Urbanization Policy in China: Untangling the Mystery

In the past 20 years, China moved about 300 million people, similar in size to the US population, from rural to urban areas. The same trend will likely continue in the next 20 years. The massive and rapid urbanization poses tremendous challenges to the environment and sustainability, but also offers great opportunities for industrial restructuring and economic development. Interestingly, many policies in China could be categorized as anti-urbanization as they discourage population migration to large cities, especially Beijing and Shanghai. This course will untangle this mystery by exposing students to diverse issues under this context such as household registration, environment degradation, motorization, public finance in infrastructure, housing reform, the real estate bubble, education divide, property rights, economic development zones, etc. This four-day intensive course will be held in New York.
(Not offered in 2021.)