No urban area in history has become so large so quickly than Shenzhen (Note 1). A little more than a fishing village in 1979, by the 2010 census Shenzhen registered 10.4 million inhabitants. It is easily the youngest urban area to have become one of the world's 26 megacities (Figure 1). Most other megacities were the largest urban areas in their nations for centuries (such as London and Paris) and a few for more than a millennium (such as Istanbul and Beijing). Shenzhen’s primitiveness can be seen in this 1980 internet photo, and shows the beginnings of construction. A 2006 photograph of one of Shenzhen's principal streets (Binhe Avenue) is above.

Pearl River Delta Location: Shenzhen is located in Guangdong Province adjacent to Hong Kong's northern border. Shenzhen is China's fourth largest urban area, following Shanghai, Beijing, and Guangzou-Foshan.

Along with Dongguan, Guanzhou, Foshan and smaller neighbors, Shenzhen forms the Pearl River Delta,   the world's largest manufacturing center. The Pearl River Delta, along with Hong Kong and Macau, constitutes the world's largest populated extent of urbanization, with nearly 50 million people. They live in a land area of just over 3,000 square kilometers (7,800 square kilometers. By comparison the world's largest urban area, Tokyo-Yokohama, has a population of 37 million and covers 3,300 square miles (8,500 square kilometers). I recall from a Hong Kong to Guangzhou trip on the Canton-Kowloon Railway in 1999 that there was plenty of rural territory on the 100 mile (170 kilometers) route. Today,   development takes place along virtually the entire route (Note 2).

The Special Economic Zone: Shenzhen was established as China's first special economic zone by Deng Xiaoping in the period of liberalization after the death of Mao Zedong. The special economic zones allowed for alternative, generally market oriented reforms, with the end of improving economic growth. The result was economic progress far greater than anyone expected. The special economic zone program was eventually extended to several other urban areas in the nation.

Some governmental officials preferred the previous state dominated approach, despite its greater poverty and sought to roll back the reforms. This threat reached its peak in the early 1990s, after Deng Xiaoping had retired from his government positions. In response, Deng undertook his renown "southern tour" to Shenzhen, Guangzhou and other parts of Guangdong province to promote the new economic approach and the progress that had been made. During the southern tour, Deng is reputed to have said that "to be rich is glorious." Three decades before he had said “I don't care if it's a white cat or a black cat. It's a good cat as long as it catches mice." He committed to results rather than to ideology, in a sense Shenzen and its environs are the engines of non-state owned prosperity. Eventually, the publicity from Deng's southern tour overwhelmed the opposition and China accelerated its move toward a more open economy.

Shenzhen's Core: Unlike the fast growing, but much smaller new urban areas of the United States (for example Phoenix, which is largely a low rise, dispersed expanse of suburbanization), Shenzhen has developed a dense central business district. Even though Shenzhen started the decade of the 1990s with little more than 1,000,000 residents, by 1996 it had the fourth tallest building in the world, the Shun Hing Tower. Only the Sears Tower in Chicago and the two World Trade Center Towers in New York were taller.

In 2011, the Shun Hing Tower lost its local tallest building title to the Kingkey Financial Tower, at 1,449 feet (447 meters) is the 10th tallest building in the world. Now, the world's second tallest building is under construction in Shenzhen, the Ping An International Financial Center, which is reported to reach 2,125 feet or 655 meters, with 116 floors. Only the Burj Khalifa (2,717 feet, 828 meters, 163 floors) in Dubai would be higher. Like Shanghai and Chongqing (and unlike most Chinese urban areas), Shenzhen has a highly concentrated central business district. As a result deserio.com rates Shenzhen's skyline as 9th in the world (Note 3).

Outer Areas Growing Faster: The three central districts (the qu of Futian, Luohu and Nanshan) grew from 2.4 million to 3.3 million population between 2000 and 2010, a rate of 38 percent. However, as is natural for a growing urban area, most of the growth was in the outer districts (Photo: Suburban Shenzhen), which grew from 4.6 million to 7.0 million, a growth rate of 52 percent. Thus, nearly three-quarters of the growth was on the periphery (Figure 2). Population growth in the earlier 1990 and 2000 period was slightly less concentrated in the outer area (68 percent). But overall  population growth has begun to slow down, with Shenzhen added 3.3 million new residents, compared to 4.3 million between 1990 and 2000.  

Photo: Suburban Shenzhen (Longgang)

The Urban Area: Overall, it is estimated that the Shenzhen urban area (area of continuous development) has a 2012 population of 11.9 million, with a land area of 675 square miles (1,745 square kilometers). The urban area has now crossed the border into the Huiyang district of the Huizhou region, to the east. The population density is estimated at 17,600 per square mile, or 6,800 per square kilometer,  approximately 10 percent less dense than the average urban area in China. Shenzhen is about one quarter the density of Hong Kong and double the density of Paris.

Rich and Poor in Shenzhen: Like all urban areas, Shenzhen is a mixture of rich and poor. Shenzhen is generally considered one of the most affluent urban areas in China, yet it also has a very large low income population. Approximately one-sixth of China's residents are considered to be temporary migrants; many work in boomtowns like Shenzhen. Seven million of these 220 million migrants live in Shenzhen,  considered the largest migrant population of any region in the nation. Migrants are attracted to Shenzhen for the same reasons people have moved to cities from early on: to get ahead. At the same time, their remittances sent back home are contributing to improved living conditions far beyond Shenzhen. It is expected that reforms to the "hukou" system of residence permits will allow many of the temporary migrants in Shenzhen and elsewhere obtain permanent residence status. Many of the migrants live in factory housing, or older, very densely packed buildings. At the same time, Shenzhen has a large number of world-class condominium buildings.

Photo: Older Housing: Central Business District

Photo: Newer Housing: Central Business District

The Future of Shenzhen: Much of Shenzhen's future will depend upon the economy of the Pearl River Delta and the extent to which migrants are able to obtain permanent residency status. There is still land enough in the region for substantial population growth. The longer term integration of the Hong Kong and Shenzhen economies could produce an even larger economic dynamo than the two that are currently separate. One thing is certain, however. Shenzhen has led China into a new economic and urban reality.

Wendell Cox is a Visiting Professor, Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, Paris and the author of “War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life”.

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Note 1: Shenzhen is one of China's regions, often called "cities," as translated from "shi."  "Shi" more resemble regions than "cities" in the non-Chinese sense, this article refers to "shi" as regions. "Shi" were formerly referred to in English as prefectures. A province is usually composed of "shis" and other "shi" level jurisdictions.

Note 2: These combined regions are not a metropolitan area, for two reasons. First; there is little daily commuting between them and thus they are not a single labor market, which is the definition of a metropolitan area. Second, one of the regions, Hong Kong, has a border with Shenzhen that has international style customs and immigrant controls, which further precludes the two adjacent regions from being a single metropolitan area. In the longer run, greater affluence, greater mobility between the regions and relaxation of border controls could merge some or all of the now separate metropolitan areas.

Note 3: Desiro.com, unlike some other skyline rating systems, places a premium on the density of buildings, rather than simply amalgamating building heights from throughout an urban area.

Photo: Shenzhen:  Binhe Avenue from the Shun Hing Tower (by author)

Hefei, the capital of historically poor Anhui province emerged as China's top growth center among major metropolitan areas over the past 10 years. Metropolitan areas from the interior, the Yangtze Delta and the central and northern coast were the fastest growing, displacing Guangdong's Pearl River Delta, long the growth center for the country.   (Figure 1).

China's Trends in Context: China's growth rate has fallen substantially and the United Nations has projected that the nation will experience population decline starting between 2030 and 2035. However, China's urban areas have grown strongly as people have continued to move to cities for better opportunities. According to World Bank research, China's economic progress since 1981 has lifted more people out of poverty than ever before in the world.

Never before in history have so many people moved to urban areas in such a short period of time.

Since the reforms began in approximately 1980, all of China's population growth has been urban. Rural areas lost approximately 110 million people between 1980 and 2010. That is approximately equal to the population of Mexico and more than each of the nations in the world except for 11. Over the same three decades, 470 million people were added to the urban areas. That is more than 1.5 times the population of the United States.

China's Metropolitan Areas: This article provides an analysis of the urban districts (qu) of Chinas urban regions (routinely mislabeled "cities"). These districts are designated by regional officials as urban for urban development. Since the peripheral urban districts are principally rural, the combination of urban districts (Shi Shixiaqu)in a region are akin to a metropolitan area (labor market area).

Among the metropolitan areas that began the decade (2000) with more than 1,000,000 inhabitants, the slowest 10 year growth rate was 36 percent. In comparison, among the 51 US metropolitan areas with more than 1,000,000 population, only three (Las Vegas, Raleigh and Austin) would have placed in China's top 20, and not higher than 14th (Table). As in the US, the most rapid urban growth is taking place in smaller metropolitan areas with less than 5 million in 2010.  

The Interior: Six of the top 20 gainers were in the interior, including fastest growing Hefei. This reflects the appeal of   lower labor costs and perhaps also that rural migrants often prefer to work in regions   closer to their homes and families in agricultural regions. These six metropolitan areas had an average growth rate of 71 percent, the largest rate of any geographical grouping.

Hefei

Zhengzhou

Central Coast: Xiamen (photo), one of the first special economic zones designated after Shenzhen and placing 2nd in growth, added 72 percent to its population. This metropolitan area is centered on an island in Fujian province on China's central coast, less than 10 miles from to Jinmen (Quemoy), an island controlled by Taiwan. Fuzhou, the capital of Fujian province was another central coastal metropolitan area among the top 20 growth centers (18th, at 38 percent). The average growth rate of these metropolitan areas on the central coast was 55 percent.

Xiamen

Yangtze River Delta: Like the interior, the Yangtze River (Changjiang) Delta also placed six metropolitan areas among the top 20 growth centers. The average growth rate was 52 percent. The Yangtze River Delta is a large area with a population greater than that of the Pearl River Delta, but with urban regions that are separated from one another by considerable rural territory (unlike the Pearl River Delta). The exception is the Shanghai-Suzhou-Wuxi corridor (Note), where the urbanization is continuous in limited corridors.

Suzhou

Wenzhou

Northern Coast: Five northern coastal metropolitan areas were among the top 20 metropolitan gainers, with an average growth rate of 42 percent.

Pearl River Delta: In contrast the Pearl River Delta, the home of so much urban growth over the past 30 years, placed only one metropolitan area among the top 20 growth centers, Shenzhen. Shenzhen placed 9th, with a growth rate of 48 percent. This is in stark contrast to 1990 to, when Shenzhen and adjacent Dongguan both more than doubled in population.

Missing Giants:Chongqing was not among the top growth centers. Chongqing has been routinely mischaracterized as China's largest metropolitan area (because of semantic confusion over the word "city"). Chongqing's metropolitan districts grew only 22 percent and the region (a provincial equivalent) lost population. Neighborhood rival Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province from which Chongqing was separated in 1996 more than doubled its growth rate. Manchuria, China's "Dongbei" (Northeast) also failed to place any areas among the fastest growing. Shenyang, the center of China's Rust Belt, grew less than 10 percent, though Harbin, capital of Helonjiang grew nearly 30 percent.

More Growth to Come: Despite an overall population that is just peaking, urban population growth is expected to be substantial. In addition to the 470 million people that have moved to urban areas since 1980, the United Nations projects that another 340 million people will be added to the urban areas by 2045 (after which a modest decline is expected). Over the same 35 years, China's rural population is expected to fall by 387 million (Figures 2 and 3). Where these new migrants move and how they make do will be among the most important urban stories of the next decade.

Wendell Cox is a Visiting Professor, Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, Paris and the author of “War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life”.

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Note: Includes Kunshan, part of the Suzhou metropolitan area, but a separate urban area (between the Suzhou urban area and the Shanghai urban area).

Note: Corrected Hefei data on 6/3/2012.

Top photo: Hefei: All photos by author.

Just because China has 500 million bikes on the road or tucked away in sheds or courtyards does not mean the two-wheeler has a bright future there, especially in its largest cities.

Such is the growing indifference to the bike in China that no one seems to mind that the national model is manufactured in Taiwan (or under license on the mainland). With a single gear and heavy steel frame, the Giant is ideal for long rides on flat city streets. At a cost of US $180, it is the bike bargain of the world. Nevertheless, the dream for younger Chinese is a Honda scooter.

The problem now in Beijing, Xian, and Guangzhou, if not in the country at large, is that increased prosperity is making city bike riding that much more a thing of the past. Wonderful Asian bike cities like Hanoi have already been lost to the noisy scooter and small car. Is Beijing next?

Three years ago, Beijing was delightful by bike. Initially, I signed up with my friend George at Bicycle Kingdom to teach me the tricks of the narrow streets and the detours around Tiananmen Square. Ever since that first night of instruction, when we rolled out to the Olympic Park and down to the Temple of Heaven, I have been pedaling on my own power in Beijing and savoring every moment in the saddle.

One reason that biking in Beijing is such a pleasure is that riders are accorded privileges lost to those sitting in traffic jams or drifting around on tour buses. During the 60th anniversary of the Chinese Revolution, a bike got me a front row seat to the spectacle.

Beijing bikes have their own lanes, traffic lights, and rights-of-way, and a rider can easily thread his or her way anywhere. At railroad stations there are special bicycle parking lots, and even at the Forbidden City it is possible to leave your bike next to the front gate, as if you were a Mandarin.

A few of the parks are off-limits to riders, but to my mind the only way to explore the hutongs— the historic districts of old Beijing, laid out like rabbit warrens — is on a bike, with which it is possible to roll past tea houses, food stalls, and open shops, as if in a Venetian gondola.

Recently back in the capital, I spent a long day riding from Tiananmen Square out to Peking University, near the Summer Palace — about fifteen kilometers (a little more than nine miles) to the northwest.

I had mapped out my route using a mixture of back streets and boulevards, and rolled away to find the Beijing grave site of the American writer Edgar Snow, whose 1937 book, Red Star Over China, was the first English-language account of Mao Tse-tung and a reportorial classic. (They met near Yenan, to which I went by train, but where there are almost no bikes.)

To be sure, bike riding in Beijing is an acquired skill. I accept that it means weaving around buses, parked cars, delivery vans, and other obstacles. What surprised me on this long ride — about three hours in all — is how often the bikes lanes were flooded with motor scooters, cars, and a variety of motorized contraptions.

After a while, I had my eyes attuned to the demographics of bike riders. They tended to be school kids or the elderly. From this blacktop survey, I judged that middle-aged or prosperous Beijingers have little appetite for riding. Most were moving around on scooters, the kind that have clogged many Asian cities.

On earlier bike rides around Beijing, I found the experience sublime. This time it felt like I was riding for my life in New York City, outnumbered and outgunned by a variety of taxis, swerving motorists, and motorcyclists.

