While the rapid urbanization of China may seem impressive from the outside, a little digging into these newly transformed cities proves otherwise. A 4-page article from The New York Times, probing the city of Huaming China, reveals the “ghettoization” of China’s new towns. Rural life in China is disappearing; countryside farmers are under heavy pressure from the communist government to move into these newly urbanized cities. Farmers resist the move, because the majority of these new cities has dozens of internal issues. The apartments are poorly constructed, unemployment rates are high and living costs are much higher compared to the countryside.
I believe the government is implementing these changes too rapidly without thinking about the consequences. At this point, they only care about portraying an image of modernization to boast about on the world stage. Instead, the government needs to plan out the changes and offer incentives for citizens to move into these cities. They need to create more meaningful jobs within those cities and provide training programs for the farmers, many of whom are uneducated. Although such careful planning will take longer, it will pay off in the long run. If China continues on this destructive path of building, building, building – with many of these cities ending up as ghost towns – then it will become a monumental task for China to reverse this in the future.
China’s Ghost Cities
(Courtesy of 60 Minutes)
Courtesy of SBS Dateline
Sources:
Badkar, Mamta. “2 Years After That Famous Report On Chinese Ghost Cities, Things Might Be Getting Even Worse.” Business Insider. Business Insider, 19 Sept. 2013. Web. 10 Nov. 2013. <http://www.businessinsider.com/revisiting-chinas-ghost- cities-2013-9>.
Johnson, Ian. “New China Cities: Shoddy Homes, Broken Hope.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 9 Nov. 2013. Web. 10 Nov. 2013. <http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/10/world/asia/new-china-cities-shoddy- homes-broken-hope.html?pagewanted=1&ref=international>.