The 2013 Green Paper on Chinese Small and Medium-Sized Cities was released in Beijing on Oct 21.The Green Paper has standardized the urbanization assessment system.

The forum on the 2013 Green Paper on Chinese Small and Medium-Sized Cities and an urbanization conference was held at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) on Oct 21. Themed around effectiveness, technology, and green and environmentally-friendly ideas, the forum took an in-depth look at developmental issues including advancing urbanization.

“Our study group has combined the concept and essence of urbanization with the cities’ current situation, and we have renewed the urbanization assessment standard in accordance with our theme,” said Li Xuefeng, deputy chef-editor of the 2013 Green Paper on Chinese Small and Medium-Sized Cities.

Kunshan in Jiangsu province, Shaoxing in Zhejiang province and Changsha in Hunan province, as well as seven other small and medium-sized cities, have been selected as the best examples in implementing urbanization.

The result has shown that the overall urbanization process of small and medium-sized cities is not optimistic. On the environment front, the problem of energy-consumption and water quality is quite acute, though air pollution in cities that are in the process of urbanizing is relatively light. In the field of economic development, the average income of small and medium-sized cities is slightly lower than that of the country. The ratio between urbanization rate and the increasing value of second and tertiary industries is still lower than the country’s average.