【文章內(nèi)容簡介】 as growing, with the latter remaining rural places while the former took over many of the characteristics of an urban settlement. As the primary node of the regional urban system, the township towns have played a very important role in the process of rural urbanization from below (see Table II). Table different types of rural settlements in Wuxi and Jiangyin counties (village township level town) Item Type Village Township level town Size of population Varies from tens to hundreds Generally above 3,000 residents Functions Place for villagers’ living, agriculture, and sideline Political, mercial, economic and culture center of the production, with few services and industrial units township, with more rural industrial enterprises Structure No natural center, dispersed distribution functions center Division of functions, has a town center Service items Some primary services functions for daily life Shopping centers, post office, bank, police station, cinema, library, etc. Density 6007,000 for every 100km2 for every 100km2 Occupational structure of residents Majority peasants, \some peasantworkers Majority nonagriculture, population and peasantworkers, low agricultural population Relation with government No articulated government structure Lowest level of government hierarchy, has an articulated government structure Nature of settlement Rural Urban Source: Information from fieldwork The four characteristics of rural urbanization mentioned above only represent an inplete process. Not only is the transfer of population an inplete process, but the township towns, as the principal site for industrial cluster, are also inplete urban settlements. At best, these towns are at a transition stage of urban development because of the high percentage of workerpeasants in their population. On the average, workerpeasants account for 55 percent of the town population, and the figure can get as high as 70 percent. The inplete rural urbanization is also reflected in the highly selective nature of population transfer, which involves principally ablebodied men and women. Yet despite its transitory nature, rural urbanization, having developed rapidly in this region, shows that it is adaptable to local economy and society as a whole. 3 The future development of the rural urbanization process Urbanization is not an isolated social phenomenon, and its development is closely related to the socioeconomic changes in the region. Through an analysis of the socioeconomic development of Wuxi and Jiangyin, a prediction of the future rural urbanization in these counties can be made. The rural population will continue to progress from the lower to higher level and from inplete to plete form In the earlier stage, rural urbanization was developing under the condition of a large surplus of rural labor, and the affected population often remained relatively stable after its transfer. As the size of surplus labor shrinks, the future transfer of rural labor to nonagricultural sectors will mainly and increasingly involve a newly added labor force. An analysis of the growth of rural labor indicates that the natural and mechanical growth of rural labor will be limited(see Wang, 1989). Moreover, agricultural mechanization demands ablebodiedpeople. Thus, the number of rural people being transferred into the first will decline, and those in the second and third level will increase considerably. In the future, the rise of the urbanization level in Wuxi and Jiangyin will mainly involve the people who have already been transferred but who have not yet pleted the whole process, therefore the increase of people moving into a higher level will be an important indicator of future rural urbanization. Small towns will continue to develop rapidly and differentially The transfer of population from the first to the second level is a process involving a growing number of workerpeasants in small towns, while the transfer of population from the second to the third level will contribute to the rise of population in small towns. Hence, the transfer of population from the lower to higher levels will naturally acpany the development of small towns. The more people are transferred, the faster the small towns will , due to different geographic conditions and economic forces, small towns will not develop in a balanced way. Some towns will develop faster and bee centers for several townships around them, and finally act as an intermediate between the county and township towns in the regional urban system. During the course of differentiation, some small towns will move away from the transition status, which is reflected in the decrease of workerpeasants and increase of permanent population. The whole process may take a relatively long time to be pleted. Rural migrants in regional cities will gradually increase Judging from the development tendency in Wuxi and Jiangyin, it seems that the growth of the large and mediumsized cities in the region is inevitable. Because of the growth of the local economy, enterprises in Wuxi City faced increasingly a shortage of labor supply, and began to accept contractworkers from three surrounding counties after 1983. Thus, a legal channel for rural people to move into large and mediumsized cities was opened. The direct transfer of rural population to large cities is beyond the scope of rural urbanization. At present, the number of people being transferred in this way is small。 and rural urbanization is still the dominant process in rural areas. However, there is a trend on the one hand that rural population migrating to large or mediumsized ci