Not only is Beijing going the way of Bangkok and other Asian cities that have been lost to gridlock, but the effects of non-riding can been seen among the Chinese themselves, more of whom are obese; undoubtedly KFC and McDonalds don’t help, either.

Beijing is not the only Chinese city where I found biking on the wane. On my recent trip I also visited Xian, Chongqing, and Guangzhou, in search of Maoist redoubts and World War II battlefields. Chongqing (which has an excellent General Joseph Stilwell Museum and a Chou En-lai house) is built on hills, like San Francisco, so it has never been much of a bike city. Xian and Guangzhou are ideal for the bike, at least in their historic quarters. Yet each city is now overrun with cars.

In Xian, I spent a long time just trying to find a shop that would rent me a bike. I went to several where the owners just shrugged. Finally, I borrowed a neglected bike from a hostel, but first had to take it in for repairs. No one had ridden this Giant in weeks, and the seat was set for a Lilliputian.

You wouldn't cycle to see the Terra Cotta warriors on a local clunker, as they are an hour by car from the city. But a bike is perfect to explore the Muslim quarter or to take in the Xian Incident Museum, which tells the story of Chiang Kai-shek’s kidnapping in 1936 and his subsequent agreement to recognize the Communist party. (Nothing focuses the mind like a kidnapping.) In Guangzhou I made it to the Sun Yat-sen Museum, but the snarling traffic scared me into a taxi.

In Beijing and other cities, you still see bicycles loaded with garbage bags, cords of wood, furniture, dumplings, racks of clothing, and things like hundreds of fresh eggs. Some riders can comfortably bike around several family members on one frame, and it’s not unusual to see children following a parent through a busy intersection. In one alley, I biked alongside a man using his bike to move a large desk.

In Beijing and Xian, I especially love the cyclists who have rigged up devices so that they can ride around with their caged birds, although one cycling raven of my acquaintance just sat on a wooden perch across the handlebars. Where will he be in five or ten years? I hate to think that Edgar Allen Poe was a writing an elegy for, among other things, the Beijing bike:

Quoth the raven, “Nevermore.”

Matthew Stevenson, a contributing editor of Harper's Magazine, is the author of Remembering the Twentieth Century Limited, a collection of historical travel essays. His next book is Whistle-Stopping America.

Photo: Raven on a Bicycle, Beijing, by the author.
Flickr Photo: Bird Scooter; birds and paraphernalia on a bike in Beijing by IstoletheTV.

Last week Hong Kong’s new leader Leung Chun-ying was sworn into office by Chinese President Hu Jintao. The ceremony coincided with the 15th anniversary of the British handover of Hong Kong to China so there was plenty of rhetoric about ‘strengthening ties with the motherland’. Yet not far from the ceremony, tens of thousands of Hong Kong citizens marched in protest showing discontent with growing inequality and what they perceive as Beijing’s increasing assault on the territory.

The relationship between Hong Kong and mainland China is complex. Beijing for the most part has kept its promise to uphold the ‘one country, two systems’ mandate. Officially, Hong Kong is considered a ‘Special Administrative Region’ (SAR), which means that it is treated as a separate country from an immigration standpoint and continues to circulate its own currency, the Hong Kong dollar. Hong Kong also retains an independent legal and judicial system inherited from the previous British rulers.

Most importantly, Hong Kong has avoided the draconian media censorship common on the mainland. A free press is consistent with its reputation as a global center of banking and commerce. Hong Kong’s ease of trade and doing business frequently leads it to being named one of the world’s freest economies.

So if Beijing continues to hold up its end of the deal, why do so many Hong Kong residents march in protest? The relationship is more nuanced than it appears on the surface. Politically, Hong Kong residents do not have the freedom to elect their leader (CY Leung was appointed by a 1,200-person electoral college made up primarily of pro-China business leaders), although democratic elections are set to commence in the next five years. Underlying this frustration is what Hong Kong residents see as an infiltration of growing mainland influence on the city.

On the ground, Hong Kong experienced a huge increase in mainland tourists to the city since the handover. Hong Kong doesn’t have the same high tax rate on imported goods that mainland China does, so mainlanders flock to the city primarily for shopping, hunting for bargains on electronics and luxury fashion brands. It is not uncommon to see long queues of mainland tourists in front of shops of famous fashion brands like Gucci, D&G or Prada. The droves of mainland shoppers spending money in Hong Kong are great for the local economy, but many locals decry the constant flow of tourists as invading ‘locusts’.

Yet more significant than what is happening on the ground is what is taking place high above in the sky. The phenomenon of wealthy mainlanders purchasing real estate in the city has driven   housing prices to astronomical levels, approaching the market just before the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997. For well-off Chinese mainlanders, Hong Kong real estate is seen as a safer long-term investment than China’s still somewhat risky real estate market and unpredictable stock market. A severely limited land supply coupled with the fact that a handful of powerful real estate oligarchs control the market for new development means that prices will probably stay high barring another economic crisis.

Land-use policy is perhaps the most critical factor in determining both the future of Hong Kong and the mainland. As anyone who has been to the city can attest to, Hong Kong has some of the best infrastructure in the world, including a first-class international airport, extensive rail system and a booming seaport. Much of that infrastructure comes from the city’s land-auctioning system, which is the government’s primary source of revenue. This is also what helps keeps taxes low.

Furthermore, unlike in the U.S., where infrastructure is traditionally financed publicly, Hong Kong’s infrastructure is increasingly built with private funds. For instance, the city’s Mass Transit Railway (MTR) Corporation, founded as a public entity, went fully private in 2000 and is traded on the Hong Kong’s stock exchange. In addition to operating and maintaining the city’s existing rail system, MTR Corporation is responsible for building new lines. What makes MTR Corporation different from most other transit authorities is that its primary earnings do not come from passenger ticket sales but from developing the land on top of and around its metro stations.

Cheung Kong Holdings, led by Hong Kong’s richest man Li Ka-shing, is not only one of the city’s largest property developers, its business interests also include Hutchinson Port Holdings (a port operator that handles 13% of the world’s container traffic) and Hutchinson Telecommunications Limited (which builds and operates mobile phone networks). Sun Hung Kai, another powerful Hong Kong property developer also owns stakes in logistics and telecommunications businesses (although its founders, the Kwok brothers, were recently arrested on corruption charges).

The mode of urban development in mainland Chinese cities is heavily influenced by Hong Kong. Yet instead of powerful corporations, State-Owned Enterprises (SOE), large entities owned by the government, dominate urban development related businesses. China’s land auctioning system is far from perfect, with well-documented instances of corrupt land seizures and the unfair advantages government backed SOEs have in the bidding process over private developers. But with virtually no property taxes in mainland cities, land sales remain the primary source of revenues for local governments to support infrastructure development.

There is growing evidence that suggests China plans to alter the direction of its development model in the coming years by consolidating and privatizing its SOEs. Already, Hong Kong property developers are active in the mainland real estate market with Chinese companies eager to learn from their expertise. The cozy relationship between Hong Kong developers and mainland SOEs is a cause for concern by Hong Kong citizens, as they see their local developers as more interested in appeasing Beijing authorities than providing affordable housing for its own citizens.

Yet this is inevitable. The city of 7 million cannot expect to forever be completely independent of a country of 1.3 billion to which it is now irrevocably attached. This is true even in spite of Hong Kong’s role as an international center of trade.

Throughout history, Chinese culture survived through its sheer mass and cultural osmosis. When CY Leung gave his inaugural speech last week, it was in Standard Mandarin, the official language of China. Although the citizens of Hong Kong are also Chinese, their official language is Cantonese, a completely different and not mutually intelligible dialect. Leung’s move was seen as a slight to the people he was chosen to serve, yet given who he has to report to in Beijing, it made perfect sense.

Adam Nathaniel Mayer is an architectural design professional from California. In addition to his job designing buildings he writes the China Urban Development Blog.

Follow him on Twitter: AdamNMayer

Hong Kong photo by BighStockphoto.com

No two countries would appear more divergent than France and China, especially in the age of Eurozone collapse. One country represents the Asian future, while the other is the capital of the failed, if diverting, old world.

The French recently elected a socialist president and assembly on the basis that everyone should share the country’s deficits and decline. The Chinese, meanwhile, have enough surpluses to buy out the European Union, should they wish to exchange their EU debts for an equity stake. (Maybe they will choose to have Paris shipped east in boxes?)

To take the measure of the two economies — although I admit this survey lacks academic rigor — I recently crossed each country by rail.

In China, I rode a succession of trains, high-speed and low, between Beijing and Hong Kong, with stops along the way in Yenan (Mao’s revolutionary capital), Xian (of Terra Cotta Warrior fame), Chongqing (Chiang Kai-shek’s wartime capital), Zhuzhou (a rail junction), Guangzhou (used to be Canton) and Shenzhen (the biggest city near Hong Kong you’ve never heard of).

I have also recently taken a number of train trips between Geneva and Bordeaux and crossed “France profonde” through the mountainous Massif Central, or gone on more roundabout routes through Toulouse and Tours.

My conclusions, which even I find surprising: France has a better balance between its land and cities, as well as richer farms and a more sustaining political culture, even if the presidency is a reality show.

China, at least from a train window, seems to be devoting most of its budget surpluses to moving the population into fifty-story, high-rise apartment buildings, the dormitories of its industrial revolution.

Like France, China has a high-speed rail network that travels on segregated tracks, allowing for speeds close to 200 miles per hour. I went from Zhuzhou to Guangzhou in about four hours, a trip that used to take overnight. The stations of the expanding high-speed Chinese network, however, are outside the downtowns of most cities, so getting to them feels like a trip to the airport.

Unlike trips in France, most intercity trips in China take place on slow night trains, with thousands of passengers tucked into open couchette berths. On my trip south, I was usually assigned the cramped middle bunk and rode, even during the day, like “John Malkovich” on floor 7½.

The French have largely given up on night trains. My regional train from Geneva to Bordeaux is a milk run (skim, I would say, to judge by the amenities), with beautiful views but few passengers. French high speed trains — Trains à Grande Vitesse or TVGs — do go downtown, although the French have the annoying habit of routing every trip through Paris.

In the current economic crisis, however, funding is being bled from the rails, and many TGV cars look thread-worn. Nevertheless, the TGV remains the inspiration for the Chinese high-speed system, perhaps because many Communist leaders had warm memories of their Paris underground cells.

Sadly, Chinese cities retain few of their French inspirations. Apart from old Beijing and some quarters of Shanghai, Xian and Guangzhou, Chinese cities are faithful to Maoist doctrine in that that they serve as worker housing and base camps for industrial output.

I may, however, be one of the few who prefers Beijing over Paris; the biking is better and the hotels are cheaper. Nevertheless, the average Chinese city is going the way of Los Angeles and Phoenix. The streets are less forgiving to cyclists, pedestrians, and kids playing after school. The outskirts of Chinese cities are great walls of housing projects that probably can be seen from the moon.

In France, because I often travel with a bike, during waits between trains I sometimes go for a downtown spin, which has allowed me to discover the old world charms of Orleans, Tours, Toulouse, and Blois.

Because French cities were laid out in the eighteenth and nineteenth century and not in 2003, they have narrow streets, often unsuitable for cars, but perfect for walking, bikes and sidewalk cafés. Bordeaux, a hive of narrow streets and small, self-contained neighborhoods, is an excellent example of a car-unfriendly French city that is flourishing.

Away from the glittering high-rise buildings in places like Dalian and Shanghai, much of train-window China remains a poor country, a succession of terraced subsistence farms, cut out of rocky hillsides and inevitably encased in a steamy fog. Elsewhere, China has the fault lines of runaway development: a population confined to worker housing, and agricultural provinces that are stripped for minerals or exports.

By comparison, French trains are never far from verdant pastures or neatly tended vineyards. Ironically, China's detached “people’s” government is the largest consumer of first-growth French wines.

The wine industry is one of the few meeting points where the French and the Chinese find harmony. China is now fifth (ahead of the U.K.) in wine consumption, and at the high end nearly all of it comes from Bordeaux and Burgundy. (The low end is a concoction of bootlegged Algerian and Rhône reds.) The reason that the wines of Château Lafite Rothschild can command $2000 a bottle is because newly coined Chinese millionaires find it a must-have brand.

Since France produces a surfeit of wines, the trade should stimulate the economies of both countries for a long time. Nevertheless, French producers live on the precipice of Chinese wine tariffs, should the Beijing government want to promote its own vineyards south of Shanghai at the exclusion of those in Pauillac.

Which country will fare better in the coming decades: China with its Dickensian economic juggernaut, or France with its budget deficits, despite having well-fed cows and landscapes worthy of Monet?

Just because my Geneva to Bordeaux train crosses through the contours of an Impressionist painting does not mean that France will return to its imperial glories. Nor do China’s traffic jams mean that it will dissolve into Manchu feudalism. Furthermore, to paraphrase Chou En-lai on the French revolution, it may be “too soon to tell” if Chinese communal capitalism will put an end to the party or to free enterprise.

Ironically, France does have the surplus of a self-contained economy, even if now it is in hock to German debt markets. Similarly, China has the deficits of post-Maoism—something close to the state capitalism of fascism—including that the best that can said of its Politburo is that it keeps the high-speed trains running on time.

Personally, I hope that both countries do well. I love that in each I can take trains, get around by bike, read about the Revolution or the Franco-Prussian war, enjoy the cities—especially Beijing and Bordeaux—and, well, drink French wines.

Photo: The new high-speed rail station, Zhuzhou, China; from the studio of Matthew Brady.

Matthew Stevenson, a contributing editor of Harper's Magazine, is the author of Remembering the Twentieth Century Limited, a collection of historical travel essays. His next book is Whistle-Stopping America.

Recently, the McKinsey Global Institute published its report 'The Most Dynamic Cities in 2025' in Foreign Policy, a highly respected US journal. On this list, 27 mainland Chinese cities as well as Hong Kong took top spots alongside Shanghai and Beijing, leaving many other world-renowned metropolises far behind.

As a Chinese who has lived through China's transformation over the past two decades, I was hardly surprised by the results of this report. What really shocked me was the doubt and controversy that this report generated in western media, especially the negativity in the heated discussions published in the very same issue of Foreign Policy.

Among these, I was most taken aback by Mr. Isaac Stone Fish's article 'Unlivable Cities'. Having lived in several different Chinese cities over a 7-year period, Mr. Fish should be able to provide an objective prospective about China. Unfortunately, the takeaway from his article, in his own words is: 'For all their economic success, China's cities, with their lack of civil society, apocalyptic air pollution, snarling traffic, and suffocating state bureaucracy, are still terrible places to live.'

First of all, when it comes to civilization, there are very few countries where civil society can be traced back 5000 years like China. Today’s China may be in some aspects less civilized compared with the more developed countries, but China has come a long way in creating a more civilized society in recent years. When the People’s Republic of China was founded in 1949, the illiteracy rate was more than 80% in China, but as of today, the illiteracy rate among Chinese born after 1980 is under 1%. In cities, 80% of students go on to post-secondary studies. These highly educated young Chinese will undoubtedly redefine China's civilization. When it comes to parenting, the 80s generation, now mostly young parents, are studying how to be a parent, which would have been unheard of just a decade ago.

