Invisible City -- to Western eyes
The megalopolis you never heard of -- whose
population is larger than Peru or Iraq -- and growing at a half-million incomers
every year.
At some point this year, our species will prove Darwin wrong. For the first time since the dawn of civilisation, the human being is about to become a predominantly urban creature: humans have not evolved to fit our habitat, we have changed our habitat to suit ourselves.
Every year, 8.5 million Chinese peasants move into cities. Most of their destinations are mere specks on western maps, if they appear at all. But their populations put them on a par with some of the world’s megalopolises. Britain has five urban centres of more than a million people; China has ninety. A few - Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Nanjing - are well known around the world. The names of many others - Suqian, Suining, Xiantao, Xinghua, Liuan - are unfamiliar even to many Chinese. Nowhere is the staggering urbanisation of the world more evident than in Chongqing. Never heard of it? This is where the pace and scale of urbanisation is probably faster and bigger than anywhere in the world today.
The article takes you from hour-to-hour with individuals living in the middle of this dynamism. From a “bang-bang man” whose only job skill is carrying stuff — to the industrialist who opened a motorcycle repair shop in 1992 and has just fired-up his 14th automobile factory.
Jonathan Watts spends 24 hours in the megalopolis you’ve never heard of.
Posted: Wed - March 15, 2006 at 06:52 PM