URBAN GROWTH IN CHINA A Time Bomb?

by Don Detomasi

The Peoples' Republic of China is now one of the world's fastest-growing economies, and is predicted to become the world's largest economy within the next two decades. The economies of certain areas within China have been growing at an annual rate of 15-20%, by far the fastest growing in the world. Much has been written about Chinese economic growth, and about the environmental degradation which this, and ongoing population growth, has entailed. However, there is a relatively neglected aspect of the economic growth-environmental impact interface which I should like to report and comment upon here. It is a consequence of the urban growth which the economic growth has produced, and of the urban policy or planning decisions which have been taken to manage that growth This note is not the product of a carefully-designed research project. It is rather the drawing of some conclusions respecting the possible, if not probable, occurrences of major urban environmental disasters, based upon observations made during an extended trip to China, in 1994. I should like to suggest there are several serious research projects/questions which are generated in the following account. Background In December, 1994, I visited almost all of the major cities in the Pearl River Delta, a triangle roughly 100 km. on each side defined by Shenzhen in the northeast( borders on the new territories of Hong Kong) Zhuhai/Macao in the South, with the apex at Guangzhou (Canton), through which runs the Pearl River. The population of this region is uncertain, for reasons to be explained below, but is somewhere in the 21-25 million range. I visited the major post-secondary educational institutions in the region, and the Pearl River Delta Research Centre, which is responsible for undertaking most of the environmental research associated with the rapid economic development of the region. I also visited a number of business enterprises, most secondary manufacturing, in each of the cities in the region, to acquire an understanding of the nature of the economic activity underlying the phenomenal growth. Economic And Urban Population Growth As China has moved toward a market economy, local government officials have had critical roles to play by approving the location of private business enterprises in communities, by making land available for industrial development, giving a range of development approvals, the necessary linkages with existing infrastructure and the like. In many cases local government has become a partner, if not the entrepreneurial agent, in private business development, and a significant portion of local government revenues flows from these partnerships. As with cities everywhere, the economics of public service provision, and economies of scale and agglomeration lead to the creation of industrial development zones, and the concentration of activity and employment in these zones. So far, so good, the same thing happens in Calgary in accordance with zoning bylaws. However, unemployment is low or non-existent in communist countries, or at least in regions that are very productive agriculturally, and otherwise experiencing economic growth. New business enterprises, having gained access to local land and some services, technology and capital from Hong Kong and points north and east, do not have the labour needed for their new factories. Labour must be imported from those areas of China where there is large scale unemployment or underemployment, the economically stagnant and agriculturally weak north and west. And so the southern cities grow in the millions. The Company Town In The City One of the conditions for local government approval of a new business enterprise, the provision of land, services etc. is that the firm/employer must assume responsibility for the life needs of all employees brought from elsewhere to work in the new factory. This means that the firm must provide housing, health care and facilities, child care and education services (usually for all employees, not just those who have come from away), entertainment, food services and recreation opportunities. I don't know if it is a legal requirement, but in all cases I observed, these facilities and services were provided in situ, literally next to the plant. The impact of these new employees on the larger community is minimal, probably limited to increased congestion of public transit, parks and recreation facilities on days off. What I observed was a "company town", or rather an agglomeration of several small company towns, each provided by a different employer, within a single industrial development precinct, in a larger city. In each city, there are several such precincts, each of which might employ, and feed and care for several, perhaps many, thousands of persons. The precincts are fenced and entry/exit is limited to a few points with security personnel. I asked about the population size of each of the cities I visited, and quickly learned that the answer given was the "permanent" population, which did not include these immigrant workers. Civic officials don't have a clue how many people live in their cities. The estimate for Guangzhou, a city of 3.5 million, is that there are an additional 600,000 resident workers! The vast bulk, probably over 90%, of these persons are young women (17-23), some with children, who had been recruited from rural northern China, with the promise of training, housing, health care, entertainment, the lights of the city, and a wage, half of which would quadruple her entire family's income (and the promise is kept!). The jobs are primarily secondary manufacturing, the assembly and quality control assurance of a wide range of products such as mini refrigerators, washers, rice cookers, but also high tech computer, telecommunications and optical products. The women are trained for these jobs and, I was told, sign five year contracts of employment to compensate for the training and certain employer benefits remitted directly to families back home. An Urban Environmental Time Bomb? An industrial precinct, as described above might contain a population of 40,000 persons, housed densely in dormitories and small high-rise apartments, small retail shops, food and drink establishments, and entertainment, recreation, health care and education facilities, all in the immediate proximity of a mixture of fabricating and manufacturing firms. These firms, some of which are integrated to the extent of producing some of the components used in a final product, use a range of toxic and otherwise hazardous materials in their production processes, and they store significant quantities of these materials on site. "One remembers Bhopal, and inevitably wonders whether something similar could happen in one of these industrial cities" My knowledge of toxic and hazardous materials is modest, probably archaic and perhaps quaint, and I know almost nothing about how they might interact if they are brought together in an unplanned manner, or introduced to flood, fire or lightning. Within a single precinct, my amateur's eye noted on the following (which cannot be exhaustive): a range of petrochemical feedstock materials for plastics, used in both injection-moulding and extrusion processes for washers, dryers, refrigerators and rice cookers; large oil/diesel/gasoline storage tanks, and pressurized natural gas/propane tanks (used mainly for auxiliary electrical power generation, I believe); one or more pressurized gases used for industrial systems cooling; ammonia, chlorine and sulphur-based compounds used, I believe, in fertilizer production; acetone, and other agents I believe were used as cleaning agents in computer and/or optical assembly processes. One remembers Bhopal, and inevitably wonders whether something similar could happen in one of these industrial cities in the middle of another, larger city. Accidents are more likely as corners are cut in an effort to maximize output, and acts of nature occur, often in the wrong places. Worse yet, these places might prove tempting targets for sabotage or terrorist acts by those unable to deal with the contradictions between economic freedom and political tyranny.

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