The new Chinese parents are teaching their kids to use polite expressions like ‘thank-you’ and ‘sorry’, something generally neglected in the past. Pioneer cities like Shanghai and Guangzhou opened ‘Manner and Etiquette’ classes in most of their primary and high schools starting in 2006. Our education system is changing as well, gradually switching from being purely exam-oriented, to cultivating students with all around abilities. Our future generations will continue to bring China into a new era of civil society. It is ironic for Mr. Fish to call China 'unlivable' by describing China as having 'lack of civil society', yet in his own narration later he wrote: 'Chinese cities have little crime, one can stroll safely through Beijing's magnificent Temple of the Sun park at midnight'. How many of today's ‘livable’ and ‘civilized’ North American cities can claim that?

Air pollution is an issue in China, but no different than the smog that hung in the sky in Pittsburgh, London, or Los Angeles when those cities were going through their own vast development phases.   China is generating the greatest total greenhouse gas emissions in the world, but its greenhouse gas emission per capita in 2008 only ranks 78th of 214 countries in the world, while Australia ranks 11th, followed by USA (12th) and Canada (15th). China is manufacturing for the whole world, so in a sense it’s a scapegoat for countries that don’t want to or cannot make things for themselves. Yet even with that, air pollution in China never reaches the level described in Mr. Fish's article. Take Nanjing (300 km northwest of Shanghai) as an example: in the one week Mr. Fish spent there, the only thing he saw was 'smog the color of gargled milk'.

Having lived in Nanjing for almost 10 years, I do not find Nanjing's air quality unbearable. On the contrary, I love wondering on the streets of this ancient yet modern city, breathing the fresh air and enjoying the sweet scent given off by the Wutong Shu (Phoenix trees) erected on both sides of the streets. Every morning, citizens go outside to exercise in the mountains and parks. At night time, people take walks outside after dinner. Never would I suggest that Nanjing is an 'unlivable' city.

Phoenix Trees in Nanjing

In 2011, 14.5 million cars were sold in China. It has overtaken America as the largest automobile market. This has and will continue to cause significant traffic congestion, a worldwide issue most metropolises face today. However, China is very proactively providing solutions to this problem. In Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, the local municipality limits the licenses plates issued every year in an attempt to relieve the burden caused by new traffic. Of course, China knows better than anybody that nothing will stop its citizens' desire for car ownership as they get richer, so the only way to prevent future traffic problems is to invest in more quality highways, cleaner cars and better public transit systems.

With China now spending approximately half a trillion dollars annually on infrastructure (9 percent of its GDP), visitors should not be surprised to see numerous highways and subways under construction in most Chinese cities. In 2010, Shanghai had the world's most extensive subway system (429 km), followed by London (402 km) and then Beijing (372 km). By 2020, the total length of Shanghai's subway lines will reach 877 km, more than double of New York's current total length of subway lines. Meanwhile, China provides large subsidies to the taxi and bus industries. On top of that, with the world's longest rail network, China's high-speed rail system is changing the way people travel between Chinese cities. The newest bullet train from Beijing to Shanghai can bring passengers to their destination in less than five hours, while flying over the terrain at a maximum speed slightly over 300 km per hour.

Bureaucracy has been rife in China literally for millennia, and the onset of a market economy has not changed that sad fact. Much of the criticism of China relates to censorship. Yet this is less an issue for most Chinese than for either westerners and some Chinese intellectuals. With the fast development of information science and the enormous variety of media available, people can freely choose what movie, play or art show they wish to watch, discuss anything they are interested in with their families and friends, and most importantly live the life styles they want. The 'pervasive fear of censorship' described by Mr. Fish literally does not exist for today's average Chinese citizen.

Mr. Fish also gave specific examples of 'unlivable' cities in China. Among them, Harbin, the capital city of Heilongjiang province, was voted the least livable metropolis mainly due to its cold winter. Personally, during my own time there, I was fascinated by Harbin's characteristic Russian architecture, the massive and astonishingly beautiful ice sculptures, and the fun winter activities that were available. All these temperaments make Harbin an extraordinary city. I am currently studying in Canada, a country justly famous for freezing winters. Constantly hearing Canadians complain about their 'unbearably cold' winters makes me realize that if winter temperature is a key criteria to judge whether a city is livable or not, Winnipeg, Manitoba would probably be crowned the most unlivable city in the Western hemisphere. I can only imagine what Mr. Fish would have to say about cities like Oslo, Helsinki, Copenhagen, or Minneapolis.

China clearly is no paradise, yet the world should recognize how significantly the quality of life has improved over the stereotypes of the past. Growing up in 40 square meter (430 square feet) 'Dormitory Style Housing' (as Mr. Fish put it), with my parents and grandparents, I remember vividly how our neighbors nearly burst through our door to see our newly purchased color TV, the first they had ever seen. My happiest moment was licking a popsicle to its last frozen drop in the summer heat. Considering my parents' combined monthly salary about 20 USD in the 1980s, this popsicle was quite a treat. Two decades later, in the same summer heat, my husband and I moved into a brand new three-bedroom condo in Nanjing, fully equipped with the most modern electronic appliances. Our condo is surrounded by a beautiful pond, a gymnasium, a supermarket and a nearby subway station. We make 3400 USD a month, eat out often and travel every year. This is not atypical for most middle-class Chinese people now. The welfare system is improving, people are less worried about getting sick, a retirement fund is in place, people now travel not only domestically but also internationally, and many send their children abroad to receive higher education. Where we are now would have been unthinkable to most people only a few decades ago.

I’m often deeply saddened by the way in which China is so often portrayed in western media. China’s growth and development over the past few decades has been vast, and it possesses potential for a more affluent future. Westerners may refer to China as ‘unlivable’ but for me, and hundreds of millions of people like me, China today is more than simply livable, and it will continue to improve as time goes by.

Lisa Gu is a 28 year old Chinese national who lived in Nanjing, China. She is currently studying at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, ON, Canada.

Photo by Wikicommons user shakiestone.

For over a decade, conventional wisdom has held that the future of the world economy rests on the rise of the so-called BRIC countries: Brazil, Russia, India, China (and, in some cases, with the addition of an ‘S’ for South Africa). A concept coined by Goldman Sachs economist Jim O’Neill, the BRICs were widely touted as the building blocks of the “post-American world.”

Such notions are particularly popular among intellectuals like India’s Brankaj Mishra, who sees world power shifting inexorably to “ascendant nations and peoples” — i.e. the BRICs — while “America’s retrenchment is inevitable.” Yet in reality, it is increasingly clear that the BRICs upward trajectory is slowing and many long-term trends suggest that their growth rates will continue to fall in the coming decades. Like other former “America-killers” such as Europe (1960s), Japan (1970s and 1980s) and the Asian Tigers (1990s), the BRIC countries appear to be unable to sustain the steady, inevitable progress projected by enthusiasts both at home and abroad.

One sign can be seen in the equity markets. Between 2001 and 2007, BRIC stocks soared, more than doubling in China and rising 369% in Brazil and 499% in India. Faith in the destiny of the BRICs grew even more after the world financial crisis, which these economies seemed to shrug off.

Yet more recently the edifice appears to have begun to erode, and in some cases, could well crumble. After rising almost fourfold from 2000 until the financial crisis, the BRICs’ stock-market value is at a three-year low.

This decline has impacted numerous key BRIC companies such as Petroleo Brasileiro SA, Brazil’s state-controlled oil company. This year it fell to the world’s 39th-largest company by market value from the 10th-biggest in July 2011. China Construction Bank Corp. dropped to 20th from 12th while Rosneft, Russia’s largest oil producer, sank to 106th from 70th. Shares of ICICI Bank Ltd., India’s second-biggest lender, have lost 17% during the past year, compared with an average gain of 9% for global peers.

Mutual funds that invest in BRIC equities, which recorded about $70 billion of inflows in the past decade, also have posted 16 straight weeks of withdrawals, losing a net $5.3 billion, EPFR Global data show.

This reflects serious, deep-seated problems in these economies. Brazilian consumer defaults increased to a 30-month high in May, while prices for Russia’s oil exports have dropped about 10% this year. In India, the central bank unexpectedly left interest rates unchanged last month after inflation accelerated. A gauge of Chinese manufacturing compiled by the government fell to a seven-month low in June.

The BRICS are learning — as the Japanese did before them — the meaning of gravity. With the dollar gaining value against the Brazilian real, Brazil could slip from the world’s sixth largest economy to seventh, overtaken again by the United Kingdom.

BRIC countries are suffering, in part, because of the slowdown in the European Union and North America. Depressed levels of spending in these export markets devastates these economies, in part because their domestic markets are not yet wealthy enough to support strong growth on their own.

Brazil has experienced a rampant property boom in recent years, with house prices in Rio trebling since 2008, and mortgage borrowing soaring. Reduced consumer demand could help drive the country’s economic growth rate to 2.2%, a pace more familiar in developed Western economies, and less than half the rate predicted by official government economists.

India seems to be drifting into a political crisis and remains handicapped by its deep-seated culture of corruption and favoritism. Malnutrition has increased — and is higher than in most African countries — while the political system creaks and blocks reform.

This is one reason why credit default swaps suggest India is already a bigger investment risk than emerging markets such as Vietnam and more than double the risk of Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa. India may also lose its investment-grade credit rating as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s administration struggles to curb a record trade deficit, a budget shortfall that exceeded targets and fighting within the ruling coalition, Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings said last month.

In the short run, things are likely to get worse in India; S&P recently cut its forecast for growth in 2012 to 5.5% from 6.5%. Inflation running at 10% is sending investors fleeing from the rupee in favor of the dollar’s safety. Growth in industrial production fell from 9.7% in 2010 to 4.8% in 2011. The pace has slowed further in 2012.

BRIC member Russia, as Rodney Dangerfield would have put it, is no bargain either. The crippling problem Russia faces is an economy dependent on oil for 75% of its export income. In 2008 oil was 5% of Russia’s GDP; now it’s 12.5%.

As in India, corruption is pervasive, sparking political unrest against Vladimir Putin’s neo-czarist regime. Investment and retail has slowed down. At the same time Russia faces one of the steepest demographic declines on the planet, spurred by unusually low lifespans among males, with excessive drinking a prime contributor. Russia has lost nearly 10 million people since the collapse of the former Soviet Union. By 2050, the population could fall to as low as 126 million from 142 million in 2010. President Vladimir Putin has identified the demographic crisis as Russia’s “most urgent problem.”

Due to its one-child policy, China, too, faces the prospect of demographic decline. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that China’s population will peak in 2026, and will then age faster than any country in the world besides Japan. Its rapid urbanization, expansion of education, and rising housing costs all will contribute to this process. Most of the world’s decline in children and young workers between 15 and 19 will take place in China during the balance of the century.

But China’s most pressing problems are more immediate. With exports slowing, China’s GDP growth has decelerated from 10.9% in 2010 to 9.5% in 2011. It is estimated by S&P to be 7.5% in 2012. China’s economic growth is set to slow for the ninth consecutive quarter. Schisms within the Communist Party, and growing labor and other unrest, make the Middle Kingdom somewhat less the inevitable replacement power to the U.S. that many have assumed.

South Africa is also pressed by political and economic problems.The economy is slowing down to a very un-BRIC like 2.7% growth rate. This is well below the heady 4% plus of 2011. And, as in China and India, instability, as seen in the recent, violent work stoppage of 26,000 workers at platinum mines, could further hurt growth.

With unemployment roughly at 25%, South Africa will hard pressed to remain an investment star in the years ahead.

So what now? Well, we can expect financial speculators, like Goldman Sachs, to keep trolling for the next thing. Wall Street’s most influential player recently coined a new term — MIST — to cover their new favorites: Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea and Turkey. One can only imagine how long this fixation will last, given the problems these countries face with either political violence and demographic decline, and in the case of Turkey both.

Of course, brokers hawking investments will continue to look for new places of opportunity. But as we are learning from the experience with the BRICS, not all emerging economies maintain their upward trajectory. Sometimes it might make more sense ,even given our inept political parties, to look at opportunities closer to home, where constitutional protections, a large domestic market and a diversified economy may provide better long-run prospects.

Joel Kotkin is executive editor of NewGeography.com and is a distinguished presidential fellow in urban futures at Chapman University, and contributing editor to the City Journal in New York. He is author of The City: A Global History. His newest book is The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050, released in February, 2010.

This piece originally appeared in Forbes.

BRIC country map by Filipe Menegaz.

In the last half century, East Asia emerged as the uber-performer on the global economic stage. The various countries in the region found success with substantially different systems: state-led capitalism in South Korea, Singapore and Japan; wild and wooly, competitive, entrepreneur-led growth in Taiwan and Hong Kong; and more recently, what Deng Xiaoping once described as “socialism with Chinese characteristics.”

But these countries shared one common element: a strong Confucian family ethos. Three of Confucianism’s five key relationships are familial, led by the all-important father-son tie. In East Asia, business has often been driven by familial concerns. Hard-driving “tiger Moms” or workaholic Dads sacrificed all for the benefit of the next generation. But now that foundation is beginning to crumble, and if the trend is not reduced, the 50-year-long ascendency of the region could be threatened.

The signs of an emerging Asian malaise can be seen in slowing economies — in Japan’s case an almost two-decade-long stagnation. South Korea and Singapore may grow this year at levels approaching that of the United States — mediocre by their historic standards. The notion of assured further progress is fading, as populations age and domestic markets seem unlikely to expand much.

This malaise is reflect in declining birthrates, which now rival southern Europe for the world’s lowest, as demonstrated in a new report by myself and colleagues at the Singapore Civil Service College. Equally troubling, up to a quarter of all East Asian women, estimates the National University of Singapore’s Gavin Jones, will remain single by age 50, and up to a third will remain childless. Since few Asian women, unlike their North American or northern European counterparts, have children out of wedlock, the overall effect on already poor demographics could be catastrophic.

The reasons for this decline in marriage and family are complex. Demographers such as Austria’s Wolfgang Lutz see a reinforcing pattern in which singleness becomes normative and child-rearing more difficult, and less widely supported by society. This creates, as my Singaporean colleague Anuradha Schoff puts it, “an ecosystem where childlessness is the preferred option.”

Interviews and survey data from various East Asian countries show that part of the problem is extremely high housing costs — roughly twice or more as a percentage of income as in the United States, according to demographer Wendell Cox — and often pitiably small space. No surprise, then, that Asians coming to the United States flock to suburbs, increasingly in the more affordable parts of the country.

