Preparing for China’s Urban Billion The scale and pace of China’s urbanizatio

Preparing for China’s Urban Billion
   The scale and pace of China’s urbanization continues at an unprecedented rate. If current trends hold, China’s urban population will hit the one billion mark by 2030. In 20 years, China’s cities will have added 350 million people more than the entire population of the United States today. By 2025, China will have 221 cities with one million-plus inhabitants—compared with 35 cities of this size in Europe today—and 23 cities with more than five million. For companies in China and around the world, the scale of China’s urbanization promises substantial new markets and investment opportunities.
   Yet the expansion of China’s cities will represent a huge challenge for local and national leaders. Of the slightly more than 350 million people that China will add to its urban population by 2025, more than 240 million will be migrants. This growth will imply major pressure points for many cities including the challenge of managing these expanding populations, securing sufficient public funding for the provision of social services, and dealing with demand and supply pressures on land, energy, water, and the environment. The research examines these issues and the policy choices that China’s leaders could make at national and local levels that can alter the shape of urbanization significantly.
   McKinsey Global Institute finds that an urgent shift in focus from solely driving GDP growth to an agenda of boosting urban productivity, achieving the same or better economic results with fewer resources, is not only an opportunity but a necessity. The analysis suggests that China should tailor policies that would shift urbanization toward a more concentrated shape of urbanization. This pattern of urbanization could produce 15 super cities with average populations of 25 million people, or spur the further development of 11 urban clusters of cities, each with strong economic networks and combined populations of 60-plus million.