Job seekers throng a career fair held in Zhengzhou, capital of Henan province, last month. With more people from rural regions moving to urban areas, large cities are facing mounting challenges of urbanization, including the pressure of unemployment.
Faced with the rapid growth of cities and a surge in urban population driven mainly by the influx of migrants from rural areas, experts have called for the country to adopt a more focused pattern of urbanization.
"An urgent shift in focus from solely driving GDP growth to an agenda of boosting urban productivity is not only an opportunity but a necessity," a report released by the McKinsey Global Institute, consultancy McKinsey and Co's economics think tank, stated on Monday.
With the population of urban areas expected to surpass 1 billion in 2030, a "supercity" pattern of urban growth would produce 20 percent more per capita GDP than the current pattern, obtain higher energy efficiency, and curb the loss of arable land, McKinsey said.
The move would produce 15 "supercities" with an average population of 25 million, Xinhua News Agency reported of McKinsey's study.
Such a pattern would also help cluster the most skilled workers in urban centers, which would be major engines of economic growth, the report stated.
The supercities would reportedly be better equipped to deal with the challenges of development than a rash of smaller cities: energy productivity would be nearly 20 percent higher; public transport would be more efficient; air and water pollution would be easier to manage and cropland losses could be kept to under 8 percent.