The extremely competitive work environment, which now includes growing numbers of well-educated females, is having a negative impact on birth rates. In 1970, less than half of women in Japan and Korea were working, and only one-fifth in Singapore. By 2004, that number had increased to three-quarters in Japan, and roughly three in five in South Korea and Singapore, notes NUS’ Gavin Jones. As one researcher in Singapore explained, how could it be possible for her to start a family when she has to compete with other women who are not so encumbered? It made no sense to her to have children, even if the state provided her with as much as a million dollars.

Huge time commitments at work, notes demographer Phil Longman, often work against potential parents. “As modern societies demand more and more investment in human capital,” he suggests” this demand threatens its own supply.”

Then there are distinctly cultural issues, such as the perceived unwillingness of many East Asian men to share child-raising duties with their wives. And among parents, the much-celebrated obsession with achievement and education — also generally favored by Mandarins around the region — tends to make child-bearing seem ever more onerous and expensive. In this sense, the Confucian ethic on education undermines its paramount familialistic values.

Japan represents the cutting edge of this lurch into what may in a decade be the general East Asian pattern. By 2010, a third of Japanese women entering their 30s were single, as were roughly one in five of those entering their 40s. That is roughly eight times the percentage in 1960, and twice as many as in 2000. By 2030, according to sociologist Mika Toyota, almost one in three Japanese males may be unmarried by age 50.

Lacking the innovative energy of new entrants into the workplace and the economic stimulus of expanding households, Japan’s economy has become ever more stagnant and inward looking. And most Japanese view the future as far from bright; the Japanese, according to Gallup, are now among the most pessimistic people on the planet. Not too far behind them are, surprisingly, the Singaporeans.

In Japan, the demographic clock is already ticking toward a kind of demographic doomsday. It’s been over two decades since the number of Japanese over 65 exceeded the number of those under 15, and the trajectory points to a time — by 2050 – when Japan will have 3.7 times as many people 65 and older as 15 and under, according to U.N. estimates. In 2050, the number of people over 80 will be 10% greater than the 15 and under population.

Even Tokyo faces Japan’s emerging demographic winter. Given current trends away from family formation, Tokyo, now the world’s most populous metropolitan area, may see its population drop from its current 35 million to roughly half that in 2100. By then Japan’s overall population could fall to 48 million, according to Japan’s National Institute of Population and Social Security Research. And what will be left of the Japanese will be very urban, very old, and at some point, probably well before, bereft of savings.

The other East Asian countries could face a similar fate, albeit a decade or two later. In Taiwan, 30% of women aged between 30 and 34 are single; only 30 years ago, just 2% of women were. In three decades, “remaining single and childless” merged from a rarity to a commonplace, and appears to be picking up momentum. In a 2011 poll of Taiwanese women under 50, a huge majority claimed they did not want children.

For its part, Singapore has been able to keep itself going largely by importing talent from abroad. But the mass migration of newcomers, who have increased tremendously as a portion of the population, has also sparked widespread resentment among Singaporeans faced with ever greater congestion, crowding, high property prices and ever-greater competition for good jobs.

Unlike intrinsically multicultural Singapore, Korea, Taiwan and China will struggle with the notion of tapping immigration to forestall their problems. As China progresses and urbanises, its demography increasingly mimics that of the Tigers, just as they now resemble Japan. Most of the world’s decline in children and young workers between 15 and 19 will take place in China; the People’s Republic will lose 60 million people under 15 years of age by 2050, approximately Italy’s population. It will gain nearly 190 million people 65 and over, approximately the population of Pakistan, which is the world’s fourth most populous country.

In the longer run, these countries will have to reconsider their priorities. In order to restore a sense of a prosperous future, they must first consider what factors would encourage families and child-bearing in their societies. This may, among other things, require “tiger Moms” and workaholic Dads, as well as the bureaucracy, to change their ways. As my Japanese mentor Jiro Tokuyama used to say, East Asia will have to unlearn the secrets of its past success.

Joel Kotkin is executive editor of NewGeography.com and is a distinguished presidential fellow in urban futures at Chapman University, and contributing editor to the City Journal in New York. He is author of The City: A Global History. His newest book is The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050, released in February, 2010.

This piece originally appeared in Forbes.

Happy Baby Photo by Bigstock.

Recent media attention has focused on a slowdown in China. The actual state of play in China that should be watched, though, is rather different. While residents of first and second-tier cities such as Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen can still be seen holding Louis Vuitton bags and iPhones, a significantly larger, yet less individually affluent, market has begun to rise within the country. It is within this terrain of lower-tier cities that China’s breakneck growth is now being demonstrated. It’s still a bit too early for these residents to be showing off designer handbags and Apple gimmickry, yet a solid and highly-sustainable growth wave is happening across China’s fourth, fifth, and sixth-tier cities in the central and western regions.

Here are some examples, in terms of rough population equivalents:

While many readers are familiar with most of these American and European cities, hardly any know their Chinese counterparts. And all of the Chinese cities in the chart above are in just one province – Sichuan.

When one factors in Shanxi, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Anhui, and Jiangxi in Central China, and Gansu, Guizhou, Ningxia, Qinghai, Shaanxi, Yunnan and Xinjiang in West China, the sheer vastness of China’s own emerging markets becomes apparent. There are some 500 cities across the region with populations similar to those listed above.

What’s happening in these lower-tier Chinese cities? The local populations are now becoming more affluent. Crucially, this is a phenomenon driven by state policy, as Beijing wishes to reduce the national East-West income gap and raise the standards of wealth across the country. It has been doing this by embarking on an aggressive policy of increasing minimum wages on a national basis, and especially so in the hinterlands. That is having the effect of increasing disposable income levels, and these consumers are now upgrading purchases from previously purely Chinese brands towards increasing levels of Western products.

This includes the use of fast-food chains such as McDonald’s, KFC and Starbucks; massive multi-brand retailers such as Wal-Mart, Carrefour, and others that are also making inroads into these further-flung destinations. The Louis Vuitton bag may still be the preserve of China’s super wealthy in Shanghai, but in cities such as Mianyang, youths are trading up their cheap Chinese sneakers for Nikes, and looking to acquire Levis instead of the local jeans. With these consumer patterns being duplicated across the rest of China’s inland provinces, the result is little less than a revolutionary 'upgradation' of inland consumer power.

The other markets in China worth keeping an eye on are those located along China’s borders. I wrote about Urumqi as a springboard for Central Asia recently. Developments elsewhere in Asia dictate that other border areas will also begin to experience significant growth, not least because of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ (ASEAN’s) full free trade agreement that is set to abolish tariffs between member nations by 2015.

ASEAN includes countries that rub up alongside China’s southwest border, such as Myanmar, Vietnam and Cambodia, and adds to that countries including Laos, Malaysia, and Thailand, while to the south of China (and Guangdong Province in particular), ASEAN nations such Indonesia and the Philippines provide easy access. Why is this important? Because China has its own free trade agreement with ASEAN, and those 0 percent export tariffs among ASEAN nations are largely duplicated within China’s own agreements with the bloc.

That means cities such as Jinghong and Luxi in Yunnan are also poised to become trade hubs. Jinghong, with a population of 520,000 is equivalent in size to Tuscon, Arizona and Sheffield in the United Kingdom, and borders Vietnam, while Luxi borders Myanmar, and with a population of 350,000 is similar in size to Tampa, Florida or Bilbao.

Demand from the West does continue to remain sluggish, and inattentive analysts like to point to a drop in national GDP growth rates as evidence of some sort of cataclysmic event concerning development in China. That is only one, rather blinkered way of assessing the situation. Since China’s annual growth has moved briskly along at 10 percent for much of the past 15 years, a deviation from that is greeted by analytical soothsayers with cries of doom. Yet China’s 10 percent growth was never capable of being sustained, as each successive year of double-digit growth has, naturally, expanded the base to the point where it is now the world’s second-largest economy.

China’s national GDP rates have slipped to between seven and eight percent, and it may be experiencing a “slowdown” to single-digit GDP growth when measured on a national basis. But the real story is the continued fast-paced development of wealth, disposable income, and increasing consumerism in China’s own emerging markets and the fourth, fifth and sixth-tier cities that help make up this this gigantic consumer sector. The challenge for the foreign investor will now be to reach out and go after these less glamorous locations.

Chris Devonshire-Ellis is the founder of Dezan Shira & Associates. His clients include North American-based legal and tax firms, chambers of commerce, commercial trade institutions and universities. Following a 26-year career based in Asia, including 20 in mainland China, Chris is now based in North America and oversees client development and investment strategies for U.S. corporations looking to invest in China, India and Emerging Asia.

Flickr photo by Ken Larmon: Downtown mall in Mianyang, Sichuan.

While it is still fashionable for politicians in both China and the United States to prove their domestic leadership credentials by taking tough stances against their nation’s chief economic rival, the results of recent Pew surveys conducted in the two countries suggest that this type of rhetoric is a holdover from an earlier era. An examination of the beliefs among the youngest generational cohorts in each country shows a distinct lack of the ideological vitriol so common in the 1960s and 1970s. As a result, we might see a far more congenial relationship between the world’s two great powers --- at least once the older generations fade away.  

Let’s hope so, because older generations sometimes seem  more committed to discord  than accord. During the 2012 US presidential campaign both President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney took full advantage of opportunities to criticize their opponent for the softness of his approach to China.  Xi Jinping, who was named the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party about a week after Obama was reelected and will become China’s Premier early next year, has been no less willing to rhetorically censure the United States.

Yet the Pew research indicates that the youngest generational cohort in both the US and China holds positive attitudes toward and favors contact with the other country.   In the United States that youthful cohort is the Millennial Generation (born 1982-2003), America’s largest and most ethnically diverse and tolerant generation to date. Of the 95 million US Millennials, about four in ten are nonwhite and one in twenty is of Asian descent, with Chinese-Americans comprising the largest portion of that segment. By contrast, among U.S. seniors and Boomers, only about one in five is nonwhite and about two-percent of Asian heritage.

Generational theorists have not definitively named the Millennials’ Chinese counterparts. Some observers, however, have called at least their urban segment “Little Emperors.” Similar to American Millennials, this generation was often reared by their own hovering “helicopter parents” in a highly protected, hyper-attentive manner that reflected the importance of these special children—the  product of China’s  “one child” policy—and the  great expectations their parents had and continue to have for their offspring. The result of this  upbringing are cohorts of civic-minded, pressured, conventional, patriotic American and Chinese young people who revere their parents, are optimistic about their nation’s future, and  open to the world.

In China, the Pew research, conducted in March and April, 2012, contained a battery of questions probing attitudes toward the United States, its interactions with China, and its influence on Chinese society. Across all of these questions, the youngest cohort (18-29 year olds) held significantly more favorable opinions about America than older Chinese. Given that Chinese who are 50 or older include generations that established the Communist regime in 1949, fought American troops in Korea, and were part of the ideological Red Guards of the 1960s, this is not altogether surprising.   

Overall, a majority (51%) of China’s youthful cohort held a positive view of the U.S. as compared with only 38% of older Chinese. More specifically, majorities of 18-29 year olds said they admired American technological and scientific advances (77%), American ideas about democracy (59%), U.S. music, movies, and television (56%), and agree that it is good that American ideas and customs are spreading to China (50%). Across all of these dimensions favorable attitudes toward the United States and its influence were at least 15 percentage points higher among the youngest Chinese cohort than the oldest. In only one area, the American way of doing business, did less than a majority of 18-29 year old Chinese (48%) indicate admiration of the United States; even on this dimension there was a 12-point gap between the positive opinions of younger and older Chinese respondents.

Pew did not ask the same questions in its American surveys that it did in the Chinese study. However, it did examine many of the same dimensions permitting valid comparison of survey results in the two countries. In a November 2011 survey examining the large generation gap in U.S. politics Pew asked if it was better for the United States to build a stronger economic relationship with China or to get tough with China on economic issues. American Millennials, a generation corresponding to Chinese 18-29 year olds, overwhelmingly favored a policy focusing on building stronger trade relations with China rather than one based on toughness (69% to 24%). By contrast, a plurality of the two oldest American generations—Boomers and seniors—believed that a tougher approach instead of closer economic ties with China was best (48% to 45%). These results reflect the far greater support of Millennials than older generations for free trade agreements overall (63% to 42%).

In its April 2012 Values survey, Pew examined the openness of Americans to “foreign,” if not specifically Chinese, influences. In one question, respondents were asked to agree or disagree with the statement: “It bothers me when I come in contact with immigrants who speak little or no English.” Only 32% of American Millennials compared to 44% of all older generations agreed. In another item Pew asked for agreement or disagreement with this statement: “the growing number of newcomers from other countries threatens traditional American customs and values.” Only four in ten Millennials (41%) as compared with a majority (53%) of Boomers and seniors agreed.

American Millennials are a generation that seeks to resolve disputes and conflicts by searching for win-win solutions rather than absolute victories over their opponents. Recent research suggests that their Chinese counterparts share many of the same attitudes. This bodes well for relations between their two countries in coming decades. The big question for the more immediate future is whether older generations in America and China will be able and willing to set aside the attitudes based on the ideologies and policies of the past long enough for Millennials on both sides of the Pacific to forge a new, less contentious relationship.  

Morley Winograd and Michael D. Hais areco-authors of the newly published Millennial Momentum: How a New Generation is Remaking America and Millennial Makeover: MySpace, YouTube, and the Future of American Politics and fellows of NDN and the New Policy Institute.

Shanghai photo by Bigstock.

Michael Peevey, President of the California Public Utilities Commission, is sincere and concerned about CO2 emissions. At a recent presentation at California State University Channel Islands, he spoke about California’s efforts to limit emissions. He mentioned green jobs, but, to his credit, he did not repeat the debunked claim that restricting CO2 emissions will be a net job creator. He also acknowledged that it doesn’t much matter what California does, if China doesn’t change its behavior. It turns out that if California were to reduce its carbon emissions to zero, in about a year and a half global CO2 would be higher anyway, just because of the growth in China’s emissions.

Peevey talked about California's increasingly ambitious plans for carbon reduction in the future. The goals include returning to 1990-level CO2 emmisions by 2020, and then an 80 percent reduction by 2050, regardless of population changes.

This is going to be expensive. And the price of some of the potential technology — such as capturing atmospheric CO2 and pumping it underground — will include a lot more than the direct cost. The ultimate costs will, unfortunately, include increased global CO2 emissions.

Some readers will remember the first time Larry Summers, the former US Treasury Secretary (under Bill Clinton) put his public career at risk because of his bluntness. In 1991, while Chief Economist at the World Bank, Summers gained international notoriety by saying in a memo, "I've always thought that under-populated countries in Africa are vastly under polluted."

That was the first of many times that lots of people demanded his head. He's since claimed that it was sarcasm, but I don't believe it. I believe he meant that environmental quality is a luxury good; that poor people need things like food and shelter, and they don't much care if they trash the environment in the process. So, if pollution were localized, the poor would gain jobs and the wealthy would have an improved environment. Presumably, each would be happier.

Of course, that sounds terrible to most people. But that's precisely what we are doing here in California, only we’re doing it worse.

