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Shanghai sets population at 25M

theguardian.com

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Re: Shanghai sets population at 25M

#141

Post by sammyjiang »

volgo wrote: post #58

The problem they're trying to solve is city slums, which is common in Asia. I've worked in India before, and every major city (Delhi, Chennai) is filled with massive slums of migrant workers who obviously haven't kept up with the modern development. Without turning this into a pity post and sounding like an uncultured asshole, it was horrifying to see and really broke my heart that people are living in conditions lik…

I wonder how many days have ever stay in beijing?

As one grew up in Beijing and lived for 26 years, I can definitely say that comparing Hutong to Indian slum is really really ignorant. You can ask anyone in Beijing, they will tell you that many people live in Hutong is one group of the richest people in Beijing. Nearly all people live in Hutong are Beijing natives, and their houses inside the hutong are called "siheyuan" which are among the most expensive real estate in beijing. Most "siheyuan", houses inside the hutong, are build decades ago and owned by local natives for long time, and its value increases much fast than other real estates as nearly all located in the center of beijing. I just check on an agency site, the cheapest house are more than 5 million us dollar, and many are more than 10 million us dollar. only the most successful people in Beijing will buy those houses. (if you know Chinese, you can check on this site or by google translate: http://esf.fang.com/house/i34-kw%cb%c4%ba%cf%d4%ba/)

if you have ever been to, you can have a visit and talk to people in hutong, you will know how wealthy and happy like they are.

and there are also many other statements in you text are totally wrong and with groundless prejudice. No employer will threat to report to police because of work’s identity, you may again ridiculously think beijing as America. Beijing is china’s capital, more than third people there are not locals, they also don’t need any documents to go to and stay in their capital. And nowadays, most rich people in beijing are not locals, they come from all over the china.

Re: Shanghai sets population at 25M

#142

Post by thriftwy »

mantas wrote: post #140
thriftwy wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

USSR tried to do it to some extent, still Moscow grew from ~1.5mln to 8mln on their watch. The key was that while theoretically the state wanted it to stop bulging, a huge number of influental state enterprises wanted more workers and wanted them now, and got their way more often than not. And Russia still deals with millions of people who are spread around evenly across landscape in single-employer towns where there…

Who said they tried to put a hard cap on Moscow at some lower number? Moscow grew to 8mln precisely because of government policies. Had they no limits, it could have been 2x that. And yes, that policy is definitely baiting ex-USSR countries in the ass nowadays.

The fun thing with autocrats, they want everybody to be on short leash, on the distance of calling before eyes or local phone call.

So naturally, when they say they want to cap population of main cities - doesn't mean they're ready to delegate anything essential to 2nd tier cities! And they consider many many things essential being control freaks, so that's where you get additional growth.

E.g. in the USSR, the main filmmakers were in Moscow and SPb. Could you relocate them to e.g. Sochi as it happened with Hollywood in the USA? Sure, but would you be able to hold them as tightly? Hence they stay.

Re: Shanghai sets population at 25M

#143

Post by ksk »

volgo wrote: post #58

The problem they're trying to solve is city slums, which is common in Asia. I've worked in India before, and every major city (Delhi, Chennai) is filled with massive slums of migrant workers who obviously haven't kept up with the modern development. Without turning this into a pity post and sounding like an uncultured asshole, it was horrifying to see and really broke my heart that people are living in conditions lik…

Nobody decides "hey I wanna become a slave". I would say the root of the problem is the lack of opportunity, not migration. Somehow, people rarely make an argument to stop all the rich people from migrating to orange county because they might overwhelm the infrastructure with the excess watering of their lawns.

>In order to raise the living standards of an entire area, you have to enforce issues like safe labor practice, minimum wage, vacation days, etc. Without heavy hand regulation in a developing countries, these things don't magically come at the kindness of employers. They must be forced.

And so I suppose there an no people working below minimum wage in a developed country like the US? Or maybe your solution of more regulation only works some of the time, and only in some cases, and is not a "must have" as you put it.

>but I'm glad Shanghai at least understands this is a problem instead of copying other Asian cities that have failed at this

How is what China is doing beneficial in any way?

"Ewww! Poor people! Slums! Ugh! They come here and mess up our urban real estate. Such an eye sore! Can we just get rid of them?"

