generalspeaking

China's Population Shift

"Urbanization is an irreversible process. It will have a huge impact on China's environment, and on social and economic development." Li Jianmin, Institute of Population and Development Reseearch, Nankai University

As though China doesn't have enough headaches respecting the environment. Increasing urbanization translates as having to provide greater services to greater numbers of people stuffing themselves into China's burgeoning metropolises, in search of employment. China relies on coal-burning plants to keep its economy chugging along, and the result is an atmosphere reeking of burnt carbon, full of particulate matter, blocking out the sun.

Where in 1982 20% of China's population were urban dwellers by 2000 it was 36%. And now, at the present time, over 680-million Chinese live in cities, comprising 51.27% of the country's population of 1.35-billion people. Last year alone, fully 21-million people arrived to take up residence in China's huge cities. And the problems related to transport, energy, water, infrastructure and improved living standards are skyrocketing.

And there are social issues relating to health problems because of the environmental degradation. Manufacturing standards relating to food products is a critical issue continually requiring to be addressed. Other issues relating to the outdated, outmoded classification system for China's huge migrant workforce, who are treated as second-class, because there are no benefits accruing to them in the cities where they migrate to work.

The reason being they are registered in the towns and rural areas from which they originally came. It is only there, geographically, where they are considered to be qualified to receive social benefits. Leaving them with little or no social security in the cities. Access to education for their children, to health and other welfare provisions are denied them under the current system of registration.

People are becoming emboldened and more outspoken now, however. And they are demanding, particularly younger migrant workers, to share in the higher wages and living standards available to their urban counterparts. To which they should be entitled. Beijing recognizes this critical issue as a source of social unrest that will only become an increasingly greater problem that must be dealt with.

And then there's the issue of land expropriation. People who have lived on their parcels of land for generations, tilled the soil, and enjoyed their rural existence with their neighbours have had to migrate to the cities when land is expropriated, but not everyone is able to find work.

"China is still not clear about the meaning of civil and property rights, and there are no appropriate measures to protect them, which will inevitably lead to corruption and social injustices".

Professor of demography at Fudan University, Peng Xizhe points out a dilemma with respect to preferring the expansion of existing cities or opting for building new and smaller urban zones.

"We've been arguing for three decades about how best to implement urbanization. Intelligent, smaller scale city planning will be crucial to better manage resources. The government also realizes this is important if it is to avoid polarization among residents."

China is, in fact, encouraging greater urbanization, anticipating that even more people will have to move into cities. How that will square with the burden on municipal governments to provide social amenities, and to somehow manage to recognize the importance of improving the environment to an atmosphere less inimical to human health is another matter.

It is modelling itself on the wealthier countries of the world, where increasingly larger proportions of the population are urban dwellers, and rural areas are being drained of their residents. Poor countries, by contrast, have much larger majorities living rurally, far fewer living an urban existence.

Perhaps it's the measure of a country's abilities to provide social urban services, improving the quality of peoples' lives in a modern, technological era, as opposed to a fast-fading agrarian society that was once the universal model. And China is in a hurry to display itself as modern, progressive, successfully and gainfully wealthy.

In the process, unfortunately, leaving its atmosphere and its geography a morass of degraded and polluted excess.

Labels: China, Economy, Environment, Social-Cultural Deviations

posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, January 18, 2012