Population Agglomeration And Dynamic Mechanism Of China’s Multi-scale Urbanization

Since the reform and opening up in 1978, China has experienced the unprecedented surge of floating population with the speeding up of globalization, marketization and industrialization. It is reached 221 million in 2010, and China is entering into an era of great migration. Massive rural-urban migration constitutes the most important driving force of urbanization and accelerates the process of urbanization in China. With the rapid growth of floating population, the peasants who have left agricultural work experienced the transition from the previous rural-urban migration within local administrative unit to the current rural-urban migration among different administrative units, which leading to the appearance of multi-scale migration and various urbanization paths. Nevertheless, the traditional research paradigm of urbanization highly emphasizes on the peasants’ transfer from rural to urban, but it isn’t concerned about where the city they move to, thus ignore the urbanization differences among floating population who migrate from different scales. In the background of human-oriented new-type urbanization, it is necessary to investigate the agglomeration rule and influencing factors of floating population from different scales, and it is of great significance to enrich the theories of urbanization and promote the development of new-type urbanization in China.According to the research background mentioned above, combined with the development reality and relevant studies of China’s urbanization, the dissertation introduced the concept of scale and proposed a conceptual framework of multi-scale urbanization from the perspective of population mobility, based on migration theory, population urbanization theory and scale theory. Since the reform and opening up, with the development of marketization and decentralization, it promotes the local governments to set up all sorts of institutional barriers to prevent the floating population enjoying the same public services with local household registration people that the rise of local government, GDP-oriented government achievements assessment, and the competition among local governments. Consequently, the cost of urbanization and citizenization generate differentiations between local residents and floating population. Eventually, the urbanization are classified into three forms, namely, inter-provincial urbanization characterized by inter-provincial rural-urban migration, inter-county urbanization characterized by inter-county rural-urban migration within one province and intra-county urbanization (in situ urbanization) characterized by rural-urban migration within one county. In order to investigate the floating population agglomeration characteristics and dynamic mechanism of these three types urbanization, we conducted the empirical analysis from the national-scale, provincial-scale, county-scale and individual-level respectively.(1) On the national scale, massive inter-provincial rural-urban migration constitute inter-provincial urbanization, and they promote the ascension of the national and provincial urbanization rate. By analyzing the 31 provinces’ inter-provincial migration, we found that the central and western of China are the major sources of floating population, and eastern of China is the major destination of floating population. The inter-provincial migrants are mainly located in the large urban agglomerations (Yangtze River Delta urban agglomerations, Pearl River Delta urban agglomeration and Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration) and large cities (Guangzhou, Shanghai, Beijing, etc.) in coastal areas. Space factors, economic factors and social factors are main three driving forces to shape the inter-provincial migration pattern. The economic and social gap between provinces is the core driving force to promote the inter-provincial migration; the existed migration stocks sustain the inter-provincial migration direction persistently, the distance between two provinces decrease the inter-provincial migration.(2) On the provincial scale, we took 108 counties and county-level cites of Shandong province as analysis units, and studied the population agglomeration characteristic and dynamic mechanism of inter-county urbanization, at the same time, we also compared the difference between inter-county floating population and inter-provincial floating population. Our research shows that the horizontal distribution of inter-county floating population is relatively balanced, and the floating population mainly concentrate in the municipal districts and developed county-level cities of the provincial capital and coastal developed prefecture-level cities. Besides, both the municipal districts of other prefecture-level cities and some more developed county-level cites are also the agglomeration region of the inter-county floating population. The distribution forms a polycentric cluster pattern. However, the horizontal distribution of the inter-province floating population is relatively concentrated. They are mainly concentrated in the municipal districts and developed county-level cities of the provincial capital and coastal developed prefecture-level cities. The influence factors of two types of floating population agglomeration are not completely same. Higher economic development level, higher proportion of the tertiary industry and higher urbanization rate promote the inter-county floating population concentrate to municipal districts and non-fringe areas of the province. Overall, the social and economic development level is an important influence factor of inter-county urbanization, which is similar to the inter-provincial urbanization. However, comparing with the inter-provincial urbanization, inter-county urbanization is not only affected by economic factors but also influenced by non-economic factors, which result in the distribution of inter-county floating population is relatively balanced.(3) On the county scale, the paper investigated the population agglomeration and dynamic mechanism of intra-county urbanization through the analysis of the Zhucheng City (county-level city). We found that the floating population within the county are mainly gathered in the inner city and central town. At the same time, the rural central community also show the attractiveness for the peasants through the construction of new rural communities. The "inner city, central town and central community" constitute a three-level space carrier of intra-county urbanization. During the development of the intra-county urbanization, the local government, local enterprises and local peasants have jointly promoted the development of the in-situ urbanization of Zhucheng City. Specifically, the local government plays a top-down leading role, through urban planning, investment, industrial layout, as well as the promotion of land transfer and expansion of the towns ’power, etc. Enterprises’ agglomeration promotes the development of local economy, and their location selections guide the direction of population flow. Moreover, enterprises participate in the community construction through cooperation with the local government or peasants directly, and which form the economic power of intra-county urbanization. Peasants are the micro subject of urbanization, and the transformation of their way of production and life further respond to the behavior of government and enterprise, which constitute the down-top driving force.(4) On the individual level, using the national survey data, we described the urbanization intentions of rural residents and their preferences for urbanization paths. The results show that most of the peasants don’t intend to leave the countryside and settle down in cities, and the most of the peasants who intend to move to cities incline to moving to small cities and towns. This means that the intra-county urbanization is more suitable for peasants’ urbanization willingness. The empirical results show that peasants’ urbanization intentions are shaped by individual, household, and contextual factors jointly. Specifically, the peasants who have more human capitals (younger, with more education years, with migration experience), the peasants whose household have more children, higher economic status, more lands and more relationships with the city, and the peasants who living in developed regions are more likely moving to cities. While the peasants’ urbanization path preference is mainly shaped by regional economic development level and the residence locations. Specifically, the peasants who living in developed areas and their current residences are far from large cities have more willingness to move to small cities and towns, namely, they prefer choosing the intra-county urbanization.In the end, based on these findings above, we can draw some policy implications to promote the development of new-type urbanization in the future. Firstly, it is helpful to reduce the inter-provincial migration by narrowing the economic and social gap between provinces. In the meantime, the government should promote the equalization of basic public services by strengthening the interactions and corporations among central, provincial, and county-level governments. Secondly, the intra-county urbanization is more suitable for peasants’ urbanization willingness, therefore, the governments should pay more attentions to improving the attractiveness of county-level cities and towns through the system mechanism reform. Last but not least, we should focus more on the development of peasants and rural areas. The governments should improve peasants’ capacity and endogenous dynamic of moving to cities to settle down by strengthening education and training of peasants. Besides, the government should also promote the development of rural economy and reform the institutional hurdles that hinder the peasants moving to cities, such as the land system.