California, by making production so very expensive, is chasing producers to places with low pollution controls. It's worse than the situation Summers describes, because carbon dioxide emissions do not remain local. They spread throughout the atmosphere. Perversely, California is causing a global increase in CO2 emissions by its regulations limiting CO2 emissions in California.

The problem is the result of acting on the concept of Think Globally and Act Locally (TGAL). TGAL works when pollution is local. But when air pollution is free to float around the world, you have to have a different strategy, and get the most reduction for your investment.

And you don’t get the most for your investment in California. In terms of carbon efficiency — the ability to generate output while emitting less CO2 — California is one of the world’s most efficient economies. Each new reduction in CO2 becomes increasingly expensive. That is, reducing emissions is subject to increasing marginal costs. Reducing carbon emission in California is really expensive because we’re so carbon efficient already. Reaching the 2050 goal will be incredibly expensive. Worse, it won’t do any good.

It’s not as if California can really afford it. Last month, I participated in the South Coast Association of Governments (SCAG) Third Annual Economic Summit. This great event provided lots of information about the economic challenges facing Southern California. For example, we learned that Los Angeles County’s economy will probably not reach its pre-recession level of jobs until at least 2018 and perhaps not until 2020.

That’s a sobering thought.

California State Sen. Roderick Wright, D-Los Angeles, a powerful speaker, documented California’s industrial decline, and made an emotional appeal for polices that produce jobs. The audience gave Wright a rousing ovation, something quite rare at economic conferences. The problem is that the audience was comprised of economic development people. Too bad no one else was listening. It was poorly attended by policy makers. There were only a handful of elected officials.

California’s economy is struggling, even if many in the political class refuse to acknowledge the fact. Because of that, our investments need to be wise. The correct strategy for California is global. We need to go looking for the low hanging fruit.

The low hanging fruit is mostly in developing countries like China, India and Brazil. We've tried to get them to cut their emissions at Kyoto and the like, but they refused, pointing out that they are much poorer than the West, and that we were able to develop with lower-cost polluting industries. They have a point.

We should help them cut their carbon emissions. Reducing a ton of CO2 emissions is far cheaper in China than in California. So, let’s reduce it there.

There are political problems with this proposal. California’s carbon regulations were sold to the people on the absurd claim that the regulations would be profitable: better than low cost, better than a free lunch.

The bigger problem would be convincing California voters to tax themselves to clean up Chinese factories. That seems to me to be an information dissemination problem. If Californians knew the true cost of the existing program, and how little reduction in global CO2 concentrations it brings, they might logically be willing to look at other approaches. If they knew how much more effective a dollar spent on Chinese emissions was than a dollar spent on California emissions, they might seriously consider the proposal. The proposal could always be sweetened by requiring that all the work be done by California companies.

It would be good for Californians. It would be a big step towards restoring California’s economic vigor. It would make a serious dent in global CO2 concentration. It would be less costly than our current plan.

Let’s do it.

Bill Watkins is a professor at California Lutheran University. and runs the Center for Economic Research and Forecasting, which can be found at clucerf.org.

Flickr photo by doc tobin: Smog on the Great Wall.

Nanjing is one of China's most historic cities. It is one of the four great ancient capitals of the nation, along with Beijing, Chang'an (Xi'an) and Luoyang. Its name means southern capital (Nan=south, Jing=capital), while the name of the current capital, Beijing means Northern capital. Nanjing was the national capital at various times, however generally for periods of no more than a few decades. Upon the establishment of the People's Republic of China, the national capital was moved permanently to Beijing, where it had been for most of the previous five centuries.

Nanjing is the capital of Jiangsu, which is China's fifth most populous province. It has twice as many people as California (80 million) and a land area the size of Virginia. Nanjing is also one of the "four furnaces" of China, a title derived from its humid summers. The others include Wuhan (Hubei), Chongqing and sometimes Changsha (Hunan) or Nanchang (Jiangxi).

Nanjing is reputed to have the world's longest, though not the oldest surviving city wall, which was built in the 14th century (Photo).  The city is also the site of the second bridge ever built over the lower Yangtze River (Photo), opened in 1968 (the first was at Wuhan). The bridge carries both automobiles and trains. There are now five Yangtze River crossings in Nanjing.

Nanjing City Wall

Yangtze River (toward suburban Pukou qu)

Yangtze Delta Megalopolis

Nanjing is a big city in one of the world's great urban mega-regions. It serves as the Western anchor of the Yangtze Delta region, a megalopolis (string of metropolitan areas) which consists of a string of sometimes adjacent urban areas, stretching through Suzhou to Shanghai and Hangzhou to Ningbo, with a population of approximately 60 million (plus additional millions in rural areas, outside the urban areas). This is at least a third more than live in the longer Washington-New York-Boston corridor, the original megalopolis.

A trip through the Yangtze Delta corridor demonstrates only comparatively short sections that are not urbanized. One of the longest is the 10 mile (16 kilometer) section from the eastern urban fringe of Nanjing to the western fringe of Zhenjiang (location of the Pearl S. Buck Museum). Further, Nanjing's southern fringe now meets that of Maanshan, in Anhui province (not a part of the Yangzte Delta).

The Nanjing Urban Area

Nanjing has grown rapidly. In 1950, the urban area population was approximately 1.0 million (see "Definition of Terms Used in the Evolving Urban Form Series"), a population some sources say was exceeded in the 15th century. The urban area has now reached 5.8 million. Nanjing is the world's 59th largest urban area and the 13th largest in China. It is projected to have a population of more than 8 million by 2025 (Figure 1). The Nanjing urban area (Figure 2) covers approximately 440 square miles (1,140 square kilometers). This results in a population density of approximately 13,100 per square mile (5,100 per square kilometer).

Consistent with the general principle that cities become less dense as they get larger, Nanjing's population density has fallen significantly over the last 60 years, even as its geographical size has more than quintupled (Figure 3). Older historic land area data is not readily available, but if it is assumed that virtually all of Nanjing's United Nations reported 1,000,000 population in 1950 lived within the 17 square mile (44 square kilometer) periphery of the city walls, the population density would have been more than 60,000 per square mile (more than 23,000 per square kilometer). The area within the city walls is indicated by green shading in the urban area representation (Figure 2).

By 1970, the population had increased to over 1.4 million and if this population was contained inside the city walls, the population density would have approached 90,000 per square mile (35,000 per square kilometer).Indicating a similar density, the 2010 population of the most densely populated district (Golou qu), much of which is located inside the Wall 86,000 per square mile (33,000 per square kilometer).

The Nanjing Metropolitan Area

Nanjing is a prefecture (regional municipality) with 11 districts, of which nine are in the metropolitan area (Note 1). The core of Nanjing continues to grow, from 2.5 million in 2000 to 3.4 million in 2010, an increase of 34 percent (Note 2). But in comparison, the suburban districts grew from 2.3 million to 3.8 million, an increase of 64 percent (Figure 4). For the first time, suburban Nanjing has a larger population than the urban core. The suburbs accounted for 64 percent of the metropolitan area's growth over the past decade, compared to 36 percent in the urban core (Figure 5).

Pukou, a suburban district across the Yangtze River from the historic location of Nanjing, was by far the fastest growing part of the metropolitan over the past decade. By 2010, the population had risen to 710,000 from 225,000 in 2000, when it was largely rural. Two metro lines are planned to connect Pukou to the rest of the urban area, which is likely to encourage further suburban development.

The Nanjing Economy

Nanjing, like other cities in China, has been a beneficiary of China's unprecedented poverty reduction, first launched by the economic reforms started by Deng Xiao Ping in the early 1980s. It is estimated that in 2012, Nanjing's gross domestic product per capita (purchasing power parity adjusted) was approximately $25,000 annually. Nanjing's GDP per capita is compared to that of other Chinese metropolitan areas and examples from the developed world in Table 6 (Note 3).

A Strong Future

Nanjing seems likely to continue its strong growth. This and Nanjing's geographic location in one of the most vibrant mega-regions in the world should guarantee a continuing and strong contribution not only to the development of the Yangtze Delta megalopolis, but also to economic progress of China as a whole.

Wendell Cox is a Visiting Professor, Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, Paris and the author of “War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life.

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Note 1: The districts (qu and counties) designated as urban by Nanjing prefecture (regional municipality) authorities Entire peripheral districts are designated when they begin to receive urban development. The "urban" designation in China, however, does not indicate continuous urbanization and is thus not an urban area in the internationally defined sense. The Chinese urban definition is thus similar to a metropolitan area (labor market).

Note 2: The urban core includes the following districts (qu): Xuanwu, Biaxia, Qinhaui and Gulou.

Note 3:  Estimated the Brookings Institution Global Metro Monitor, and other sources. See "World's Most Affluent Metropolitan Areas: 2012" including the "Note."

Top Photo: Zifeng Tower (all photos by author)

Skyscrapers have always intrigued me. Perhaps it began with selling almanacs to subscribers on my Oregon Journalpaper route in Corvallis. I have continued to purchase almanacs each year and until recently, the first thing I would do is look in the index for "Buildings, tall” in the old Pulitzer The World Almanac, the best source until the Internet.

My 1940 edition is the first in which “Buildings, tall” appears. The world of skyscrapers has changed radically through the years. This article provides a historical perspective on the world’s tallest buildings, using information from almanacs and the Internet (See Table Below). Extensive hyperlinking is also used, principally to articles on particular buildings.

The Rise of Commercial and Residential Buildings

Throughout most of history, the tallest habitable buildings have been religious edifices, or mausoleums, such as the great pyramids of Egypt. But in the middle to late 19th century, taller commercial and residential buildings were erected in the United States. For four years, from 1890 to 1894, the New York World Building, itself was the tallest in the world, at 309 feet (95 meters) and 20 floors. But it was not until the turn of the 20th century that a commercial or residential building exceeded the tallest religious building, Ulm Cathedral in Germany. This was Philadelphia's City Hall. In its wisdom, however, Philadelphia outlawed any building higher than William Penn’s head at the top of City Hall. It was not until the late 1980s that a taller building appeared in Philadelphia (One Liberty Place).

Tallest Buildings in 1940

Despite Chicago's claim as birthplace of the skyscraper, by 1940, nine of the 10 tallest buildings in the world were in New York. Manhattan was so dominant that the World Almanac listed the city at the top of the list, out of alphabetical order. The five tallest buildings, the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, 60 Wall Tower (now 70 Pine), 40 Wall Tower (now the Trump Building) and the RCA Building (now the GE Building) all  opened in the 1930s and represent Art Deco at its zenith. The sixth tallest, the Woolworth Building, had been the world’s tallest from 1913 to 1930 and is neo-Gothic.

Cleveland's Terminal Tower was 7th tallest, and the tallest building in the world outside New York. Cleveland's Union Terminal was in the building and served the legendary New York Central Railroad’spremier New York to Chicago 20th Century Limited.

Tallest Buildings in 1962

Things changed little by 1962. The five Art Deco skyscrapers that where the tallest in 1940 remained so in 1962. There were two newcomers to the top 10 list, both modernist monoliths, the Chase Manhattan Bank Building in lower Manhattan and the Pan Am Building (later the Met-Life Building). The Pan Am Building is despised by many New Yorkers as Parisians despise the Tour Montparnasse. This led to banning similar behemoths in the ville de Paris (most of the skyscrapers in the Paris urban area are in La Defense, a nearby suburban “edge city”). But all of the 10 tallest buildings in the world were in the United States.

Tallest Buildings in 1981

Just two decades later, New York's dominance eroded. By now, The World Almanac listed New York in alphabetical order, between New Orleans and Oakland. For the first time since before 1908 when the Singer Building opened, New York was not the home of the world’s tallest building. That title had gone to Chicago’s, Sears Tower (later Willis Tower), which opened in 1974. Chicago gained even more respect with two other buildings appearing in the top 10, the Standard Oil Building (nowAon Center) and the John Hancock Center, which was the tallest mixed use (residential and commercial) building in the world. The twin towers of the former New York World Trade Center were tied for second tallest in the world.

For the first time, a non-American skyscraper was in the top 10. Toronto's First Canadian Place was the eighth tallest in the world. Only three of the former five New York Art Deco buildings remained in the top 10, with 40 Wall Tower and the RCA Building no longer on the list.

Tallest Building in 2000

By 2000,   Kuala Lumpur, which is not among the largest cities in the world, emerged with both of the tallest buildings, in the Petronas Towers. The Petronas Towers ended America's long history of having the tallest building. These distinctive postmodern towers were just two of six Asian entries in the top 10, including another postmodern structure, the Jin Mao Tower in Shanghai’s Pudong, which is probably the world’s largest edge city.

I recall my surprise at exiting the Guangzhou East Railway station in 1999 to see the CITIC Tower, the 7th tallest building in the world. There could have been no better indication of that nation's modernization. The Pearl River Delta had two other of the tallest buildings, one in Shenzhen (Shun Hing Square), the special economic zone that became the economic model for the rest of China, and the second in Hong Kong (Central Plaza).

Tallest Building in 2013

By 2013, the world of skyscrapers had nearly completely overturned. Dubai, with a population little more than Minneapolis-St. Paul, is now home to the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa. The Burj Khalifa is not just another building. Never in history has a new tallest building exceeded the height of the previous tallest building by so much. Even the long dominant Empire State Building had exceeded the Chrysler building by only 200 feet (64 meters). The Burj Khalifa was nearly 1050 feet higher (320 meters) than the then tallest building, Taipei 101, and reaches to more than 1/2 mile (0.8 kilometers) into the sky. The world’s second tallest building (the Mecca Royal Hotel Clock Tower) is also on the Arabian Peninsula.

The Shanghai World Financial Center is now the fourth tallest in the world, and when it opened had the highest habitable floor and the highest observation deck in the world. Its unusual design has earned it the nickname "bottle opener" among residents (Photo 1). Hong Kong has a new entry in the list, the International Commerce Center, across the harbor in Kowloon. Nanjing’s Greenland Financial Complex (Photo 2) ranks 8th, and Shenzhen’s Kinkey 100 ranks 10th.

Nine of the 10 tallest buildings in the world are now in Asia. The last American entry is the Sears Tower (Willis Tower), in Chicago, which ranks 9th. Skyscraperpage.com maintains a graphic of the world's tallest buildings (Note 1).

Under Construction: A number of super-tall buildings (Note 2) will soon open. Earlier this month, the Shanghai Tower was “topped out.” This structure is across the street from the Jin Mao Tower and the Shanghai World Financial Center, forming by far the greatest concentration of super-tall skyscrapers in the world (Photo 1). The Ping An Finance Center in Shenzhen and the Wuhan Greenland Center in Wuhan are also under construction, and will rank, at least temporarily, second and third tallest in the world when completed. The Goldin Finance Building in Tianjin and the Lotte World Tower in Seoul will be somewhat shorter. One World Trade Center in New York will be completed before most of these, which will allow it brief entry into the top ten.

