The Urbanization Policy Change and Its Raminifications to Urban Landscape

1 Urban System Overview

We have 658 (2010) cities, consisting of 县级市和地级市
Urbanization Rate: 53.8%

As urbanization rate is based on city population, so if we need to upend urbanization stereotype in China, we have to find what's missed in official calculation.

2 How cities are born in China AND how many are they?
They have to go through a process named : 县改市（from towns to cities）to get on urban calibre, (maybe not completely newly built, they have existing conditions, just will be calculated as city)and the criteria are:
A Population
B Infrastructure - tap water; road coverage and relatively good sewage system
C Local Budget

The rate of city birth is different according to policies
earlier- 1978: very limited cities were built

1983-1998: the first hike of city birth. almost 350 new cities were born. But the State Council decided to curb the trend to avoid fake economic booming, so the process tied down since.

1998-2014: During the 16 years, only 120 cities were born, less than the amount of one year's before 1998.

2014-now: The second hike of city birth. The State Council lessened the limitation towards city birth. So, according to incomplete statistics, 130 new cities were named.

3 It's potential influence on our theory
A How's it's related to TBT?
Proof: A very big TBT was included in Guangzhou in 2014

B Look deeper into the criteria, how can we add in parameters to argue against urbanization stereotypes.
Example: Relatively good sewage? We could add E-commerce into the parameter too.

C Will the 2014 new urbanization plan help improve urban density? Make it more efficient?