China’s urban threshold

It’s official – China is now mostly an urban nation. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, urban dwellers now account for more than 51% of China’s population of nearly 1.35 billion. That’s 690 million people, a number the McKinsey Global Institute expects will reach one billion by the year 2030. Now that China has passed this historic threshold, what are some of the changes we should expect going forward?

Nick Leung spoke with Jonathan Woetzel and Haimeng Zhang about what this milestone means for China. Jonathan is a Director in Shanghai, and is the Co-Chair of the Urban China Initiative, a think-tank run in collaboration with Columbia University and Tsinghua University. He joined the conversation by phone. Haimeng is a Partner in Shanghai who heads the Sustainable Urbanization Practice in Greater China. Nick is Managing Partner of McKinsey’s Greater China Practice, and is based in Beijing.