Study on Methodology: Land Resource Accounting in Urbanization Areas

Abstract

The urbanization of Chinese rural areas has been taking place rapidly since the reform and open policy of China in the late 1970s. Zhou (1995) indicated that the proportion of urban population in the whole has grown from about 12% to 18.9%, averaging 0.53%) each year from 1978 through 1990. We estimated the rate to be about 0.6% in last 5 years, because more and more farmers come into cities but are not formally accounted for in official statistics. About 2.6 million ‘farmer-workers’ work and live in Shanghai, but are not counted in the urban population (Xu et al, 1996).¹ However, we must point out that the urbanization proportion of China is still very low compared with developed countries, and the urbanization rate in China may not decrease in the future.

In the People’s Republic of China, rights of migration and residence are united. Farmer-workers (Mingong) work in a city to make a living for their families, who used to live in rural areas. They have no residential rights in the city.