Another entry, Sky City in Changsha (Hunan) could be on the list, slightly taller than the Burj Khalifa. This building is to be constructed in 210 days, following site preparation and work began last month. It was, however, halted by municipal officials and there are conflicting reports as to the building’s status.

Skyscraperpage.com also maintains a graphic of the world's tallest under-construction buildings.

Tallest Buildings in 2020?

None of the tallest buildings in the world are predicted to be in the United States by 2020, according to a graphic of current plans posted on the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat website. The Burj Khalifa is expected to be replaced as tallest by another Arabian Peninsula entry, the Kingdom Tower in Jeddah, which will be 0.6 miles high (3.3 kilometers). The torch has been passed to Asia.

Wendell Cox is a Visiting Professor, Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, Paris and the author of “War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life.

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Note 1: There are a number of sources for information on tall buildings, such as the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, Skyscraperpage.com, Emporis.comand Wikipedia.com. Of course, my favorite will always be The World Almanac, even if the Internet provides faster access. Wikipedia also has fascinating articles on individual buildings (Wikipedia’sutility is limited to recreational research for identifying original sources, and should never be used in serious research, or God forbid, used in a footnote).

Note 2: The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitats defines a super-tall building as being over 980 feet (300 meters) high.

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Photo 1: Jin Mao Tower (left) and Shanghai World Financial Center (right), Shanghai. Construction began later on the recently topped out Shanghai Tower to the right of the Shanghai World Financial Center.

Photo 2: Greenland Financial Center, Nanjing

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Photograph: The New York World Building (1890-1955).

To paraphrase the great polemicist Thomas Paine, these are times that try the souls of optimists. The country is shuffling through a very weak recovery, and public opinion remains distinctly negative, with nearly half of Americans saying China has already leapfrogged us and nearly 60 percent convinced the country is headed in the wrong direction. Belief in the political leadership of both parties stands at record lows, not surprisingly, since we are experiencing what may be remembered as the worst period of presidential leadership, under both parties, since the pre-Civil War days of Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan.

Yet, despite the many challenges facing the United States, this country remains, by far, the best-favored part of the world, and is likely to become more so in the decade ahead. The reasons lie in the fundamentals: natural resources, technological excellence, a budding manufacturing recovery and, most important, healthier demographics. The rest of the world is not likely to cheer us on, since they now have a generally lower opinion of us than in 2009; apparently the "bounce" we got from electing our articulate, handsome, biracial Nobel laureate president is clearly, as Pew suggests, "a thing of the past."

But as the Romans used to say, don't let the bastards get you down. After all, it's not like our competitors are stealing the march on us. Start with Europe. Just a few years ago, writers like Jeremy Rifkin and Steven Hill were telling us that Europe was the "model" for the world. Expand the welfare state, curtail capitalist excess, provide a comfortable partner to the rising nations of the world, and, well, enjoy a long and comfortable early retirement.

Now, that early retirement is quickly turning into a kind of senility. Not only is Europe continuing to age– particularly along its Southern rim – but the fiscal pressures of ultrahigh unemployment, approaching 30 percent or above, among the young and the costs of maintaining a strong welfare state could create what urban analyst Aaron Renn has labeled "a demographic Lehman Brothers."

At the same time the near-collapse of the Southern-rim countries threatens the viability of Europe's banks, including those in Germany. Increasingly, Germany lives largely so the rest of Europe can die more quickly. Like a prototypical science-fiction villain, Germany – with fewer children than it had in 1900 – relies increasingly on the blood taken from the decaying Southern rim countries. By 2025, Germany's economy will need 6 million additional workers, likely from such countries as Spain, Italy, Greece and Portugal, to keep its economic engine humming, according to government estimates.

Asian anemia

What about our prime Asian competitors? Japan has been the sick man of Asia for more than two decades. It's now desperate enough to unleash Bernanke-like money-printing policies to supply some desperately needed economic Viagra. With a weaker currency, and more money from the Tokyo exchange, there could be a temporary recovery, but Japan's long term prognosis is not good.

What Japan really needs is more animal spirits – particularly the kind that produce offspring. By 2050, according to UN estimates, Japan will have 3.7 times as many people at least age 65 than 15 and younger. By then, there will be 10 percent more Japanese over 80 than under 15. Without an unlikely embrace of immigration, Japan is destined to become the nation in wheelchairs.

China poses a more serious challenge, but the Middle Kingdom appears headed toward what one analyst calls "the end" of its amazing and profound economic miracle. Growth, once projecting Chinese global preeminence, is slowing precipitously. The country now faces a growing rank of competitors from lower-wage countries poised to take market share from the Middle Kingdom.

China faces growing political instability at the grass-roots level, a mountain of state-issued bad debt and a festering environmental crisis, which threatens long-term food supplies and could create massive health problems. China is rapidly aging. It will have 60 million fewer people under age 15 by 2050, while gaining nearly 190 million people at least 65, approximately the population of Pakistan, the world's fourth-most populous country.

The so-called BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), once the darlings of the investment banking set, all are facing slowing growth and rising political instability. It doesn't help that most are either total or partial kleptocracies, dependent on commodity exports or cheap labor. This is not a solid foundation for ascendency as newer emerging nations – Myanmar, Indonesia, Vietnam – ramp up.

ENERGY SHIFT

On all these accounts, North America, including our Canadian and Mexican neighbors, looks best-positioned. The first, and, arguably, most important game-changer is the energy revolution that could realign the economic stars for decades to come. The shale oil and natural gas boom, as the Economist recently noted, is as illustrative of America's future, and genius at reinvention, "as the algorithms being generated in Silicon Valley."

The energy boom's best aspect, besides the emergence of relatively cleaner natural gas, is making global tyrants, such as those ruling Saudi Arabia and Russia, nervous about their future place in the world. These worries alone should send a three-word message to our leaders: Go for it.

But North America is not, like Russia, a one-trick pony. The U.S. remains the world's leading food producer and exporter, sending out more of such critical commodities as soybeans, corn and wheat than any other country. After decades of decline, the U.S. industrial base is growing again, and, although job growth is likely to be limited, our manufacturing sector is already the most productive in the world. With the advantages of a decent legal order, a huge domestic market and available workforce, the U.S. has remained the largest recipient of foreign investment on the planet, roughly five times that so far accumulated in China.

Technology can be a fickle industry, but at this point of the game, it's fair to say the U.S. is winning that race. As potentially dangerous as the tech giants may become over time, the U.S. dominance in everything from software code (Microsoft) and design (Apple), search (Google), e-retailing (Amazon), and social networking (Facebook) is nothing short of astounding. We even lead in the coffee business (Starbucks) that keeps all those nerds typing code late into the night.

Cultural influence

Then there's the matter of culture. For years, Asian, Third World and European cultural warriors have plotted to knock the U.S. off its pre-eminent perch. But the European film industry is a shadow of its once-glorious efflorescence; much the same can be said about the once-splendid Japanese cinema. To be sure, Chinese films, Korean pop stars and Bollywood are rising forces, but U.S. exports more than $14 billion annually in film and television. On a global level, no one can compete with Hollywood as a packager of images and dreams – and Silicon Valley's control of new distribution technology could further boost this advantage.

Finally, there's the matter of demographics. The United States, like its competitors, is aging, but not as quickly as our prime rivals. The birth rate has slowed with the recession, but it's likely to come back toward replacement levels in the years ahead as millennials enter their thirties en masse, and immigrants continue coming to the country. America should be the only one of the top five economies with a growing workforce over the next few decades.

So, if things are so good, why do they seem so bad? Sixteen years of lackluster leadership has not helped – a succession of two spendthrift presidents, one a too-happy warrior with a weak sense of the limits of even an imperial power, and the other, a posturing and arrogant academic oddly disconnected from the fundamental grass-roots drive that moves his country's economy. Yet I prefer to see it in a more positive light: If we can do better than our major competitors under such leadership, how great a country is this?

Joel Kotkin is executive editor of NewGeography.com and Distinguished Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University, and a member of the editorial board of the Orange County Register. He is author of The City: A Global History and The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050. His most recent study, The Rise of Postfamilialism, has been widely discussed and distributed internationally. He lives in Los Angeles, CA.

This piece originally appeared at The Orange County Register.

USA map image by BigStockPhoto.

OK, I get it. Between George W. Bush and Barack Obama we have made complete fools of ourselves on the international stage, outmaneuvered by petty lunatics and crafty kleptocrats like Russia’sVladimir Putin. Some even claim we are witnessing “an erosion of world influence” equal to such failed states as the Soviet Union and the French Third Republic. “Has anyone noticed how diminished, how very Lilliputian, America has become?” my friend Tunku Varadajaran recently asked.

In reality, it’s our politicians who have gotten small, not America. In our embarrassment, we tend not to notice that our rivals are also shrinking. Take the Middle East — please. Increasingly, we don’t need it because of North America’s unparalleled resources and economic vitality.

Welcome then to the NAFTA century, in which our power is fundamentally based on developing a common economic region with our two large neighbors. Since its origins in 1994, NAFTA has emerged as the world’s largest trading bloc, linking 450 million people that produce $17 trillion in output. Foreign policy elites in both parties may focus on Europe, Asia and the Middle East, but our long-term fate lies more with Canada, Mexico and the rest of the Americas.

Nowhere is this shift in power more obvious than in the critical energy arena, the wellspring of our deep involvement in the lunatic Middle East. Massive finds have given us a new energy lifeline in places like the Gulf coast, the Alberta tar sands, the Great Plains, the Inland West, Ohio, Pennsylvania and potentially California.

And if Mexico successfully reforms its state-owned energy monopoly, PEMEX, the world energy — and economic — balance of power will likely shift more decisively to North America. Mexican President Pena Nieto’s plan, which would allow increased foreign investment in the energy sector, is projected by at least one analyst to boost Mexico’s oil output by 20% to 50% in the coming decades.

Taken together, the NAFTA countries now boast larger reserves of oil, gas (and if we want it, coal) than any other part of the world. More important, given our concerns with greenhouse gases, NAFTA countries now possess, by some estimates, more clean-burning natural gas than Russia, Iran and Qatar put together. All this at a time when U.S. energy use is declining, further eroding the leverage of these troublesome countries.

This particularly undermines the position of Putin, who has had his way with Obama but faces long-term political decline. Russia, which relies on hydrocarbons for two-thirds of its export revenues and half its budget, is being forced to cut gas prices in Europe due to a forthcoming gusher of LNG exports from the U.S. and other countries. In the end, Russia is an economic one-horse show with declining demography and a discredited political system.

In terms of the Middle East, the NAFTA century means we can disengage, when it threatens our actual strategic interests. Afraid of a shut off of oil from the Persian Gulf? Our response should be: Make my day. Energy prices will rise, but this will hurt Europe and China more than us, and also will stimulate more jobs and economic growth in much of the country, particularly the energy belts of the Gulf Coast and the Great Plains.

China and India have boosted energy imports as we decrease ours; China is expected to surpass the United States as the world’s largest oil importer this year. At the same time, in the EU, bans on fracking and over-reliance on unreliable, expensive “green” energy has driven up prices for both gas  and electricity.

These high prices have not only eroded depleted consumer spending but is leading some manufacturers, including in Germany, to look at relocating production , notably to energy-rich regions of the United States. This shift in industrial production is still nascent, but is evidenced by growing U.S. manufacturing at a time when Europe and Asia, particularly China, are facing stagnation or even declines. Europe’s industry minister recently warned of “anindustrial massacre” brought on in large part by unsustainably high energy prices.

The key beneficiaries of NAFTA’s energy surge will be energy-intensive industries such as petrochemicals — major new investments are being made in this sector along the Gulf Coast by both foreign and domestic companies. But it also can be seen in the resurgence in North American manufacturing in automobiles, steel and other key sectors. Particularly critical is Mexico’s recharged industrial boom. In 2011 roughly half of the nearly $20 billion invested in the country was for manufacturing. Increasingly companies from around the world see our southern neighbor as an ideal locale for new manufacturing plants; General Motors GM -0.96%, Audi , Honda, Perelli, Alcoa and the Swedish appliance giant Electrolux have all announced major investments.

Critically this is not so much Ross Perot’s old “sucking sound” of American jobs draining away, but about the shift in the economic balance of power away from China and East Asia. Rather than rivals, the U.S., Mexican and Canadian economies are becoming increasingly integrated, with raw materials, manufacturing goods and services traded across the borders. This integration has proceeded rapidly since NAFTA, with U.S. merchandise exports to Mexico growing from $41.6 billion in 1993 to $216.3 billion in 2012, an increase of 420%,while service exports doubled. MeanwhileU.S. imports from Mexico increased from $39.9 billion in 1993 to $277.7 billion in 2012, an increase of 596%.

At the same time, U.S. exports to Canada increased from $100.2 billion in 1993 to $291.8 billion in 2012.

Investment flows mirror this integration. As of 2011, the United States accounted for 44% of all foreign investment in Mexico, more than twice that of second-place Spain; Canada, ranking fourth, accounts for another 10%. Canada, which, according to a recent AT Kearney report, now ranks as the No. 4 destination for foreign direct investment, with the U.S. accounting for more than half the total in the country. Over 70% of Canada’s outbound investment goes to the U.S.

Our human ties to these neighbors may be even more important. (Disclaimer: my wife is a native of Quebec). Mexico, for example, accounts for nearly 30% of our foreign-born population, by far the largest group. Canada, surprisingly, is the largest source of foreign-born Americans of any country outside Asia or Latin America.

We also visit each other on a regular basis, with Canada by far the biggest sender of tourists to the U.S., more than the next nine countries combined; Mexico ranks second. The U.S., for its part, accounts for two-thirds of all visitors to Canada and the U.S. remains by far largest source of travelers to Mexico.

These interactions reflect an intimacy Americans simply do not share with such places as the Middle East (outside Israel), Russia, and China. There’s the little matter of democracy, as well as a common sharing of a continent, with rivers, lakes and mountain ranges that often don’t respect national borders. Policy-maker may prefer to look further afield but North America is our home, Mexico and Canada our natural allies for the future. Adios, Middle East and Europe; bonjour, North America.

This story originally appeared at Forbes.

Joel Kotkin is executive editor of NewGeography.com and Distinguished Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University, and a member of the editorial board of the Orange County Register. He is author of The City: A Global History and The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050. His most recent study, The Rise of Postfamilialism, has been widely discussed and distributed internationally. He lives in Los Angeles, CA.

NAFTA logo by AlexCovarrubias.

Less than 35 years ago, China established its first special economic zone in Shenzhen, a prefecture (Note) bordering Hong Kong. This model is about to be expanded with the establishment of a new financially oriented free-trade zone in Shanghai, which could prove a major breakthrough in that city’s quest to become East Asia’s financial capital. The “China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone (FTZ)” is located in eastern Pudong, the Shanghai’s suburban district (qu) that includes the huge new Pudong business district, across the river from the central business district in Puxi. 

