Editor's Note: This month's episode of On China with Kristie Lu Stout focuses on the country's rush to urbanize and airs for the first time on Wednesday at 6.30pm Hong Kong/ Beijing time.
Shanghai, Imagine China's urbanization drive as SimCity on steroids.
The core objective of the video game is to build a metropolis while staying on budget and keeping residents happy.
China has done it on a massive scale over the last three decades, but with disappointing results.
For starters, inefficient spending has spawned China's empty mega malls and "ghost cities" of headline lore.
And in those urban areas problems abound. China's city dwellers are forced to live in a severe concrete landscape of polluted skies and chronic gridlock.
"You've got 500 million people that have moved to the cities since 1980," says James McGregor, Beijing-based author and chairman of the consultancy APCO Worldwide.
"The lives they've been able to build, it's been incredible. But the question is: 'can they make it livable?'"
China's urbanization drive started decades ago when 80% of the population lived in the countryside.
Today, China has more than 160 cities with populations of a million or more, with an urban population of around 700 million that represents more than half the total population.
And yet, despite all the thoughtless construction and chaotic urban planning, China has managed to dodge at least one bullet: There are no miles of urban slums. There are no favelas dotting China's cities.
www.benlatestnews.com
0 comments:
Post a Comment