On way to becoming a world-class city cluster

According to the Beijing Statistics Bulletin 2017, the city's permanent resident population last year was 21.707 million, 22,000 less than 2016. This is the first negative growth in Beijing's permanent resident population in two decades and it has caused public concern.

Many factors are responsible for the negative growth. The first is the universal rule of urban development. Based on new economic geography, the size of a city's population is determined by the friction between urban centripetal and centrifugal forces, which in turn are determined by local market effect and the price index. When the centripetal force is stronger than the centrifugal force, people flock to urban areas, and when the centrifugal force is stronger than centripetal force the urban population begins to decline.

Beijing suffers some serious urban diseases including traffic jams, sky-high housing prices and environmental pollution, which means its population size exceeds its sustainable level. As a result, the centrifugal force is stronger than the centripetal force. In fact, net growth of Beijing's permanent resident population, according to available data, has been declining since 2011.