In Depth

Shuangliu – Urbanising the countryside

  • Published 10 Dec 2009

Instead of migrating to the city, residents of Shuangliu are creating the trappings of urban life in the countryside.

Urbanisation trend:Shuangliu, a county near Chengdu, the provincial capital of Sichuan, provides an alternative vision of China’s urbanising future. So far, throughout China, urbanisation has mainly involved rural residents migrating to cities that expand ever outward to accommodate a swelling population. In Shuangliu, though, several factors are driving a new urbanisation model in which most farmers still work on the land, but live more urban lifestyles in specially-built residential compounds and are classified as urban residents.