On Small Town Construction: Element Aggregation and Institutional Innovation

Author: Cai Xiuling
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-09-01
Features: Before the reform and opening-up, China followed a modern industrialization path with coercive characteristics—using a highly centralized planned system as a means and suppressing consumption and urban-rural isolation as conditions to prioritize the development of heavy industry. Correspondingly, China implemented strict "urban access restrictions," with the core being "suppressing agriculture to protect industry," which severely undermined social equity and sacrificed agricultural efficiency. By the end of 2000, China's urbanization rate was only 36.09%. Due to the large number of people restricted to rural areas, about one-third of the current agricultural labor force is in a state of implicit unemployment, and the return rate in the agricultural sector is extremely low. This directly affects the income and consumption levels of farmers. The urban-rural gap is significant and shows a widening trend. To increase farmers' income, urbanization is an effective short-term approach. This book takes the theory of agglomeration economies as a starting point to discuss the economic conditions, material guarantees, and institutional guarantees for the agglomeration of factors and population in small towns. It thoroughly analyzes the evolution of China's household registration system, employment and social security system, land use system, and administrative management system, as well as their impact on small-town construction. It points out that the institutional arrangements under the traditional system have hindered the development of small-town construction and that a new institutional framework must be established to ensure the smooth and rapid progress of small-town construction.