China's Shanghai Sets Population at 25 Million To Avoid 'Big City Disease' (theguardian.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: China's financial hub of Shanghai will limit its population to 25 million people by 2035 as part of a quest to manage "big city disease," authorities have said. The State Council said on its website late on Monday the goal to control the size of the city was part of Shanghai's masterplan for 2017-2035, which the government body had approved. "By 2035, the resident population in Shanghai will be controlled at around 25 million and the total amount of land made available for construction will not exceed 3,200 square kilometres," it said. State media has defined "big city disease" as arising when a megacity becomes plagued with environmental pollution, traffic congestion and a shortage of public services, including education and medical care. But some experts doubt the feasibility of the plans, with one researcher at a Chinese government thinktank describing the scheme as "unpractical and against the social development trend."

Comments

Re:A precursor to China's future problems?

[blind biker]

1. Feeding, clothing and sheltering around 1.7 billion people

Luckily, China has 1.7 billion people that can take care of that issue pretty well.

Re:A precursor to China's future problems?

[Kjella]

1. Feeding, clothing and sheltering around 1.7 billion people--around 20% of Earth's human population.

This is just stupid Goldilocks talk, we get that a lot on /. from people with no arguments... the nations in Europe are too small. China is too big. The US is different from everyone else and just right. Bovine excrement.

2. A massive air and water pollution problem that is already affecting the health of many Chinese.

Life expectancy is 76 years, far above the world average of 71.5 years and trailing the US by <3 years. China's GDP/capita is now around the world average, half the world is poorer than China and in total they're second only to the US. They have a huge net export ($500,000 million/year) and very low national debt (41% compared to 106% in the US). Basically they're already in good health and have a massive unused economic muscle they could use to buy polluting goods from others, create greener tech, subsidize greener tech, levy taxes on polluting goods they produce and so on.

Truth is that China is far from worst in class: Smog-cloaked Delhi looks with envy at Beijing's cleaner air. Not only particulates, but China's Sulfur Dioxide Emissions Drop, India's Grow Over Last Decade. Those are the two biggest local pollution issues. Their total energy consumption and CO2 emissions are growing but that's a global problem that won't more adversely affect China than anyone else. If you think any of these are "collapse of China" class problems you're wildly delusional.

Re:A precursor to China's future problems?

[LynnwoodRooster]

No, the big challenge facing China is the coming generation (35 to 15) where single child families were the legal rule. You'll have four grandparents, and two parents to support for every worker. Massive population implosion. Given the poor social benefits of China (essentially non-existent), you're going to find a lot of children working themselves to death and still not be able to take care of their grandparents and parents.