China’s urbanization at a turning point—challenges and opportunities

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, China’s urbanization ratio (i.e., the share of population living in urban areas) reached 67% in 2024, maintaining a pace of over 1 percentage point increase per year over the past 45 years. Strongly driven by national policy, such extraordinary speed and scale are described as the largest experiment in human settlement in history . The latest national policy documents reiterate the commitment to “people-centered urbanization,” a principle put in place in the National New-type Urbanization Plan announced in 2014. This continuity in language belies a critical turning point—a shift from land-driven development to prioritizing people’s welfare, and a transition from pursuing quantity to prioritizing quality in urban development.