Urbanization is a process of economic transition, social evolution, and cultural reconstruction in human society, in which the focus of economic structure shifts from agricu1ture to non-agriculture, the social structure of urban and rura1 areas is characterized by a gradually decreasing rural population and the steadily increasing urban population, and the cultural landscape of the city is exemplified by a gradua1ly urbanized physical infrastructure of settlements and city-lifestyle of people. This paper examines the urbanization process, policies, driving forces, and mechanism of urbanization, as well as their impacts on the social and economic development in China from a multi-layered and multi-level perspective. The Chinese urbanization process has passed a long period of slow development and entered into a rapid advance stage. However, unlike most European urban development, in which the present-day socio-spatial configurations are all related to the capitalist mode of production and in which the Kondratiev cycles give rhythm to their appearances and change, the Chinese urbanization configurations refer to different temporalities.