4 ms·

Cities are generally considered efficient and good. We want people to live in them. In traditional Neoliberal thought, anyway. Tons of people move to cities

Cities are generally considered efficient and good. We want people to live in them. In traditional Neoliberal thought, anyway. Tons of people move to cities in China though. Shenzhen is basically dead when everyone goes home for CNY.

effie 6y ago
Who is "we"? Of course, many people want to move, work and live in the big cities. But it is not clear it is preferable to let all of them do that and leave the rest of the China depopulated. The hukou system seems designed to keep big proportion of all people from settling and living in the big cities. And it seems this is working. For example, agricultural hukous are motivated from changing to urban hukous by property rights that urban hukous do not have.
- carmen_sandiego 6y ago
  > Who is "we"? Classic Neoliberals, as stated. Or, people who like evidence-based policy in general. Cities are more efficient in terms of output per resource input, environmental externalities, etc. China has some of the most populated cities in the world. Real estate prices are way beyond the average person's reach and it's only getting worse. People who migrate to cities for work are often slaving away with no end in sight, all just to send money back anyway. Heck, even 'skilled' labor is forced to do that because there's so much competition from the millions of others. Meanwhile the people who are left behind in the country struggle to get even a basic standard of living. How one earth is that 'working'? China's QoL increases are entirely about it becoming richer in general. 户口 is a nasty bit of central planning that messes with peoples lives and crushes them at random. It hasn't stopped overpopulation. It hasn't solved the other problems. It gives people advantages based on a dice roll of their birth, rather than merit, and then the rest of the Chinese system compounds it. Honestly, your comments are starry-eyed orientalism at its worst. Chinese 'capitalism' is a horror show.
  - effie 6y ago
    Yes the system is not meritocratic, some people have it much harder and can't do much about it. That sucks for the individual, but it "works" in the sense it is a hurdle/disincentive from the population overconcentrating at few big cities.

effie 6y ago

Who is "we"? Of course, many people want to move, work and live in the big cities. But it is not clear it is preferable to let all of them do that and leave the rest of the China depopulated. The hukou system seems designed to keep big proportion of all people from settling and living in the big cities. And it seems this is working. For example, agricultural hukous are motivated from changing to urban hukous by property rights that urban hukous do not have.

carmen_sandiego 6y ago
> Who is "we"? Classic Neoliberals, as stated. Or, people who like evidence-based policy in general. Cities are more efficient in terms of output per resource input, environmental externalities, etc. China has some of the most populated cities in the world. Real estate prices are way beyond the average person's reach and it's only getting worse. People who migrate to cities for work are often slaving away with no end in sight, all just to send money back anyway. Heck, even 'skilled' labor is forced to do that because there's so much competition from the millions of others. Meanwhile the people who are left behind in the country struggle to get even a basic standard of living. How one earth is that 'working'? China's QoL increases are entirely about it becoming richer in general. 户口 is a nasty bit of central planning that messes with peoples lives and crushes them at random. It hasn't stopped overpopulation. It hasn't solved the other problems. It gives people advantages based on a dice roll of their birth, rather than merit, and then the rest of the Chinese system compounds it. Honestly, your comments are starry-eyed orientalism at its worst. Chinese 'capitalism' is a horror show.
- effie 6y ago
  Yes the system is not meritocratic, some people have it much harder and can't do much about it. That sucks for the individual, but it "works" in the sense it is a hurdle/disincentive from the population overconcentrating at few big cities.