The potential here for rapid growth can be seen by reviewing the success of the Shenzen special economic zone (SEZ), When founded, the SEZ contained little more than a fishing village, but soon was transformed into a manufacturing and trading center, propelled by a less constrained regulatory environment. Foreign investment soared. The success of the Shenzhen model led to expansion of the zone and other special economic zones were established around the country. Shenzhen’s prosperity extended into neighboring Pearl River Delta prefectures such as Guangzhou, Dongguan, Foshan, Zhuhai and Zhongshan. Investment friendly policies were applied virtually across the nation in the years that followed. Today, for example, Apple makes many of its tablets in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan, 1200 miles (2000 kilometers) inland via China’s larger equivalent of the US interstate highway system.

Yet the economic advances of the special economic zones were anything but inevitable. Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping faced strong opposition from some high government officials, who were intent on limiting the scope of the Shenzhen experiment. Some even hoped to shut it down altogether (see Ezra Vogel’sDeng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China). Moreover, the economic advance of China involved, as the late Nobel Laureate Ronald Coase and Ning Wang relate in How China Became Capitalist much more than conscious economic policy. Coase and Wang characterize the government’s light handed policies as permitting the “marginal revolutions” in individual entrepreneurship, township and village enterprises (locally owned enterprises) and private farming. These, and the special economic zones, were the driving forces in the Chinese economic miracle.

And, as is predictable, not everyone is happy with the results of China’s transformation. There is persistent criticism of the inequality of income that has developed in China over the period. Yet, sitting on the sidelines, it is easy to second-guess the results of national economic policies, which do not always produce the intended outcomes. Suffice it to say that since 1980, China, one of the poorest nations in the world, has pursued policies, both of commission and omission, that have together lifted more people from poverty than ever before in history (See: Alleviating Poverty: A Progress Report). There is probably not a more important domestic objective for governments.

Shanghai’s New Financially Oriented Free Trade Zone

In the past the free trade zones focused principally on manufacturing. The new Shanghai free trade zone is the first to specialize in finance. The zone stretches along the Pacific Coast from north of Pudong International Airport, south through the large new town of Nanhui and across the Donghai Bridge to the new deep water port, which is an important component of the Port of Shanghai, now the largest in the world, and is designed to focus on finance. Initially, it will cover 11 square miles (29 square kilometers), but Hong Kong’s South China Morning Postsuggests that it might eventually be expanded to cover all of the Pudong New Area. This would expand the area to 467 square miles (1,210 square kilometers), an area nearly as large as the San Francisco-Oakland built up urban area.

According to The Wall Street Journal“China's government said it would turn a new free-trade zone here into a laboratory for remaking the country's financial sector...” The Journal continues: “Financial-sector changes are at the heart of the experimentation in the zone: letting the market, rather than regulators, set interest rates and allowing firms to convert money more freely from yuan to foreign currencies and move the money overseas.”

The Chinese based Global Times characterized the new free trade zone as an important step in China's economic reform and the internationalization of the yuan. 

As in the case of Shenzhen, government officials are characterizing the establishment of the new “Pilot Free Trade Zone” as an experiment. The Journal reports that the project is championed by new Premier Premier Li Keqiang, just as Shenzhen was championed by Deng Xiaoping. Should the zone be successful, it would not be surprising to see other such zones established. Perhaps, it will lead to an eventual liberalization of financial regulation across the nation, which is critical for China’s future development.

Shanghai American Chamber of Commerce president Kenneth Jarrett responded positively to the announcement, telling China Daily: "One thing significant about the zone is its relationship to China's economic reform agenda. Because there are a lot of talks about the need to rebalance the economy and make it more market-oriented, the FTZ (free trade zone) is a signature piece for the whole process."

Yet, this will be far from a total free-market paradise. The government has announced a list of restrictions, including industries in which foreign investment will not be permitted and industries in which investment will be limited to joint ventures with Chinese companies.

Chinese sources emphasize the evolutionary nature of the restrictions. According to Shanghai Daily, “The list is a temporary version for 2013 and the zone regulators will update the list every one or two years to better facilitate liberalization policies testing in the free trade zone.”

Differing Views

The new free trade zone move comes as analysts increasingly suggest the need to liberalize its financial sector. The Pilot FTZ could lead China’s financial sector toward greater integration into the globalized economy. This would strengthen China’s integration with the world, and could pose a major challenge to established financial centers, such as New York, London, Hong Kong and Singapore, In an editorial, The South China Morning Post (SCMP) speculates that the reforms begun with the Pilot FTZ could eventually undermine Hong Kong’s position as Asia’s financial center. The SCMP further notes that “The ultimate effect” of the Pilot FTZ “could be to help speed up economic reform nationwide. And that might be the bigger threat to Hong Kong.”

If the skeptics are right, the restrictions and slowness of reform could limit the effectiveness of the zone and the challenge it poses to Hong Kong and other global financial capitals.  Such a view may be naïve. Other views are that reforms could lead to far more important consequences both in Asia and the World,.

The most significant impacts could be on the United States, at least if former International Monetary Fund economist Arvind Subramanian is right. In his controversial book, Eclipse: Living in the Shadow of China’s Economic Dominance, Subramanian predicts that China will replace the United States as the world’s dominant economy by 2030 and that the yuan could replace the dollar as the principal reserve currency by that time. This could become more plausible if the financial liberalization apparently at the heart of the Pilot FTZ effort proceeds with dispatch.

History: Repeating Itself?

The signs from China are not completely clear. Bob Davis and Lingling Wei have just published an analytical The Wall Street Journal article that notes that President Xi Jinping has “veered left on some political issues.” Yet, indications on the economic front could be the opposite. The article focuses on Lie He, Xi Jinping’s leading economic advisor, Liu He, who Harvard’s 2001 Nobel laureate Michael Spence calls “an example of Chinese pragmatism," Spence adds that  Liu "…thinks markets are important mechanisms for getting things done efficiently," but "they're not religion to him."

Deng Xiaoping famously talked of crossing the river by “following the stones.” This cautious approach uses seemingly glacial policy changes that gradually initiate major change.This is how China has evolved over the past 35 years. Again, the Chinese appear to be choosing caution. This is not fast enough for some analysts, but this may also be a development that could augur many changes, not only for China, but for all its primary competitors in Asia and elsewhere.

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Note: The alternate term “prefecture” is used to denote the local jurisdictions into which all of China’s land area is divided. These go by various terms, with “municipality” or “city” used most frequently. In each case, municipalities are more akin to metropolitan areas (or even larger areas), which include the built-up urban areas and substantial expanses of surrounding rural territory.

Photo: Pudong, Century Avenue toward the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone (by author)

Viewed from a 50-year perspective, the rise of East Asia has been the most significant economic achievement of the past half century. But in many ways, this upward trajectory is slowing, and could even reverse. Simply put, affluence has led many Asians to question its cost, in terms of family and personal life, and is sparking a largely high-end hegira to slower-growing but, perhaps, more pleasant, locales.

The Asian Century may have arrived, but many Asians – disproportionately entrepreneurial, well-educated and familial – are heading elsewhere. In the United States, they have surged past Hispanics as the largest source of immigrants and now account for well over a third of all newcomers. But that's just the tip of this wave: Recent Gallup surveys reveal that tens of millions more – 40 million from the Indian subcontinent and China alone – would come if they could. This is far more than the 5 million in Mexico who would still like to move here.

For the most part, these highly urbanized Asians are headed to places that may not be exactly pastoral, but are decidedly less-crowded places, either in the suburbs of great cities or, increasing, to sprawling low-density regions such as Houston, Dallas, Charlotte and Phoenix. In large swaths of Los Angeles County's San Gabriel Valley, parts of the southeastern Orange County as well as the Santa Clara Valley, six cities, including tony San Marino, already are majority Asian, and many, including several in Orange County, are either there or well on the way.

For the most part, these primarily suburban places, widely disdained by the dominant media and academic classes, appear to seem awfully nice to Asian immigrants. Nationwide over the past decade, the Asian population in suburbs grew by almost 2.8 million, or 53 percent, while their numbers expanded in core cities by 770,000, or 28 percent. In Southern California, the shift is even more pronounced: In Los Angeles and Orange counties – the nation's largest Asian region, the suburbs added roughly five times as many Asians as did the core city. There are now roughly three Asian suburbanites for every core city dweller in our region.

This is not just an American phenomenon. Asians, by far the fastest-growing large ethnic group in Canada, constitute a majority in many Toronto suburbs, like Markham, Brampton, Mississauga and Richmond Hill. The same pattern is seen in areas around Vancouver, such as Richmond, Greater Vancouver, Burnaby and Surrey. Asians, who, following New Zealanders, constitute a majority of newcomers in Australia, also tend to settle in suburbs, particularly newer ones.

It's most important to understand the reasons these people leave their homelands. Historically, people immigrate from places where there is a perceived lack of opportunity. Yet, many of the Asian countries seeing people leave – places like Singapore, Taiwan and China – have enjoyed consistently higher economic growth rates than any of the destination countries. What these immigrants increasingly understand is that, as their country's GDP has surged, their quality of life has not and, in many ways, has deteriorated.

These are the sometimes subtle but important things that tend to be ignored by geopoliticians and urban ideologues, attracted by the density and transit-richness of the Asian cities. “Everyday life,” observed the great French historian Fernand Braudel, “consists of the little things one hardly notices in time and space.” And, by these measurements, life in the United States, Canada or Australia is simply better than that in most Asian countries.

In contrast, urban Asia, although rich and often colorful, has become an increasingly difficult place both for everyday life and for families. A nice salary might be satisfying, but is unlikely to be large enough to buy a house or apartment in places like Taipei or Hong Kong, where the cost of even a tiny apartment equals more than twice – adjusted for income – what would be sufficient to purchase a house in Irvine, and four times as much as an even larger residence in Houston, Dallas or Phoenix. Not surprisingly, most Asians in America feel they are living better than their parents, compared with their counterparts at home. Only 12 percent would choose to move back to their home country.

Beyond housing, life in hyperurbanized Asia does not buy much happiness. Prosperous Singapore, for example, is one of the most pessimistic places on the planet, while ultradense South Korea has been ranked as among the least-happy nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, ranking 32nd of 34 members. The country also suffers from among the highest suicide rates in the higher-income world.

This reflects the often-ignored impacts of dense urbanization, including rising obesity, particularly among the young, who get less exercise and spend more time desk-bound. The air is foul, particularly in Beijing, no matter how much money you have. A healthy bank account does not exempt one from emphysema.

Others complain about the dangers of a political system where wealth can always be confiscated by the state; no surprise, then, that a new survey shows roughly half of China's millionaires are looking to move, primarily to the U.S. or Canada. During 2010-11, the number of Chinese applying for a U.S. investor visa, which requires a $1 million investment in the country, more than tripled, to more than 3,000. Repression of political thought and, particularly, against religion, also ranks as a major cause for leaving the homeland.

The family – the historic centerpiece of cultures from India to Korea – may constitute the biggest victim of the hypercompetitive, ultradense Asian lifestyle. Hong Kong, Singapore and Seoul suffer among the world's lowest fertility rates, with rates around 1. Meanwhile, Shanghai's fertility rate has fallen to 0.7, among the lowest ever reported, well below China's “one child” mandate and barely one-third the rate required simply to replace the current population. Due largely to crowding and high housing prices, 45 percent of couples in Hong Kong say they have given up having children.

For those who do want to start a family, it increasingly makes sense to immigrate. This is evident in rising emigration from China's cities, Hong Kong and Singapore, where roughly one in 10 citizens now lives abroad, often in lower-density communities in Australia, Canada and the United States.

The nature of those immigrating is critically important. We are long past the days when the average Asian migrant is a physical laborer or a small-scale merchant. Now, the more typical newcomer is a student or a highly qualified professional. In Australia, Asians, notably from India, China and Taiwan, make up the vast majority of immigrants who qualify for entry under skills-oriented criteria.

This pattern also can be seen in the United States. Asians now constitute a majority of workers in Silicon Valley. They also tend to concentrate in what may be best described as the country's largely suburban nerdistans – magnets for high-tech workers – places like Plano, Texas, Bellevue, Wash., Irvine and large swaths of Santa Clara County.

Does all this mean Asia is about to experience a precipitous decline? Not at all. But it is also increasingly clear that the dense model of development adopted on much of that continent – exacerbated by a mass movement to cities – is not, in a larger social sense, truly sustainable. Societies that become difficult for families, and exact too much stress on their residents, are destined to suffer maladies from ultrarapid aging, shrinking workforces and a host of psychological maladies.

These strains will become more evident over time. Already, most Asian societies, from Japan and China to Singapore and Taiwan, are experiencing less growth, linked in part to financial pressures from a rapidly aging society. The economic motivations for staying in Asia will likely decline, accelerating the flight both of financial and, more importantly, human capital.

Every society relies on the resourcefulness of its people, particularly the young. The loss of skilled individuals and, especially, families suggests we may have already witnessed the peak of the half-century-long Asian ascendency, well before the American era has even come to its oft-predicted demise.

Joel Kotkin is executive editor of NewGeography.com and Distinguished Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University, and a member of the editorial board of the Orange County Register. He is author of The City: A Global History and The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050. His most recent study, The Rise of Postfamilialism, has been widely discussed and distributed internationally. He lives in Los Angeles, CA.

This piece originally appeared at The Orange County Register.

Singapore skyline photo by Bigstockphoto.com.

The world’s largest economies seem engaged in something like the children’s game of “musical chairs.” For years, the United States has been the world’s largest national economy, though in recent decades the integrated economy of the European Union has challenged that claim given that the region   includes four of the ten top national economies, Germany, the United Kingdom, France and Italy. The most recent data, reflecting the deep European recession, indicates that the top position has been retaken by the United States.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has released its semi-annual World Economic Outlook Database for October 2013. Information is provided for 189 country-level geographies, from 1980 to the present, with projections to 2018. Despite the economic malaise, the IMF data shows the US gross domestic product, adjusted for purchasing power parity (GDP-PPP), to be greater than that of the combined 28 member European Union (EU). This development, however, is at least partially due to accounting revisions, which are described below.

2012 Gross Domestic Product (Purchasing Power Parity)

The new data shows the United States to have a 2012 GDP-PPP of $16.245 trillion (current international dollars), two percent above the EU’s $15.933. This difference is relatively minor – the equivalent of Maryland’s GDP. In 2011, the EU led the US by a small margin, before the accounting methodology change. The IMF expects the US lead to be lengthened to approximately 10 percent by 2018. For comparison, in 1980, the same 28 EU economies had a GDP nearly one-quarter larger than that of the United States (Figures 1 and 2). However, it must be noted that in 1980, the European Union had only nine members and had an economy 8 percent smaller than that of the US.           

