Should Chinese people really move into cities?
China is a very crowded country. Although a large country, only a fraction of the land is livable. Traditionally, China had been a rural society. However, in more recent years, Chinese people have been moving from the countryside. The plan is to get massive amounts of people out of the countryside and into the city. While this plan saves commuting fuel, it brings many problems. They say never put your eggs in one basket, and right now, China is trying to put all its eggs in one basket. In the case of an emergency, having populations concentrated in cities can be disastrous. If one city is shut down, then it makes a huge impact. Not so, if the population was spread out. Terrorist attacks is something else that China ought to worry about it. It's much easier to cripple China with a terrorist attack, if its population is concentrated in cities. It would make less of an impact if the population was spread out. One example would be the SARS attack. If a country, say, Britain, decided it was going to unleash biological warfare onto China, it would be easier for the British regime, if the Chinese populations were concentrated in cities, making the impact larger, and more profound. In addition to terrorist attacks, threats can also come in the form of rioting. It's much easier to start riots, for chaos to break out in concentrated populations. One example of this was the London riots. Riots are less likely to break out in places where the population per square mile is low. When populations are densely packed together, the chances for conflict are also high. If you walk around a Los Angeles street, it will be unlikely for you to get into a fight with someone, because chances are, you will be one of the few people walking on the street. However, change the location to Shanghai, where people are constantly bumping into each other, and you have a perfect recipe for conflict. You can already see many impatient people who often will push people out of the way. Crowded situations will lead to people cutting ! in line, fighting for seats on the bus, and general skirmishes that occur simply because people are in such close proximity to each other. There are also other much obvious problems that we can see, day to day on city streets. Chinese city buses are more often than not, overcrowded, and Chinese commuters often have to wait for the next bus because the one that just came was full. It is the same with subways, buses, and trains. Many Chinese train passengers literally have to stand during long distance train journeys. They are simply too crowded. This crowding is expected to get worse, as farmers are encouraged to move into the cities. While urbanisation can serve many practical purposes, it also poses many threats. China is a country that values stability, and overcrowding can lead to instability. The Chinese government created the one child policy because China had too many people, but it is also encouraging everyone to move into the cities, which completely negates the one child policy, because Chinese society will still feel overcrowded as a result of farmers moving into the cities. It is now two days before the holiday week, and we are already seeing traffic congestion. Even if we are not seeing it, we are certainly either hearing about it, or fearing it. In addition, China is not like other countries, in that it has a hukou system that complicates migration from the country to the city. It is not exactly easy to establish yourself once you make it to the city. China is still a country in transition, and has not fully figured out how to make hukou transitions seamless.
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