
Shanghai sets population at 25M - lnguyen
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/26/chinas-shanghai-sets-population-25-million--big-city-disease
======
volgo
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 like this. This is very common in SE Asia as
well if you look at cities like Manila, Jakarta, etc. It's a tried and failed
approach to have "open migration" policies in developing countries and have
labor conditions race to the bottom. To a lesser extend, Beijing + Shanghai
has this problem as well. I was in BJ 7 years ago (so my experience may be
outdated), but there are parts of the old city that still has Hutongs, which
are slum like buildings that have largely been vacated but migrant workers
have "illegally" occupied. (I put "illegal" in quotes because human beings
aspiring for shelter shouldn't be illegal, anyways, off point)

The root of the problem is migrant workers moving into cities for slave-like
labor and are commonly exploited by local residents and employers. They're
offered "jobs" that are way below the legal minimum wage and are often paid
under the table. They can't say no because their employers have power over
them (threat to report to police, etc). In many sense, "illegal" migrant
workers are not that different from "illegal" immigrants.

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. The developed
countries all went through this stage much earlier this century (think back on
all the activists who died pushing for labor rights in U.S. in early 1900s).
When you have a massive population of people who are in dire situations and
who don't have anywhere to turn, it's difficult to force employers to raise
working standards.

It's a difficult issue. On one hand, it's pretty heavy handed and inhuman to
tell a migrant worker they're not allowed to live in a city that's part of
their own damn country. On the other hand, we don't want cities to race to the
bottom with unsanitary and slum like conditions. What's the balance? I've no
idea, but I'm glad Shanghai at least understands this is a problem instead of
copying other Asian cities that have failed at this

~~~
sammyjiang
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/](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.

~~~
kkarakk
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

~~~
sampo
> there are places in mumbai too w/ astonishing market values and disgusting
> living conditions

Also in San Francisco

~~~
agoodthrowaway
We have bad conditions for sure in San Francisco and poverty elsewhere in the
US that all Americans should be ashamed of. Frankly the state of poverty in
America is unacceptable. But the poverty we have is nowhere near the scale and
absolute horror of Mumbai slums. I've traveled extensively through South
America and seen horrific conditions there but nothing was as shocking as
Mumbai slums.

I find posts like yours are misguided and demonstrate total ignorance
regarding human suffering.

~~~
rajacombinator
Having traveled extensively as well I agree nothing compares with the slums of
Mumbai. But the bad areas in America carry an extra connotation of crime and
drug use that poor areas elsewhere may not. I didn’t spend any time in the
slums of Mumbai, only observed from afar, but I suspect I’d feel safer walking
around them than the bad parts of SF, LA, Baltimore, Detroit, etc ...

------
inertial
Genuinely curious : What's a good alternative to setting a population limit
per city ?

Having lived in cities that are crumbling under poor infrastructure, unchecked
growth, excessive pollution (from vehicles, stuck in endless traffic jams),
shortage of water/electricity, I wonder what can be done to fix this. Everyone
from across the country wants to migrate to a few big cities that provide good
employment. We shouldn't stop them from seeking opportunities but at the same
time the local government has to ensure a minimal quality of life for the
existing residents. What would be a short term solution (implementable in 1-3
years) that can balance this ?

~~~
nawitus
As long as people are migrating, people are voting with their wallets that a
city "crumbling under poor infrastructure" etc. is better than whatever place
they're migrating from.

~~~
jakubp
But people already in that city can't vote with their wallets to stop the
immigration.

~~~
nawitus
They can vote by moving to another place?

~~~
mantas
Or they can vote in government that would put population cap...

------
Top19
Friendly reminder that China is the biggest bubble in 10,000 years of human
history: [https://www.crescat.net/crescat-capital-quarterly-
investor-l...](https://www.crescat.net/crescat-capital-quarterly-investor-
letter-q2-2017/)

Imagine a country with 1,000 different Enron’s or Countrywide’s that instead
of being investigated by the government are getting cover/protection instead.

Upcoming movie about this:
[https://youtu.be/MRm3SYaG7k0](https://youtu.be/MRm3SYaG7k0)

