For decades, China’s government has tried to limit the size of Beijing, the capital, through draconian residency permits. Now, the government has embarked on an ambitious plan to make Beijing the center of a new supercity of 130 million people.
The planned megalopolis, a metropolitan area that would be about six times the size of New York’s, is meant to revamp northern China’s economy and become a laboratory for modern urban growth.
— nytimes.com
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7 Comments
Jeez. We U.S. residents have life so freaking easy.
I think they are trying to reduce population via lifespan.
I think they will have US residents fill in the new developments...
Living in Northern China reduces your overall lifespan by about 4 years(official central government statistic). So if 500 million people live in the coal-powered pollution filed citiesin Northern China and they live 4 fewer years...then 2 billions years of life are removed from the planet.
One way to reduce carbon footprint...or not?
modern urban growth. wtf is that?
What a nightmare. Is there no limit to what the Chinese people have to suffer?
Interesting article, but seems to be missing a lot of detail. It seems to me that this is less about the creation of a single, built-up megacity, than a new administrative boundary that China can use to drive internal competition between its major economic 'engines' (i.e. the PRC and Yangtze delta conurbations, noted). In that sense, I doubt this will create some dystopia - it seems like the plan's main action items involve extending high-speed rail service (great!) and refocusing individual existing cities on certain economic sectors (questionable).
I'm be curious to know how the plan treats the hukou system (the "draconian residency permits" mentioned); plenty of people within this (gigantic) region already live/work in Beijing quasi-legally and without legal access to social services - if the plan is to give 'city hukou' to all residents of the region, i'd expect a mass influx to Beijing as people move to the city; emptying the countryside. I'm sure the planners realize this (look at any urbanization trend-line); so I'd guess that 'integration' of the region will not include granting Beijing hukou; and the 'megacity' will remain essentially a line on a map... (Of course, some scholars argue that the restrictive hukou system is what's keeping China from developing 'true' slums, since it creates a big disincentive for rural-urban migration). Hmm.
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