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Shanghai sets population at 25M

theguardian.com

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Re: Shanghai sets population at 25M

#181

Post by Danihan »

kkarakk wrote: post #174
sammyjiang wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 "sihey…

i understand being upset at being included in a standard that is by any definition upsetting but just because the value increases doesn't mean it's not a slum fyi there are places in mumbai too w/ astonishing market values and disgusting living conditions

Sounds like SF.

Re: Shanghai sets population at 25M

#184

Post by vernie »

anthonyleecook wrote: post #151
sammyjiang wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 "sihey…

I think pictures are worth a thousand words: http://designhotpot.com/infographic-four-perspectives-to-und... Also from the article: "while life in the hutongs might sound exciting to some hipsters in town, most of the residents are facing living conditions which resemble those of slums in less developed countries."

I don't think that expression applies to a picture of a thousand words.

Re: Shanghai sets population at 25M

#185

Post by oh-kumudo »

kkarakk wrote: post #174
sammyjiang wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 "sihey…

i understand being upset at being included in a standard that is by any definition upsetting but just because the value increases doesn't mean it's not a slum fyi there are places in mumbai too w/ astonishing market values and disgusting living conditions

A key difference might be, Hutong stays as Hutong because the government specifically wants to preserve it as a homage to the city's history.

Re: Shanghai sets population at 25M

#186

Post by ghettoimp »

dreamdu5t wrote: post #146
meri_dian wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why should all people be treated equally? Shouldn't a community have a right to set its own goals and standards? Shouldn't it have a right to decide how to balance the needs of its own people with the needs of its neighbors?

Anecdotally, tens of thousands of people have been moving to my city every year for over a decade. The rents have increased dramatically, forcing many out of their homes. Traffic is horrible. A few years ago, a severe drought led to serious water disputes between the city and nearby farmers. We're doing much better now, but another drought will come, eventually, and with all of the extra people, it will surely be worse. At the end of the day, there are only so many folks that an area can support at all, let alone comfortably.

Re: Shanghai sets population at 25M

#187

Post by [deleted] »

reallydude wrote: post #139
jsjohnst wrote: post #111

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’m hopeful you didn’t intentionally imply slavery was a good thing, but that’s essentially what you wrote.

> that’s essentially what you wrote. Nope.

[deleted]

Re: Shanghai sets population at 25M

#188

Post by thriftwy »

danieldisu wrote: post #179
thriftwy wrote: post #49

In the middle of XX century, small-to-medium sized cities looked like an attractive place. That was unprecedented before and it doesn't look like it's going to repeat.

I think we will live a revival of these places, they provide better quality of life in many aspects, and can be very interesting for people who are fed up with the big city.

People who are fed up with the big city will much more likely prefer mountains or tropical islands or deep lakes, something that most of small-to-medium cities built around an university and a factory just don't have.

Also, in the big city people get used to theatres and museums and events. Smaller cities just don't have the density.

Re: Shanghai sets population at 25M

#189

Post by jsjohnst »

StevePerkins wrote: post #145
jsjohnst wrote: post #111

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’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.

With minimal research on the topic, the labor situation in these cases isn’t far removed from slavery for these workers, specifically outside the US. Especially look into the situation for the migrant construction workers from Pakistan (which I mentioned in another comment) in the UAE as one example. The work conditions can easily get them killed or permanently injured, they sleep in mud floor huts with no running water, and they can be killed if they try to “escape” without much in legal repercussions if at all (and it does happen!). The only thing stopping it from being the historical definition of slavery is that they signed away their rights to be able to send money back to their families. I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel “signing under duress”, especially that kind of duress, is “doing it of your own free will and accord”.

If one think that’s “better off” as OP stated, then I guess we will have to agree to disagree.

Re: Shanghai sets population at 25M

#190

Post by longcheng »

sammyjiang wrote: post #141
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 "sihey…

Let them keep their ignorance. I've decided to give up educating them for two reasons:

1) It's impossible for them to realize that China is a much better place than what western media depicts. It's even better than most western countries nowadays.

2) It's for China's benefits to keep them in thinking China still what China was 100 years ago.

Don't wake up them, let them live in their dreams.

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