Urbanisation was seen as the bridge between rural and urban China, turning farmers into urbanites—in times of overcapacity—and fueling demand for household appliances, infrastructure and durable goods. Agriculture employs 35% of China’s labour force, and a jump from farming to city-life was thus eased and anticipated. Urbanisation was seen as an opportunity to co-opt a part of the 280-million-strong migrants into urban life. This was the bottom-line of the State Council’s New Urbanisation Plan (NEP) 2014-2020.

In China, urbanisation (56.1% in 2015) far outweighs urbanisation in India (31% in 2011). China entered the urban era in 2011, when the urban population overtook the rural population for the first time from 17.9% in 1978 (170 million urban residents).

How does China chase its urban dream? The easiest route has been altering the topography of the countryside, resorting to what has been called a “short-cut to modernity”—by building “a city without a city”. A case in point (from among several others) was Chenggong, touted as a planned city (according to residents, again in the middle-of-nowhere) that would de-congest capital Kunming (of the south-western province of Yunnan). Provincial offices, schools and hospitals were to be moved to the new city—which would “help” the population to move. There was a great deal of local resistance, largely unreported by the press. Today, Chenggong has turned into a “ghost city”—it has all but residents.

The case of Kangbashi district in Ordos (Inner Mongolia province) was highlighted by the international media. Kangbashi, spanking new, was built on the back of profits from mining and speculation—a planned “smart city” with opulent architecture. But, with few people calling it home or any real activities happening in it, it joined the ranks of the ghost cities—reportedly, there are 12 such “cities” in the province.

Local governments have done their bit—such as gently coercing people to move—by merging local schools (at the village level) into large schools located in the towns and counties.

The other mechanism has been administrative re-organisation—a town is upgraded to a city or the county is upgraded to a municipality by redrawing administrative boundaries. Often, villages on the outlying areas of the city are co-opted within city limits. In other words, rural residents become urban residents without have to move bag and baggage—the city is at their doorsteps.

But driving half a billion to urbanise and become consumers takes a lot of effort. In attempting to boost consumption, the urbanisation of land has happened faster than urbanisation of the population. Local governments urbanise by building industrial parks and zones. Many build skyscrapers. Many others build dream or futuristic cities—for example, Zhejiang province has built a miniature Paris. Tianjin municipality has created a Manhattan in China. Whether these are sustainable is the real question.

Building the Manhattans of China has strained the coffers of the local government. These, as well as the parks, zones and skyscrapers were built on land acquired from rural collectives. The differential price (cost of acquiring land minus leasing to developers) became a significant source of revenue for cash-strapped local governments who can neither borrow from banks, issue bonds nor possess the lion share of taxes which accrue to the central government (1994 tax sharing reforms).

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Finally, the “queen” of problems—making farmers urbanites has coaxed migration. Many migrants hope to become urban citizens. China’s migrant population decreased by 5.5 million for the first time in 30 years in 2015 (247 million migrants, National Bureau of Statistics). It is said that this dip occurred because the rural folk stay where they are, because services and opportunities have come to their door.

China’s NEP plans to grant 100 million rural migrants household registration (urban) by 2020. By 2020, the urban population is estimated to reach 60% and China plans to reach the household registration (hukou) to 40% of the population. This plan has to put in place for the migrants-turned-citizens infrastructure, education, pension and health services.

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