A tour of some of the planned urban areas of China (Chengdu, mentioned in the article, is a fine example, plus pandas!) along with some of the smaller villages

A tour of some of the planned urban areas of China (Chengdu, mentioned in the article, is a fine example, plus pandas!) along with some of the smaller villages makes it very clear that the 'average' Chinese farmer is far worse off than one might expect. I'm not really sure I have an example for the contemporary United States that even comes close. I suspect you'd have to change the definition of 'farmer'. Perhaps a family living in a dilapidated trailer, unemployed, growing cheap, starchy foods in what little land they can rent, in an area with poor or nonexistent utilities, would be a more accurate comparison. Comparing a planned city such as Chengdu with a similar effort elsewhere, say in India, is another surprise. Ahmedabad is a pretty good example. I have come to the conclusion that communism is an impediment to human excellence.[1] However, seeing the extreme levels of poverty that the central government is trying to resolve, and has resolved to a certain degree, I can understand the difference in prioritization. There was a link to a book on cooltools years ago http://kk.org/cooltools/archives/461 http://kk.org/cooltools/archives/461 that I just noticed was available on the Kindle. Poverty is so outside the understanding of most of us that it's not just about not having nice things. Poverty in the developing world and in the undeveloped world is so much worse that it's almost as if an impartial, uninformed observer would wonder if we are the same species, and I don't base that on skin color, eye shape, gender, etc. [1] I don't care if you disagree on this point. I grant you a perpetual, irrevocable, license to do so.