The above Wall Street Journal article of 18 January 2012 reported that China's urban dwellers account for 51.27% of China's entire population of nearly 1.35 billion—or a total of 690.8 million people, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). This is the first time in China's civilization that the country is more urban than rural. Click here
With a teeming population, China needs to find at least 10 million additional jobs a year to absorb the excess of labour. Urbanization is China's chosen path to improving standards of living for her masses and to grow a large-enough middle class for balancing the economy towards domestic consumption instead of over-reliance on exports. This way, the nation aims to quadruple its 2000 GDP by 2020 to achieve a moderately well-off society (say, comparable to Turkey in per capita terms).
Notwithstanding what China is achieving in the use of renewable energies, the challenge remains how China may realize her goal of embracing a low-carbon future.
According to the McKinsey Global Institute study "Preparing for China's Urban Billion" (February 2009), China will be adding 350 million more urbanites by 2025 in 221 new cities each with a population of more than a million, compared with only 35 such cities at present in the entire Europe. Click here
Studies have shown that urbanization would lend itself to greater resource efficiency with smart power grids, conveniently-accessed and connected economic and social neighbourhoods, energy-efficient public transport systems including high-speed rail, eco-friendly buildings and a low-carbon economy.
On the other hand, as many examples of urban sprawl around the world show, cities may become hotbeds of an alarming urban divide in income, space, opportunities, and basic livelihood of food, shelter, health and education.
See the latest UN Report "State of the World's Cities 2010/2011- Bridging the Urban Divide, Earthscan, UN Human Settlements Program, 2008" Click here
In an age of scarcity, as not only China but the whole world is becoming overwhelmingly urban, the race to build more intelligent cities is on. However, buildiing an intelligent city is not just a matter of better urban planning and design. A high-level policy strategy of economic, social, political, regional and ecological policies and effective action is a prerequsite. Click here
Ultimately, in an ecologically-connected global village, what faces not only fast-developing countries like China, India, Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia and Turkey but the rest of the globe is the sustainability of a world hurling towards possibly over 9 billion people by 2050, while more and more of them are trying to attain Western standards of living.
Tim Jackson's book "Prosperity Without Growth - Economics for a Finite Planet", Earthscan, London and Washington D.C., 2011 is a timely reminder that following the past millenium of an Industrial Civlization, we are now due for an Ecological Civilization, a term first advanced by Pan Yue, Vice Minster of China's Minstry for Environmental Protection in his essay "Socialist Ecological Civilization" on 27 October 2006.
The realities of a finite world are beginning to dawn on everyone in developed and developing countries alike that standards of livng do not necessarily equate to more or better consumption.
Changing perceptions and lifestyles are just around the corner where to be minimalist is to be chic and less is more, and where true knowledge and wisdom is to live with Mother Nature, rather than to exploit it.
Best regards,
Andrew
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