dray
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Since you like our ghost cities so much. BTW, you didn't even nail the one major problem we do have with our massive urbanization. lol
you are telling people to see India, but without seeing China you are making these judgements.
Then you say India is doing good, even though it's growing far slower even as a percentage.
Tell me who should get the benefit of the doubt, our massively successful economy for three decades, or yours for three years.
Again, it's perception and not about India in particular.
New Documentary Explores the Less Ghostly Side of China’s Ordos - China Real Time Report - WSJ
New Documentary Explores the Less Ghostly Side of China’s Ordos
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Ordos has long been one of China’s most well-known ghost cities. A new documentary explores another side to the region.
Song Ting and Adam Smith
On arriving in Ordos, Inner Mongolia, filmmakers Adam Smith and Song Ting found a city far less ghostly than they expected.
After seeing numerous media reports labeling Ordos one of China’s most notorious “ghost cities,” the duo were intrigued. In person, however, they found a story they thought was even more compelling: the government’s efforts to relocate erstwhile corn and potato farmers into these newly built neighborhoods.
Their film, “The Land of Many Palaces,” premiering in January, explores China’s ambitious urbanization drive, focused in particular on the experience of one government official trying to persuade farmers to trade in land for new lives.
China Real Time spoke with Mr. Smith and Ms. Ting spoke about their documentary. Edited excerpts:
What inspired the name of the documentary?
Mr. Smith: The meaning of Ordos in the traditional language means ‘many palaces.’ I think it refers to this ancient story that Ordos became known for – of Genghis Khan making his way through the land and erecting tents. The current meaning for us refers to the development of wealth in the region, the luxury villa developments and palatial hotels and museums and apartment communities. There’s a great deal of luxury there.
Why did you pick Ordos as a subject?
Mr. Smith: We were interested in ghost cities, and even though there are quite a few examples, Ordos was the most interesting example for a few reasons. Partly its isolation, the cinematic romance associated with its surroundings — grasslands and desert. Initially it was Ordos’s ghostliness that attracted us, but what we found most interesting was that it was a city coming into itself, it was becoming something. We uncovered this plan in which the government was going to heroic efforts to move the rural population into this new city [of Kangbashi].
It’s been kind of a slow process because they’re not forced relocations. We follow a government official whose job was to go out to villages and persuade farmers to move in exchange for compensation, an apartment and perhaps money.
How successful has the relocation push been?
Ms. Ting: The numbers released at the end of 2010 said the city was built for 300,000 people. But then in the end of 2010, they only had a population of 30,000. This year we are looking for accurate data, so far I don’t think it’s been released. But you can feel there are a lot more people, maybe about 100,000.
How does this fit more broadly into China’s urbanization push?
Mr. Smith: There’s a larger plan in China over the next 15-20 years to relocate 250 million rural people into cities. We were interested in using Ordos as a conduit to explore this larger urbanization plan and this trend not only in China, but around the world. In 2008, humanity reached the point where there were more people living in cities than in rural places. We wanted to explore what the implications of that are.
Farmer Hao Shiwen, one of the last remaining farmers in his village, stands with his sheep in November 2012.
Song Ting and Adam Smith
What were the responses of the farmers you talked to?
Ms. Ting: Five years ago the government was very rich and more generous giving compensation packages. Then the financial crisis happened and so the compensation farmers are getting now is a great deal lower than at the beginning of this process.
Mr. Smith: A lot of foreign people think it’s a bad thing that the government is relocating people to cities, that it’s terrible they’re taking away their traditional way of life, etc. I sort of changed my thinking process a bit during the making of this film. I think quite a lot of the people who have moved into the city from rural areas are quite happy they now have modern facilities. Not all of them, but a few of them we spoke to. A lot of farmers are struggling in Ordos — even by Chinese standards, they are really very poor, it’s a pretty arid region.
Ms. Ting: I’ve also heard that in other newly built cities in China, farmers are given huge compensation. Some of them ended up getting more than one apartment, so they have the ability to rent out their extra housing and they are making profit out of it. But that didn’t happen in Ordos because there’s not many outsiders who come to work or live in the new city. So even if they have extra housing, it’s not more profit for them.
What do relocated farmers do in the city? What are their employment prospects like?
Ms. Ting: Most young people turn to jobs in bigger cities. When we visited Ordos, most of the people we saw were seniors old enough not to have a job anymore. Some mid-aged farmers are still trying to work, but jobs they can find are either cleaning or physical labor work. Now they’re trying to attract more big factories so these farmers can have jobs.
Mr. Smith: An interesting thing we saw was the amount of people there who are sort of employed in pointless jobs. For example, on the empty highway surrounding the city in the winter, you see a lot of people sweeping up sand after sandstorms. And the next day there’d be a sandstorm and people go out and sweep some more. You get the sense the government, because they’ve moved these people, they have to create some jobs for them. But a lot of people are just given these meaningless jobs that don’t have much of a point.
Tell me about the government worker you profile.
Mr. Smith: When we were there, her job was helping ex-farmers adapt to urban life in her community and organize events for them to participate in. We also shot her going out to try and persuade one family in an abandoned village to move. It was a farming couple, an old lady and an old man. I think it was maybe her third or fourth visit to try and persuade them to move. These people weren’t budging, even though their life wasn’t great in the countryside. She was saying, in the cities you can relax, watch movies, go dancing, play mahjong, etc. They were just saying we’re not interested, we want to stay here.
– Edited from an interview with Te-Ping Chen
Before I read this long article and reply, I would like to make it clear that this thread is not about India, neither I am asking anybody to come to India to prove any point, and wheather India is doing good or not is not a topic of this discussion, we have enough of 'this vs that' threads already, please don't make it another one.
I will comment about the article once I read it.
