Researchers investigated how urbanization affects farmland in eastern China using a mix of remote sensing and socio-economic data. Urban growth slightly impacts farmland, but the way cities expand matters. In the more developed east, urbanization helped protect farmland in the 1995–2000 period by 7%. However, from 2000 to 2008, rapidly growing cities caused a 29.2% increase in farmland loss. Policies encouraging people to move to small towns could backfire, speeding up farmland loss instead of protecting it.