On Sunday, China released a 31-point plan mapping out the next six years of the nation’s urban development. Between now and 2020, the government will take steps to modernize agriculture and transform into a consumer driven, service-based and environmentally friendly economy, all while ameliorating the various social and economic gaps between urban and rural, and coastal and inland that have widened since Deng Xiaoping opened the country to free market activity in 1978. China will also superintend the urbanization of an additional 100 million migrants into cities, while granting urban status to 100 million of 234 million total people who currently live in cities but can’t access basic services.

Social and economic imbalances featured prominently in the plan issued on Sunday. The document stated that while China’s urbanization rate has risen to 53%—lower still than nations with comparable per capita income levels—only about 36% are legal urban residents, meaning that…