Re: Shanghai sets population at 25M

#144

Post by sammyjiang »

PakG1 wrote: post #106
jamesoo8 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume you are a typical so-called westerner. I just expressed my own opinion here, and according to my knowledge and experience, his statement is definitely wrong. This is not an essay, I have no time to write too much. If you want to know more, you should explore it by yourself. Serpentza? I watched most of his videos, and found he is just a hypocritical racist. You see, he never communicate with the locals, and…

I get the feeling that you might not understand why you're being downvoted. There's nothing wrong with expressing your opinion. But on Hacker News especially, it is important to contribute to and elevate the discussion. After you post your comment, people should learn something from it. If people do, they appreciate your thoughts, and upvote you, especially if your thoughts are very insightful. If you don't contribut…

did you see the author provide any evidence? the author say something you'd like to hear then you instinctively think it's logic. if you have known how ridiculous it is to compare hutong with indian slum by the author, you will know nearly all of what he said is bullshit. (see on my explaination on another reply to him)

Re: Shanghai sets population at 25M

#145

Post by StevePerkins »

jsjohnst wrote: post #111
ttflee wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if the migrant workers were exploited by local residents and employers, they were still better-off than they could gain in their rural home. I worked in Beijing for more than three years without registering any residential permit, renting a shabby apartment, which is built and owned by the locals, in the village to the north of the city area. Such apartments were cheap compared with the roaring rental and estate…

> Even if the migrant workers were exploited by local residents and employers, they were still better-off than they could gain in their rural home. I’m hopeful you didn’t intentionally imply slavery was a good thing, but that’s essentially what you wrote.

Being poor is almost universally a negative experience, and has been for virtually all of human history.

Noting the degrees of awfulness between various poverty cases does not endorse of any of them. This attack is lazy thinking in the extreme.

Re: Shanghai sets population at 25M

#146

Post by dreamdu5t »

meri_dian wrote: post #132
dreamdu5t wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn’t migration it’s clearly the conditions and wages they’re to allowed work for, as you admit. Free movement of human beings should be a human right. Restricting immigration is nothing more than descrimination. In China or the United States for that matter.

That's naive, the wages they're paid are what people are willing to pay them. Most are paid illegally so setting a minimum wage won't really help, and even if the minimum wage was followed, it surely wouldn't provide for a reasonable existence in an expensive major city which attracts migrants. If you raise the minimum wage high enough so that it provides for a liveable wage in a major city and are able to enforce it…

Regardless of the solutions chosen to make cities a better place, closed borders and immigration quotas are descrimination. People should be treated equally.

Re: Shanghai sets population at 25M

#147

Post by Eliezer »

rqs wrote: post #125
jamesoo8 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume you are a typical so-called westerner. I just expressed my own opinion here, and according to my knowledge and experience, his statement is definitely wrong. This is not an essay, I have no time to write too much. If you want to know more, you should explore it by yourself. Serpentza? I watched most of his videos, and found he is just a hypocritical racist. You see, he never communicate with the locals, and…

Sorry for off-topic, this branch is gone out of hand. OK, No, instead, I'm teaching you how to preform an argument so other people can understand you well, rather than get yourself a brunch of down votes and nobody believes what you said. It's very clear to me, most Chinese people didn't receive any proper training on how to make an argument that could yield good results. Everybody in the end is just ranting to each…

Most American people don't receive training on how to make valid arguments either. Maybe Israel...

Re: Shanghai sets population at 25M

#148

Post by anthonyleecook »

taoistextremist wrote: post #136
anthonyleecook wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China is still a relatively poor country (1). I lived in Shanghai for a few years back, and even if you just go into the side streets a few blocks from the richest area in Shanghai (Pudong, Huangpu), you can see slums and sometimes dead people lying in the streets with no assistance. And if you go 10 minutes out of the richest areas, you have people living in hutongs and communist-style buildings with low level life…

Are hutongs really all that bad there? When I was in Beijing, they were nice areas typically, albeit they smelled worse because of things like drainage not running as low, but overall it didn't seem terrible and many of them were pretty big areas for local business. I ask because I always thought Shanghai was more developed pretty much everywhere in comparison to Beijing. I mean, I'm sure the actual commie-blocks wer…

The qualities will vary, of course, but the bad hutongs can mean 1.) shared outhouse (no indoor toilet) 2.) dilapidated building 3.) communal politics from what I've heard (hutong grudges and fights for example) 4.) poor immigrant families stuffed into a small room

I don't know much about Beijing, but I found a good article on it: http://designhotpot.com/infographic-four-perspectives-to-und...

Re: Shanghai sets population at 25M

#149

Post by capsulehotel »

anthonyleecook wrote: post #114
volgo wrote: post #58

The problem they're trying to solve is city slums, which is common in Asia. I've worked in India before, and every major city (Delhi, Chennai) is filled with massive slums of migrant workers who obviously haven't kept up with the modern development. Without turning this into a pity post and sounding like an uncultured asshole, it was horrifying to see and really broke my heart that people are living in conditions lik…

China is still a relatively poor country (1). I lived in Shanghai for a few years back, and even if you just go into the side streets a few blocks from the richest area in Shanghai (Pudong, Huangpu), you can see slums and sometimes dead people lying in the streets with no assistance. And if you go 10 minutes out of the richest areas, you have people living in hutongs and communist-style buildings with low level life…

>you can see slums and sometimes dead people lying in the streets with no assistance

hahaha nice try anti China shill with your 2 hour old shill account, Shanghai isn't India or Africa.

This guy obviously has never been to Shanghai. There are neither slums or dead people. Low skilled migrant workers just like mexicans back in the US sometimes live in rundown apartments stacked 10 deep but the government has recently banned that as well.

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