“24国集团”与“三个梯队”——关于中国城镇化国际比较研究的思考

国际比较对于中国城镇化研究具有重要意义,而"尺度"观念至为关键。研究认为,与中国具有相对可比性的国家或地区可以界定为国土面积大于200万km2或GDP大于6500亿美元,全球只有24个这样的国家,它们主导了全球的社会经济发展,囊括了世界主要国家类型,可以作为中国城镇化国际比较研究的基本参照框架。就城镇化与经济发展水平的关系来看,24个国家表现为三个不同的梯队:第一梯队城镇化与经济发展水平均比较高,主要是一些西方发达国家,工业化和城镇化起步早,先发优势突出;第二梯队城镇化起步稍晚,但发展迅猛,城镇化与经济发展关系失衡,乃至落入"中等收入陷阱";中国和印度等处于以发展中国家为主导的第三梯队,城镇化发展尚处于后发的起步期,保持经济稳健增长、实现城镇化与经济发展的协调共进将是未来发展的关键所在。

GROUP OF TWENTY FOUR COUNTRIES AND THREE TIERS:INTERNATIONAL COMPARATIVE STUDY ON URBANIZATION IN CHINA

International comparative study is very important for the research on urbanization in China,and the concept of "scale" is even crucial.This paper puts forward that the countries larger than 2 million km2 or with GDP more than 650 billion dollars can be compared with China correspondingly,and there are 24 such countries in the world,which are leading the global socio-economic development.They cover almost all types of countries,and can be regarded as the basic reference to carry out the international comparative study on urbanization in China.In terms of relationship between urbanization and economic level,the 24 countries can be divided into three tiers.Countries in the first tier are mainly developed countries,whose urbanization and economic level are quite high;countries in the second tier are urbanized relatively later,but developed rapidly,thus their urbanization and economy have been developed unbalanced,and fallen into the "middle-income trap." Countries in the third tier including China and India are still in the starting phase of urbanization,and their key to the future development is the steady economic growth,and balance between urbanization and economic development.