Housing will be needed to cater for a population expected to grow a net 10 million a year for the next decade and increase to 1.6 billion by 2050 from 1.25 billion now. Each year for the next 20 years China will need to find work for 12 million jobless peasants, according to some Chinese studies. And the cheapest and most efficient way to do this is to expand existing cities, and build huge new ones. With these large cities, things that weren't possible before are now economically viable. The population pressure has reached bursting point.
China has four times as many people as the United States but only half the habitable land.
Rural incomes are falling. Riots by angry farmers are commonplace. And an estimated 200 million peasants are on the move, surplus rural labourers prowling through cities in search of jobs on construction sites and in factories. Dai Junliang, an official in the Ministry of Civil Affairs, predicts that 40 new cities will spring up each year for the next 20 years until there are 750 million people living in urban areas. Official figures put China's current urban population at around 390 million, but experts say the figure is closer to 455 million.