Greeny News

With the government seeks to expand domestic demand in places like Guiyang at the heart of its development strategy

Every few minutes another car stops suddenly, as happens in Guiyang Tangbaguan new bypass. Another driver, did a double take. The highway ends abruptly on a narrow dirt road turn down by piles of rubble.

The city is eagerly eating the slopes, swallowing corn fields and rice terraces in the loops of the track and the concrete and glass towers. But the pace of change is so rapid, the transition so strong that its citizens are increasingly confused by his surroundings. Some, such as migrant workers are building roads, new to the city. Others no longer recognize their home town because it extends across the country.

This is the year when China finally became an urban nation. In April, the census showed that 49.7% of the population lived in cities 1.34bn, compared to about one fifth of the economic reforms took off in 1982. At present, China's urban population more likely than their country cousins. "The process we went through more than three decades has had four or five decades in Japan and [South] Korea and 100 in the west," said Edward Leman, which Chreon consultant has advised many Chinese cities in developing .

is not only the remarkable speed that is "unprecedented and unparalleled," said Professor Paul James Global Cities Institute at RMIT University in Melbourne. "This is the process of urbanization more successful in human history. The state is involved in every direction. Manage the construction of new cities. Regulates moved home. Responds actively and sometimes overwhelming to the new waves of invaders. "

The new five year development plan also promotes, as the government aims to raise living standards and promote development in poor areas of central and west. A hard landing of the economy could slow this process - the local public debt is a particular concern - but not for

2025, a study suggests, more than 350 million people have migrated to the cities, rather than the U.S. population. Five years later, the urban population will exceed one billion. There will be 221 cities with over 1 million people, Europe is now 35. The number of new skyscrapers could reach 10 cities in New York. The impact will be felt in world prices of raw materials like steel and copper, and emissions of greenhouse gases

Li Keqiang - Deputy Prime Minister is expected to become prime minister in 2012 - argued that urbanization should be the "strategic priority" to expand domestic demand. China needs to restructure its economy away from exports and investment toward consumption. In the short term urbanization creates demand for infrastructure and property;. In the long term, the urban population consumes much more than rural residents

Han Jun, deputy director of the Research Center of the State Council for Development - a top government think tank -. He predicted that the process will stimulate domestic demand by 30trn yuan (£ 3trn) for 2030

Guiyang at the heart of government strategy. It is the capital of southwestern Guizhou, the poorest province in China, where only 34% of the population is urban. It has 3 million inhabitants and is difficult terrain for the expansion: "It's Guizhou - opens the door, climb a mountain," said one resident. However, its boundaries are expanding to the north, south, east and west. There are cranes everywhere, and the results of the focus of development on the horizon, their names - Dreamland, Sky Acropolis - as high as its size

emerge, Xinzaipo, a water buffalo is chugging along a road and a rooster crows in the distance. However, a new road through the curves of the small valley and a large printing plant growing above the rice fields. Two plants of the patch adjacent medical claims. When traveling on three rail lines through the other, farmers move to new homes on the road back to the earth remains behind.

the city was creeping ever closer to his farm. Now he began to absorb. "The earth is the foundation of our family. Despite the country calls for industrial development, people must eat. [Moreover], the crops for ourselves a better flavor, "he said.

"It's stronger now. When we were young, you do not close the door at night to sleep. There are different types of people around all the time these days. "

land sales have become a major source of revenue for local governments, generating as much as a third and half of the income in some areas. However, the tax system is biased in favor of local industrial development revenue much more than residential.
Tao said there is already excess capacity in manufacturing, however, about 50% of new urban areas become industrial parks, while only 20% or 30% residential, 50% to 70 against % residential in other countries. In many cases, the industry is moving toward the west also energy intensive and highly polluting, adding to the environmental burden of urbanization.