Urban population refers to the population lives in the urban area. It can include people who born in the urban area, which refers to the natural growth, and people who moves from rural area to an urban area or vice versa. Urban population may be both increase or decrease, it depends on the economy and resource in the city. The growth of urban population is also regarded as urbanization. Over the past half century, the world urban population is on the rise. In 1966, when the world population was 3.39 billion, and the urban population was 36% of it. By 2016, the world population increases to 7.43 billion, which raise about 119% of that in 1966, and the urban population also increases to 51% (Worldometers, 2016). From the data above, a conclusion can be made that not only the world population sharply increase, also the urban population does. Urbanization is a global phenomenon instead of a local one.

China is the country with the most population in the world, and now the current population is about 1.38 billion(Worldometers, 2016). The world population in 2016 is about 7.43 billion and China takes 18.72% of it (Worldometers, 2016). Also, China has about 57.9% population in the urban area in 2016, which are about 799 million (Worldometers, 2016). Compared to that in 2015, there are about 20 million more population in the urban area, and the urban population rate also increases from 56.6% (2015) to 57.9% (2016) (Worldometers, 2016). At the same time, although the total population in China increases from 1.37 billion to 1.38 billion, its growth rate is only 0.46% (Worldometers, 2016). Therefore, the growth in urban population is faster than that in China’s total population, and that means, in China, more people are moving into the city.

As the DPSIR model assumed, the urban population is regarded as one of the human activities, and it can be a start in a causal link chain to drive pressures of the human society and the environment. Urbanization relates to human activities like industrialization, production activities, and transportation. During these activities, energy would be consumed, and wastes would be emitted, so that cause the pressure to the environment. Many past research showed that a list of environmental problems like air and water pollution, heat island effects, change in land use and land cover, and the decline in cropland can be caused by urbanization (Zhao, Da, Tang, Fang, Song, & Fang, 2006). These environment pressures can be very serious to the society. For example, now in Shanghai, one of the biggest cities in China, there is a big environmental problem of haze, and has become a big risk to the public health. Strategies have been devised by the government and people to try to mitigate the negative impacts on the environment due to urbanization, and some of them are effective. This paper focus on urbanization in China and how it influences China’s society and the environment.

This paper aims to research, the pressure, impacts, and government’s response to the urbanization. China was taken as a study example, because urbanization in China brings many significant changes to its society. From 1978, more and more people move into urban areas. They encourage the development of cities, but also bring issues related to environment and society. Air and water pollution are caused due to people’s daily life and industrial activities, the heat island effect occurred due to emission of carbon dioxide and the construction of the city. Food security, which is also a problem, be caused by losing farming as urbanization. Social problems like increase in unemployment and crime rate are due to the increase in total population in the city, and the gap between migrants and citizens. The government response urbanization and its following effects in many ways. At the beginning, the government aimed to develop the economy in small cities, so it encourages people to go small cities. The policy is somewhat failed, because people still move to large cities and made a social pressure. For the environment, the government aim to reduce pollution by controlling pollutant emission and improve resource using efficiency. For the society, the government uses administrative detention as the main tool to dispose migrants related crimes. The DPSIR model fits this topic well.