Chinese Urbanisation

Adam Tooze describes the scale of China's cities.

China’s cities are the most gigantic experiment in urbanization in history. If anywhere has a claim to define the “norm” of urbanism it is China...

China in 2025 may have as many as 160 urban centers with a population of more than 1 million. Of these 18 are megacities with 10 million inhabitants or more.

For sake of comparison the US can claim to have no more than ten urban areas with a population of one million! Being in China makes you realize how profoundly anti-urban America is. There are only two US conurbations - NY-New Jersey and LA - that would qualify as megacities. On sheer scale, neither would qualify as Tier 1 in the Chinese rankings.

For further comparison, the EU counts 39 urban areas of over 1 million inhabitants but only one city-region, Paris, with a population of over 10 million.

There is not a single city in either Europe or the US that can compare to the awesome scale of the largest Chinese conurbations.