Seems to me that china's policy of concentrating folk in a few mega-cities is more than a bit daft...

1. The "countryside" - here i'm including anywhere outside the 1st and 2nd tier cities is more and more undesirable to locals, so becomes poorer and poorer.
2. The 1st tiers become ever more expensive, since everyone wants to live there.

So the result is that the society is more and more divided into "privileged" and "not privileged".. Families are always separated, resulting in the "left-behind" kids and old people, in places where the relevant educated people (teachers & doctors) don't want to work.

Surely it would be better to promote innovation at home, and encourage local businesses all over the country, than concentrate the wealth in a few small, overcrowded, competitive areas?

What will happen to food production? Can the cities generate sufficient wealth - so that they can afford to import a lot more food?

China is China - one big festering pile of inequality, corruption, idiocy and crappiness, all wrapped in a nice red duster. It is the gilded turd of Asia.

Off topic:

custer wrote:The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.
Winston Churchill

What about the 5-minute conversation with the average politician?

scamparella wrote:Seems to me that china's policy of concentrating folk in a few mega-cities is more than a bit daft...

1. The "countryside" - here i'm including anywhere outside the 1st and 2nd tier cities is more and more undesirable to locals, so becomes poorer and poorer.
2. The 1st tiers become ever more expensive, since everyone wants to live there.

So the result is that the society is more and more divided into "privileged" and "not privileged".. Families are always separated, resulting in the "left-behind" kids and old people, in places where the relevant educated people (teachers & doctors) don't want to work.

Surely it would be better to promote innovation at home, and encourage local businesses all over the country, than concentrate the wealth in a few small, overcrowded, competitive areas?

Actually I think the more people that move to the cities the richer the ones (that are working age) that stay behind will be since less competition for land so those that stay behind will have larger plots which they can use machines (tractors...) to increase efficiency. In the US only 2% I've read are farmers and these last few years they have done much better then the average city folks.

Now I've read that many students from the rural areas no longer willing to give up their hukao when they go to the city for college since then they give up their rights to land plots/benefits for rural populations.

^^I wish laowai could buy farms. I know some dutch farmers that would buy up at least 5 or 6,000 hectares, demolish everything, and start a modern farm employing a very small percentage of the original amount of people originally farming there. 5000 hectares could be farmed at harvest season (the high point) with about 60 - 80 people, and from 12 - 25 people the rest of the year (assuming one harvest of crops such as wheat or potatoes). China has probably got about 30 - 50 people farming each hectare I figure. They could be doing other things, like building Great Walls and such....

they don't want to give up their hukou, but they also don't want to live there, thus the land is left to pasture, so the countryside made even poorer

I think the centralized urbanization policy success/failure will be determined by the price of gasoline/oil. In the US the inner city has done much better (housing has not fallen that much) then the outer suburbs in the real estate downturn mainly because of the high cost of commuting to and from work.

From what I've see the countryside is still being farmed/pasteurized except now by fewer people which should make those that remain more wealthy (since larger plots of land).