Urban China

Time is flying by.  Being in the States is…wonderful, comfortable, awkward, encouraging, challenging, trying, amazing, and about a million more adjectives all rolled up into one.  In some ways, I feel like I can hop right back into life here almost like I never left.  But then I have this whole other entirely different life and culture and family and friends across the ocean.  It’s just plain strange.  And I’ll just leave it at that for tonight.  Tomorrow I head to Wheaton for a month of grad classes where I’ll join a wonderful group of people who understand the strangeness.  It will be a lot of work, a lot of brain energy, a lot of processing, and hopefully a lot of growth.  In the midst of it, you probably won’t be hearing much from me!  However, though on American soil, China is definitely still on my brain and on my heart.  I wanted to pass along a few statistics to you that reveal the rapid urbanization currently underway in China.

1979 – 18% of the population is urban

1990 – 26%

2000 – 36%

2008 – 45%

2020 – 67% urban

By 2025, 1 billion people will live in China’s cities.

The U.S. and Canada combined have 12 cities over one million.  China alone has 118 cities over one million . . . and counting (and no, my city is not one of them.  At 300,000 my city is quite small by China standards).

The biggest mass migration in the history of the world is underway in China (BBC).

China is changing at 4 times the speed of the rest of the world.

To read about how this change is playing out in individuals’ lives, I highly recommend reading Peter Hessler’s Country Driving.  It will give you a fascinating glimpse into how all of this change is effecting everyday citizens.