~~~
thedailymail
As skeptical as I am about predictions on the imminent demise of the Chinese
economy (which occur regularly going back at least to Gordon Chang), I'm
intrigued to see what an experienced documentary maker like Alex Gibney will
add to the discussion. Thanks for posting the link!

~~~
seanmcdirmid
In the media, it has been just been Gordon Chang. But China is due for a
normal bubble crash, which occur quite frequently in normal economies, but who
knows when that will happen.

Pro-china people will always interpret crash as collapse to create a red
herring against anyone who isn’t bullish on the Chinese economy. Likewise via
the opposite for anti-china people. It makes any discussion basically a red
herring fight.

~~~
xmly
Trust, human is the biggest bubble in the history of earth. We all gonna die
in another million year.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
The biggest bubble is the Big Bang of course. That bubble will eventually
collapse and it will be the end of everything (really!).

------
walterbell
If “excess” people are moved to a second-tier city X miles away, what happens
when that city is full - create a third-tier city Y miles away? Will there be
a separate transportation network between first-tier cities? Permits/visas to
travel between city-states?

~~~
closeparen
Yes. I have friends who are on waiting lists for residence permits in
Shanghai, etc.

~~~
walterbell
Is it a FIFO queue or are there qualification criteria or scoring systems?

------
ksec
Because they have learned their lesson with Hong Kong when they cant really
control property market and what problems it leads to.

~~~
peteretep
What problems does it lead to in Hong Kong? I'd have thought Hong Kong is one
of the most livable cities in China

~~~
ksec
Here is two recent article from SMCP

[http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-
kong/economy/article/2097715/w...](http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-
kong/economy/article/2097715/what-hope-poorest-hong-kong-wealth-gap-hits-
record-high)

[http://www.scmp.com/business/article/2064554/hong-kong-
named...](http://www.scmp.com/business/article/2064554/hong-kong-named-most-
expensive-housing-market-world-seventh-straight-year)

No other developed place / cities poses a problem as bad as HK. If you just
look at how it compares to Sydney and Vancouver.

Housing affordability leads to lots of other social problems. And Social
instability is the last thing China wants.

It was one reason why I think the recent article on Fouder's salary using data
from

[https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/](https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-
living/)

Dont necessary put things in right prospective. The one bed room prices while
being cheaper in San Francisco, its Living room is likely bigger then the
total size of the one bed room apartment in HK.

------
reacharavindh
Wonder how they decide who the 25M will be... wouldn't such a policy
artificially inflate the price of "living there" by jacked up real-estate
prices? Now that the supply is stopped and the demand is not..

~~~
kercker
You can get a feel from these two articles depicting the expulsion of migrants
from Beijing which also has a population limit.

Campaign to Drive Out Migrants Slams Beijing’s Best and
Brightest([https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/11/world/asia/china-
beijing-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/11/world/asia/china-beijing-
migrants-tech.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FChina))

Why Parts of Beijing Look Like a Devastated War
Zone([https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/30/world/asia/china-
beijing-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/30/world/asia/china-beijing-
migrants.html))

------
wonderous
China’s policies are confusing, first they wanted to move everyone to the
major cities, now the cities are saying they will cap the populations.

Anyone know what is going on?

~~~
Cookingboy
That's not true, China does not want to move people into major cities, that's
why they have the "Hukou" system, which is a residency registration.

What they want is urbanization of the less developed areas, many of which were
farmlands from before.

~~~
Markoff
yeah, that's why they plan to give pretty much half of the migrant workers
urban hukou

[https://thediplomat.com/2016/02/chinas-plan-for-orderly-
huko...](https://thediplomat.com/2016/02/chinas-plan-for-orderly-hukou-
reform/)

~~~
Cookingboy
That's how the Hukou system works, there are two tiers: Farm/Country and
Urban, and they want to urbanize farmlands, which will upgrade existing
farmland hukou to city ones.

They are not talking about moving farmers into existing cities.

------
mlinksva
As there's various discussion of hutongs here, I wonder if anyone can say
whether practice of charging for parking to upgrade things like sewers and
bathrooms as described in [https://www.shoupdogg.com/wp-
content/uploads/sites/10/2015/0...](https://www.shoupdogg.com/wp-
content/uploads/sites/10/2015/04/Charging-for-Parking-to-Finance-Public-
Services-May-15.pdf) has spread?

