Preface

Asia Competitiveness Institute (ACI) has started its liveability study series since 2012, including Global Liveable and Smart Cities Index, 100 China Liveable Cities Index and Urban Composite Development Index. This year, I am pleased to see the collaboration between ACI and Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences (SASS) to jointly produce 2019 ACI—SASS China Liveable Cities Index: Ranking and Simulation Analysis.

China has gone through rapid urbanisation progress over the past few decades. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the urban resident population has grown from 10.64% in 1949 to 26.41% in 1990 and further to 59.58% in 2018. The speed and scale of urbanisation are unprecedented in human history. However, problems also began to surface, gaining attention from the general public. Authorities have implemented policies to address concerns on housing, traffic congestion, haze, food safety and social issues related to migrant workers.

In 2013, President Xi Jinping stressed that Gross Domestic Product is no longer the only key performance indicator to evaluate the performance of the leaders. The welfare improvement, social development and environment indicators should all be taken into consideration. In 2019, President Xi further emphasised that the concept of people-centred development must be carried out in urban construction. Cities should be comfortable for the public to live and work.

In this book, ACI and SASS precisely follow the people-centric approach. More than 31, 000 successful telephone surveys are conducted over the 100 cities. The feedback received from ordinary residence covers city governance, city's economic development as well as livelihood issues, such as pollution, housing, education and public transportation. Together with the hard data from various statistical yearbooks, I believe this book will provide a better perspective on how to understand the concept and practice of liveability of cities. I hope this study could shed some light on the city's policymaking.

Zhang Daogen

President

Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences