization in China increased dramatically in support of this economic growth, tripling to 54 % by the end of 2013. At the same time, many major urban problems also surfaced, including environmental degradation, lack of affordable housing, and traffic congestion. Economic growth will continue to be China’s central policy in the foreseeable future. Chinese cities are seriously challenged to support continuing economic growth with a high quality of life for their residents, while addressing the existing big city diseases. The term “Smart City” began to appear globally around 2008. Embracing the concept allows China to downscale its previous national approach to a more manageable city level. By the end of 2013, China has designated at least 193 locations to be smart city test sites; a national urbanization plan followed in March 2014. The direction of urban development and major challenges are identified in this paper. Some of them are global in nature, and some unique to China. The nation will undoubtedly continue to build their smarter cities in the coming years. The first integrated public information service platform was implemented for several test sites in 2013. It provides a one-stop center for millions of card-carrying residents to use a secure smart card to perform previously separate city functions and consolidate data collection. The pioneering system is real work in progress and helps to lay the foundation for building urban informatics in China. This paper also discusses the evolving research needs and data limitations, observes a smart city in progress, and makes some comparisons with the U.S. and other nations.