What if, What else, and What are the Odds - China’s Megacities

Developed to absorb, house, employ, and sustain 1.3 billion people, the largest cities in the world going forward will all be in China.  8 of which are predicted to be be over 10 million according to a recent Business Week piece.

Jonathan Woetzel and his team presented their research equally interesting study at the JUCCCE conference last week, and for those of you who have been following All Roads for a while you’ll know that the development of China’s 2nd tier has been a focus of mine as well.

So, with that in mind, I brought together a few others who had been in China for while, with a breadth of different experiences, who were equally capable of shooting through just how the process of urbanization in China was going to take place.

For those in the room, there were a few themes that we kept coming back to:

1) Urbanization is inevitable, and the process will include huge hurdles, will have huge opportunities, and will be key to China’s long term stability

2) Migrant laborers are growing more sticky, and are establishing themselves on the outskirts of cities.  While still outsiders, families are coming together, kids are going to school, and this is creating a measure of stability within the family unit

3) Infrastructure will be one of the most important facets of urbanization.

As for why China should urbanize:

• Need to move people off land to improve physical conditions
• Easier to manage social net (education, health care, etc)
• Will create stronger domestic economic cycles
• Energy, water, and raw materials stabilize with greater oversight and enforcement
• Land management, agriculture, and food quality all improve

Some hurdles:

• Allocation of resources
• Environmental balance
• Moving families from farm to city
• Sanitation
• Job creation
• Education
• Security (physical and societal)

With that, let us your thoughts on the challendges/ opportunities you see for China’s urbanization.  With 400 million more people projected to participate in this process, there are sure to be plenty of both.

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