Skip to Main Content
HBS Home
  • About
  • Academic Programs
  • Alumni
  • Faculty & Research
  • Baker Library
  • Giving
  • Harvard Business Review
  • Initiatives
  • News
  • Recruit
  • Map / Directions
Faculty & Research
  • Faculty
  • Research
  • Featured Topics
  • Academic Units
  • …→
  • Harvard Business School→
  • Faculty & Research→
Publications
Publications
  • 2018
  • Chapter
  • The China Questions

Will Urbanization Save the Chinese Economy or Destroy it?

By: Meg Rithmire
  • Format:Print
ShareBar

Abstract

The Chinese leadership under Xi Jinping has announced its intentions to transition the economy from one driven by investment and exports to one driven by domestic demand. The main strategy to achieve this transformation involves massive state-led urbanization. This essay explores whether the strategy will save the Chinese economy or generate social and political problems that imperil the country's growth and stability.

Keywords

China; Urbanization; Economic Development; Urban Development; Economic Growth; China

Citation

Rithmire, Meg. "Will Urbanization Save the Chinese Economy or Destroy it?" Chap. 16 in The China Questions: Critical Insights into a Rising Power, edited by Jennifer Rudolph and Michael Szonyi. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018.
  • Find it at Harvard
  • Purchase

About The Author

Meg Rithmire

Business, Government and the International Economy
→More Publications

More from the Author

    • 2025
    • Faculty Research

    High Stakes: A Framework for Geopolitical Risk Management

    By: Meg Rithmire and David Fagan
    • March 2025
    • Pacific Affairs

    Retrofitting Leninism: Participation Without Democracy in China | by Dimitar D. Gueorguiev // Outsourcing Repression: Everyday State Power in Contemporary China | by Lynette H. Ong

    By: Meg Rithmire
    • 2024
    • Faculty Research

    What Future for the Renminbi in the Global Monetary System?

    By: Edoardo Campanella and Meg Rithmire
More from the Author
  • High Stakes: A Framework for Geopolitical Risk Management By: Meg Rithmire and David Fagan
  • Retrofitting Leninism: Participation Without Democracy in China | by Dimitar D. Gueorguiev // Outsourcing Repression: Everyday State Power in Contemporary China | by Lynette H. Ong By: Meg Rithmire
  • What Future for the Renminbi in the Global Monetary System? By: Edoardo Campanella and Meg Rithmire
ǁ
Campus Map
Harvard Business School
Soldiers Field
Boston, MA 02163
→Map & Directions
→More Contact Information
  • Make a Gift
  • Site Map
  • Jobs
  • Harvard University
  • Trademarks
  • Policies
  • Accessibility
  • Digital Accessibility
Copyright © President & Fellows of Harvard College.