------
mr_spothawk
Isn't Shanghai an "autonomous" region? I wonder how much this has to do with
preventing Shanghai from becoming larger than Beijing.

~~~
bagacrap
Probably nothing given that the article states Beijing has an even lower
target population cap.

~~~
mr_spothawk
that's what I get for not reading

------
eximius
I don't trust these numbers. It was thought the undocumented population of
Shanghai was this number in 2007 when I lived there.

------
jamesoo8
People should not be curious about such things happened in China since they
are controlled by the CCP. Some stupid officers can make all kinds of
ridiculous policies, sometimes the basic reason is just to consolidate their
regime. The simple reason is that, if the city is too big, it becomes more
hard to control for them.

------
vsc
How did western countries deal with this kind of problem? Or they havent faced
anything of such scale till now?

~~~
walrus1066
It took >100 years for them to deal with it. It was often much worse than
China now.

In the UK, in the 1800's, millions moved to London, and lived in shocking slum
conditions. Life expectancy was ~30 years, diseases like cholera killed many,
because of overcrowding and poor sanitation. Pollution was awful, As recently
as 1952, 10,000 people died in four days in the great smog of London
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog_of_London](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog_of_London).

In summary, it took a long time to address the problem.

------
Iv
We need population targets for the world and for countries as well. Once the
population stabilizes, growths in productivity will go toward comfort
improvement instead of survival of an ever growing population.

I can't wait for it.

There are almost twice more people on the world now than when I was born. This
is crazy.

------
xmly
Thank god, China finally learn something from USA. "American First" ->
"Shanghai First". Trump leads the great America to another success just like
CCP lead china!

------
juanmirocks
I don’t know and so I ask: how much is the Chinese public opinion against
pollution affecting if at all the directives of their government? Is there
more public concern ?

------
thriftwy
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.

~~~
danieldisu
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.

~~~
thriftwy
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.

------
olalonde
That makes me sad, I like Chinese mega cities and it seems like a "problem"
that should solve itself without government intervention.

~~~
wallace_f
These kinds of heavy-handed interventions seem to almost always lead to
processes of waste and corruption -- ie so who gets to live in Shanghai? That
will be decided by bureaucrats and lawyers which opens up cronyism. By
contrast, previously the market provided an efficient, free-to-use, and
arguably fair system that allocated the opportunity to whoever was willing to
pay for it.

People will say "but they need to tackle pollution, and congestion," and I'm
in the Pigouvian camp that it is more fair and economically efficient to _tax
externalities themselves_ (the disease) rather than making heavy-handed and
arbitrary rules.

Anyways, in China this is not the worst thing their government is doing.

~~~
olalonde
Agreed. And unfortunately, it's a policy that will heavily enrich current
Shanghai real estate owners (most of which are already wealthy) and residents
so there won't be much political opposition.

------
dreamdu5t
Closed immigration policies and immigration quotas are descrimination - plain
and simple. They’re a violation of human rights and treating people equally -
whether in China or the USA.

~~~
justicezyx
Sure, but how can you legally removes the accumulated wealth from the 1% or
0.1%

------
meganibla
China can take ambitious practical goals like that seriously. The West cannot,
the West is problematically irresponsible.

~~~
Fej
In the West, we decided that individual liberty is more important than mass
control. The Chinese government is corrupt to the core. Do you want that kind
of government controlling you?

~~~
goldenkey
I certainly don't want my organs harvested because I smoked weed on my
birthday.

~~~
whooshee
Very interesting, I've never heard anyone in China have their organ stolen by
smoking weeds or taking drugs. China may execute drug dealers but not drug
users.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Organ harvesting of condemned prisoners continues although China has promised
to to stop it multiple times. It’s why china has some of the quickest turn
around times for organ transplants even though it has one of the lowest
voluntary donation rates.

~~~
goldenkey
Thank you for shedding light on this. Amazing how we are being downvoted for
speaking the truth. I thought HN was illuminated?

