Urbanization and economic development in China:An international comparison based on quadrant map approach

The coordinated development of urbanization and economic development is a worldwide experience;also is inherent requirements of economic development.China's urbanization has unique pattern and characteristic,which has attracted attention from a large number of multi-disciplinary scholars and relevant government departments at home and abroad.At present,there is a heated dispute on the correlation of China's urbanization level and economic development.This paper highlights the characteristics and pattern of urbanization in the world based on the quadrant map,using data of 118 countries or regions.The results indicate that both the process of urbanization and the effects of GDP on urbanization have shown a downward trend.Next,a further exploration examines China's urbanization process and economic development over time,which indicates that both of urbanization level and the level of economic development belongs to the type of low-level coordination pattern.They are coordinated between the low level of urbanization and economic development,and urbanization is not seriously lagged behind the economic development.The low level of urbanization is closely related with the low level of economic development.Furthermore,a dynamic analysis was done on China's urbanization pattern in the world.Actually,China's urbanization lag appeared in 1985-1995,but it has been narrowed since 1995 as a result of rapid urbanization growth.The complicated realities revealed in this analysis challenge the existing two prevalent views:(1)the urbanization process continues to speed up in the world;(2)China is at very low urbanization level relative to its level of economic development.