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America is also a developing country. It's not like anywhere is ever finished developing.

azurezyq 8y ago
Let's replace "developing" with "in the progress of rapid urbanization". According to wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanization#/media/File:2015_World_Urbanization_Map.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanization#/media/File:2015_...), US is already highly urbanized but China's not. As long as we agree that high rate of urbanization is the future, China basically has more room to grow in this aspect.
- vorg 8y ago
  China's government might not want to continue with their high urbanization policy in the future. Perhaps they want to keep, say, 20% of the population in a poorer rural environment so their country won't have to bring in migrants to do the work migrants traditionally do in richer countries and territories like the U.S., Hong Kong, and the UAE.
spyckie2 8y ago
"developing country" is a term used in economic discourse to mean something rather specific -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developing_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developing_country. It has pretty specific criteria what qualifies, and America (the richest country in the world) does not.
- james_s_tayler 8y ago
  Yes. And I think it's dumb. The article linked to states it in alternative words "low and middle income country LMIC". I think that's an order of magnitude better. I know I'm nitpicking and being an asshole about this point, but I think words matter. How we talk about things feeds in to how we conceptualize things and our mental models are like low quality, compressed, cartoon versions of reality and getting them more accurate at a fundamental level goes a long way towards improving the end results of our cognition. It also used to be called First World, Second World, Third World. It's not anymore. Discourse changes because people stop agreeing on terms being useful, accurate, or good. I liked Hans Rosling's level 1,2,3,4 stratified model a little better.
  - spyckie2 8y ago
    Communication is nuanced, not my fault that words have a commonly accepted definition even if it has unexpected connotations attached. Understand the frustration though.

Let's replace "developing" with "in the progress of rapid urbanization". According to wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanization#/media/File:2015_World_Urbanization_Map.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanization#/media/File:2015_...), US is already highly urbanized but China's not. As long as we agree that high rate of urbanization is the future, China basically has more room to grow in this aspect.

vorg 8y ago
China's government might not want to continue with their high urbanization policy in the future. Perhaps they want to keep, say, 20% of the population in a poorer rural environment so their country won't have to bring in migrants to do the work migrants traditionally do in richer countries and territories like the U.S., Hong Kong, and the UAE.

spyckie2 8y ago

"developing country" is a term used in economic discourse to mean something rather specific -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developing_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developing_country. It has pretty specific criteria what qualifies, and America (the richest country in the world) does not.

james_s_tayler 8y ago
Yes. And I think it's dumb. The article linked to states it in alternative words "low and middle income country LMIC". I think that's an order of magnitude better. I know I'm nitpicking and being an asshole about this point, but I think words matter. How we talk about things feeds in to how we conceptualize things and our mental models are like low quality, compressed, cartoon versions of reality and getting them more accurate at a fundamental level goes a long way towards improving the end results of our cognition. It also used to be called First World, Second World, Third World. It's not anymore. Discourse changes because people stop agreeing on terms being useful, accurate, or good. I liked Hans Rosling's level 1,2,3,4 stratified model a little better.
- spyckie2 8y ago
  Communication is nuanced, not my fault that words have a commonly accepted definition even if it has unexpected connotations attached. Understand the frustration though.