Urban Development in China: Moving from Urbanisation to Quality of Urban Life

This study uses data from 69 Chinese cities covering the eleven years 2003–2013 to examine factors that drive urban development in China. Previous work has examined standard international measures of urban development such as GDP, population density, and average income. Population density, GDP, and average annual income are considered as alternatives to the typical Chinese measure of urbanisation level to represent urban development. In particular, the study asks whether traditionally used economic factors (education, environment, cultural industry, infrastructure, FDI, and government spending) are most closely associated with urban development in the major cities of China during this time period. Linear regressions are estimated with each of the measures as the dependent variable. The results are presented and discussed with implications for studying Chinese urban development.