Posts Tagged ‘migrants’
Majority of Chinese are now urban dwellers
Still relying on apartment blocks for most urban residences
China’s urban population exceeded its rural population in 2011 for the first time in the nation’s history, the government’s National Bureau of Statistics reported, continuing a trend that has helped drive its rapid economic growth but poses an increasingly difficult social transition for scores of millions of Chinese.
The statistics bureau stated that China counted 690.79 million urbanites at the year’s end, an increase of 21 million, compared to 656.56 million rural-dwellers, down 14.56 million.
The shift furnishes a ready labor force for the factories that power China’s export-based economy, and better wages in cities have contributed to raising hundreds of millions from poverty. But it also has fueled an urban underclass of migrants and jobless without proper housing and social services, and the hollowing of the countryside has left the elderly without family close by and deprived farms of needed labor.
Barely 10 percent of Chinese lived in cities when Communist forces took control of the Chinese mainland in 1949, Reuters reported. Globally, about 51 percent of people now live in cities, including 51.27 percent of Chinese citizens. The United States counts 82 percent of its residents as city-dwellers.
It took the United States – even with our waves of immigrants – about 140 years to reach 50% city-dwellers. Growing the needed infrastructure in parallel most of the way. China has blown through that process in 60 years. There are advantages and disadvantages to that rate – not counting the difference in culture between a New World society a bit over 200 years old versus a culture estblished in place for thousands of years.
They have the advantage of examining methods of growing traffic management and communications after seeing what works and what doesn’t. They’re still stuck into the same mistakes we made with motor vehicles booming in cities, underestimating the siren call of mobility at the family and individual level. They’re avoiding our mistakes made with relying on highway transport for commercial goods and building a national network of high-speed trains. That reduces fuel costs and pollution in the long run. Much closer to the European model.
It will be interesting to see where the next 5-year plan settles goals and strategies, this year. Certainly, the government recognizes the needs for sensible energy production – which must be balanced against an economy which they’re also throttling back towards a domestic base and a larger percentage of consumer goods for that domestic market. But, communications systems will be specially interesting. Will they build out fibre and copper or place a greater reliance on RF and cellular/satellite communications?
Pic of the Day
Guatemalan soldiers carry 1 of 3 coffins – part of a group of 72 migrants killed in Mexico
Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission
Illegals captured by rancher – suing for emotional distress, civil rights
Roger Barnett and his brother Brent
An Arizona man who has waged a 10-year campaign to stop a flood of illegal immigrants from crossing his property is being sued by 16 Mexican nationals who accuse him of conspiring to violate their civil rights when he stopped them at gunpoint on his ranch on the U.S.-Mexico border.
Roger Barnett, 64, began rounding up illegal immigrants in 1998 and turning them over to the U.S. Border Patrol, he said, after they destroyed his property, killed his calves and broke into his home.
His Cross Rail Ranch near Douglas, Ariz., is known by federal and county law enforcement authorities as “the avenue of choice” for immigrants seeking to enter the United States illegally.
Trial continues in the federal lawsuit, which seeks $32 million in actual and punitive damages for civil rights violations, the infliction of emotional distress and other crimes.
Attorneys for the immigrants – five women and 11 men who were trying to cross illegally into the United States – have accused Mr. Barnett of holding the group captive at gunpoint, threatening to turn his dog loose on them and saying he would shoot anyone who tried to escape…
The lawsuit said he then called his wife and two Border Patrol agents arrived at the site. It also said Mr. Barnett acknowledged that he had turned over 12,000 illegal immigrants to the Border Patrol since 1998.
“This is my land. I´m the victim here,” Mr. Barnett said. “When someone´s home and loved ones are in jeopardy and the government seemingly can´t do anything about it, I feel justified in taking matters into my own hands.”
Good enough for me.