China’s reduced, but still strong economic growth has propelled it to a GDP-PPP of $12.3 trillion, reaching 75 percent of the US figure. By 2018, the IMF expects China to reach 96 percent of the US GDP. If the IMF projected GDP increase rates of China and the US were to continue, China would be a larger economy than the United States by 2020. While this may be seem to be occurring sooner than expected, it is consistent with the expectation of former IMF economist Arvind Subramanian, in his book Eclipse: Living in the Shadow of China’s Economic Dominance. The scale of Chinese economic miracle that started under Deng Xiaoping can be seen by the fact that in 1980 its GDP was barely 10 percent of the US economy (See Ronald Coase and Ning Wang, How China Became Capitalist).

India’s economy also continues to progress. Now the world’s fifth largest economy, India’s GDP-PPP is estimated at $4.7 trillion. By 2012, India’s economy had reached 29 percent of that of the United States, nearly triple the 1980 figure. IMF expects India to close the gap by another five percentage points by 2018.

Japan has fallen to the fifth largest economy, at approximately $4.58 trillion. Japan had grown strongly after World War II, having reached 35 percent of the US economy by 1980. A number of experts, such as Harvard’s Ezra Vogel, expected that Japan would continue to close the gap with the United States. But Japan’s ascendency stopped by 1991, when it reached a size 41 percent of the US economy. In the subsequent economic slide, Japan’s economy fell to 28 percent of the US by 2012. IMF expects another two point drop by 2018.

Gross Domestic Product per Capita (Purchasing Power Parity)

The United States remains dominant in personal affluence among the world’s largest economies. In 2012, the US GDP-PPP per capita was $51,700. The European Union had a GDP-PPP of $31,600 in 2012, but is declining relative to the United States. In 2012, the EU GDP per capita was 61 percent of the US figure. This is down from a peak of 66 percent in 1982. IMF projects a further three percentage point loss by 2018 (Figures 3 and 4). The GDP-PPP per capita of the nations in the 9 nation European Union of 1980 was higher, at $36,100 in 2012 (Figure 5).

Despite China’s potential for becoming the world’s leading economy by the beginning of the next decade, its huge population makes the GDP per capita much lower. In 2012 China’s GDP per capita was $9,100, about 18 percent of the US figure. This is, however, far higher than the 1980 figure of 2 percent. IMF expects China’s GDP per capita to rise to $14,900 by 2018, 23 percent of the US figure. 

India’s GDP per capita was $3,800 in 2012, or seven percent of the US GDP per capita. India’s progress has been rapid, though   strongly overshadowed by China. India’s GDP per capita was 70 percent higher than China’s in 1980, but now China’s is now 60 percent higher. However, India has gained five percentage points on the US since 1980.

Japan’s GDP per capita stood at 69 percent of the US figure in 2012 ($35,900), down significantly from 1991, when Japan’s GDP per capita reached 84 percent of the US level. IMF projects about a 1.5 percentage point further decline by 2018.

Accounting Revision

As is noted above, the accounting changes implemented by the United States have changed the world rankings and their prospects

Data in the IMF’s last release (March 2013) placed the European Union slightly ahead of the United States in GDP-PPP. The United States is the first country to fully implement internationally agreed upon changes to national accounts (United Nations’ System of National Accounts 2008).  The IMF summarizes the revisions and its impact on the US economy as follows:

“…expenditures on research and development activities and for the creation of entertainment, literary, and artistic originals are now treated as capital expenditures. Furthermore, the treatment of defined-benefit pension plans is switched from a cash basis to an accrual basis. The revisions increase the level of GDP by 3.4 percent and boost the personal savings rate.”

The US Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis indicates that Europe will convert to the new methodology in 2013 and it is to be expected that other nations will quickly follow.

Before the accounting revision IMF data predicted that US would not pass the EU until 2015. Further, the previously lower GDP figures predicted that China would pass the United States just two years later (2017). China may have to wait to assume the top chair, but perhaps not. It all depends on how fast China converts to the new accounting and the impact of the revision on GDP figures.

An Uncertain World

Of course, economic projections cannot be “taken to the bank.” The world economy is volatile and uncertain and more so now that in more stable times.

The US economy continues to sputter along with lagging growth. The European economy is doing even more poorly. Mixed signals continue to be heard from China, where astronomic growth rates are being replaced, at least for the moment, by more modest ones. President Xi Jinping says that China can create sufficient employment for its growing urban workforce with a 7.2 percent growth rate (See: “China Needs 7.2% Growth to Ensure Employment” in The Wall Street Journal) – a rate that would be the envy of each of the world’s strongest economies.

The big high income world nations also have reason to envy India. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the economy of India “clocked a low growth rate of 4.4 percent” in the April to June quarter. The OECD characterized India’s immediate economic prospects as “weak,” yet India’s growth rate is far above those of the US, EU and Japan.

The Bank of Japan (BOJ), the nation’s reserve bank, is optimistic about the nation’s new growth-seeking policies under “Abenomics” (named after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe). But the BOJ predictions of economic growth at 1.5 percent in 2014 and 2015 are favorable only in the light of Japan’s anemic recent growth.

All of these predictions, combined with accounting changes, paint a blurred picture. This is the nature of a world economy that the IMF refers to as being stuck in “low gear.”

Wendell Cox is a Visiting Professor, Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, Paris and the author of “War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life.

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Photo: Bank of China (right) and Peace Hotel, Shanghai (by author)

China's recent decision to reverse – at least in part – its policy limiting most couples to one child marks a watershed in thinking about demographics. Yet, this reversal of the 30-year policy may prove unavailing due to reasons – notably dense urbanization and high property prices – that work against people having more children.

China already faces a demographic crisis unprecedented for a still-poor country. By 2050, China will have 60 million fewer people under 15 years of age, while the over-65 population grows by 190 million, approximately the population of Pakistan, the world's sixth-most populous country. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that China's population will peak in 2026, and then will age faster than any country besides Japan; most of the world's decline in children and workers ages 15-19 over the next two decades will take place in China.

The shift in family-size policy acknowledges these looming demographic changes but may not be sufficient to address them. After all, similar problems have cropped up in other Asian countries, including such successful nations as Japan, Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea. All face tremendous fiscal crises from the prospect of a diminishing workforce insufficient to support swelling numbers of seniors. This “burden of support” crisis applies even in rich, thrifty countries like Singapore or Japan, but is potentially far more destabilizing in much poorer China.

Perhaps the biggest force undermining both marriage and family – the core institutions of all Confucian societies – can be traced, at least in part, to changes in attitudes associated with urban life. Gavin Jones, a demographer at the National University of Singapore, estimates that up to a quarter of all East Asian women, following the example of women in Japan, will remain single by age 50, and up to a third will remain childless.

“People's lifestyles are more important, and their personal networks mean more than family,” notes Japanese sociologist Mika Toyota. “It's now a choice. You can be single, self-satisfied and well. So why have kids? It's better to go on great holidays, eat good food and have your hobbies. A family is no longer the key to the city life.”

Urbanization threat

Nowhere are these effects more profound, or important, as in China, where 270 million migrants, mostly from the countryside, have moved to the cities – nearly as many people as lived in the United States a decade ago. But once they arrive, many newcomers often live in poor, crowded conditions, that, along with lacking access to schooling, discourage child-rearing.

The detrimental impact of dense urbanization on family formation is not limited to China, but is especially prevalent in East Asia, where Gavin Jones, Paulin Tay Straughan and Angelique Chan of the National University of Singapore report that “a housing and urban environment unfriendly to children” was a chief reason for women's reluctance to have children (or more children).

As China has urbanized, its fertility rate – the average number of births for each woman of childbearing age – has fallen to 1.55, considerably below the 2.1 “replacement rate” required to maintain the population level. But in the rest of East Asia, fertility rates are even lower. For example, Singapore's fertility rate is 0.79, Taiwan's is 1.11, and South Korea's is 1.24 – even without one-child policies. Moreover, China's fertility rate is elevated because of its higher share of rural population and can be expected to fall as rapid urbanization continues. The depressed urban fertility rates are epitomized by Beijing, at less than 1, and Shanghai, 0.70.

Reforming the one-child policy alone won't much change this reality. A host of pro-natalist policies in countries, including Japan and Singapore, have failed to boost birthrates. China-controlled Hong Kong, which now suffers one of the lowest fertility rates on the planet, was never subject to the one-child policy and has tried to encourage procreation, raising tax breaks to $100,000 per child. Yet these steps hardly off-set the high costs of raising childrenin this dense, bustling and expensive city. A recent Hang Seng Bank study estimates the cost of raising a child in Hong Kong at $515,000 U.S. dollars.

Most damaging, East Asian cities have adopted an urban form almost guaranteed to suppress fertility. Most are usually dominated by skyscraping tower residential blocks and lower-rise residential buildings in which most units have no direct ground access. A 20th-floor balcony is not a substitute for a private yard to play in. Even in Western countries, where cities are usually less-dense, fertility rates are far lower in the urban cores than in the suburbs. Similarly, the birthrates in the urban core of Tokyo are well below those in the suburbs, where yards, though small by Western standards, often are available.

Then there is the problem of affordability. Housing units in the tall residential blocks cost much more to build than ground-oriented dwellings. High costs, particularly for housing, are one reason nearly two in five Chinese, according to Weibo Sina, the country's top social media site, feel the law change will not encourage them to consider having more children.

Child-friendly zones?

The Chinese government could take steps making it easier for people to have children. One would be to drive growth to less-expensive areas in the country's vast interior. New government policy reforms have reinforced the commitment for development outside the East Coast, to the center, West and Northeast. Already, interior cities have been made more competitive for manufacturing by connection to the world's longest interstate-type highway system, as well as the highest-volume trucking and freight rail systems.

Spreading out development may help, but only if the form of the new housing shifts to a more family-friendly pattern. Building high-density areas, even in second-tier cities – a major source of wealth for local governments as well as developers – essentially exports Shanghai's child-unfriendly environment to the interior. Instead, a new housing policy that stresses lower densities, more space and greater affordability is a prerequisite for encouraging new families.

The solution could draw on some of China's own marked policy successes. Under Deng Xiaoping, China established special economic zones, such as Shenzhen, to test liberal economic policies. Shenzhen's reforms spread around China and have, literally, transformed the country . More recently, China embarked on a similar program to test financial liberalization, with the establishment of its first financial-services trade zone in Shanghai, and a recent announcement indicates that there will be more.

These innovative policies could be adapted to address China's demographic crisis. It could take the form of a few “special child-friendly zones,” established around midsize and large cities. These zones would allow for development of ground-oriented dwellings with yards and could include housing from single-family detached to multistory townhomes. New residents and existing residents could move to these dwellings, attracted by the improved environment for raising the second child.

For its pilot program, the government could designate suburbs of Chongqing, an interior municipality directly governed from Beijing, as special child-friendly zones. Other interior cities such as Zhengzhou (Henan), Changsha (Hunan), or Xi'an (Shaanxi) could also accommodate similarly designated areas. In the West, including the United States and Northern Europe, birth rates are considerably higher – sometimes by as much as 50 percent – in the suburban periphery than in the city core.

Some in the West may denounce this as a plan for sprawl, but these more humane, ground-oriented residences would not require substantial additional land. Well-designed neighborhoods of single-family houses on small lots and townhouses can be built at high densities. Further, these residential units are usually less-costly. In the United States, high-rise residential construction can cost more than double per square foot as ground-oriented housing.

After initial success, child-friendly zones could be extended to other cities, just as the successful Shenzhen economic reforms gradually swept the nation. Of course, such an approach violates current Western doctrine on urban planning, which is obsessively focused on encouraging people to live in ever-higher densities. Yet these doctrines turn out to be expensive and unwise, and undermine the prospects for families. Reforming the one-child policy is a good first step, but China's best chance to solve its demographic problem lies in developing policies that put families and children first.

This story originally appeared at The Orange County Register.

Joel Kotkin is executive editor of NewGeography.com and Distinguished Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University, and a member of the editorial board of the Orange County Register. He is author of The City: A Global History and The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050. His most recent study, The Rise of Postfamilialism, has been widely discussed and distributed internationally. He lives in Los Angeles, CA.

Wendell Cox is a Visiting Professor, Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, Paris and the author of “War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life.

Photo: Steve Webel

After years of closing the gap with the United States, China built enough freeways in 2013 to amass the greatest length of freeways in the world. Between 2003 and 2013, China expanded its national expressway system, with interstate (motorway in Europe) standard roadways from 30,000 to 105,000 kilometers (18,000 to 65,000 miles). This compares to the 101,000 kilometers (63,000 miles) in the United States in 2012. China's freeway system is also longer than that of the European Union, which was 70,000 kilometers in 2010 (43,000 miles) and Japan (8,000 kilometers or 5,000 miles) as is indicated in Figure 1 (Note 1). The ascent of China is evident across the spectrum of transport data, both passenger and freight.

A review of transport statistics in the four largest world economies (nominal gross domestic product) shows considerable variation in both passenger and freight flows. It also reflects the rapid growth of China. Generally comparable and complete data is available for the European Union, the United States, China and Japan.

Passenger Travel

All four of the world's largest economies rely principally on roads for their passenger transport. The United States continues to lead in road volume (in passenger kilometers, see Note 2) by a substantial margin, followed by the European Union. In the United States, automobiles account for 83 percent of domestic passenger travel, which compares to 76 percent in the European Union and 58 percent in Japan. China's combines automobile and bus data, which makes it impossible to obtain automobile comparisons with the other three economies.

Road travel increased more than 150 percent between 2003 and 2013 in China. Yet roads have barely held their market share as China has built new world-class airports, such as Capital City in Beijing, Baiyun in Guangzhou and many others. Over the same 10 years air travel has increased 350 percent. Meanwhile, China has built the world's most extensive high-speed rail system and has experienced healthy rail travel growth. Yet, despite this, passenger rail's market share has dropped from 35 percent to 29 percent over the period (Figure 2).

China is dominant among the four economies in passenger rail volumes, with its 1.05 trillion annual passenger kilometers (0.65 trillion passenger miles) accounting for more than 2.5 times the rail travel in both the European Union and Japan. US rail travel is no more than 1/20th that of China (equal to the road travel volume in the state of Arkansas).

The United States continues to lead in a domestic airline travel, with a volume approximately 60 percent greater than those of the European Union and China. China trails the European Union by only two percent and with its growth rate seems likely to assume the second position before long (Figure 3).

Passenger travel market shares are indicated in Figure 4.

Freight Transport

After having led the world in rail freight volumes in recent decades, the United States has recently yielded the title to China. In 2013, China moved nearly 3 trillion tonne kilometers (Note 3) of freight by rail, compared to the US total of 2.5 trillion (2012). It may be surprising to find out that Europe, with its extensive passenger train system moves so little of its freight by rail. However, the European Union moved approximately 60 percent less of its freight by rail. However, much of the capacity of the EU's rail system is consumed by passenger trains, leaving little for freight.  This is despite a policy commitment in the EU to substantially increase the rail freight market share relative to trucks. As a result, in Europe, the freight trains are "on the highway" (see Photo below). China has been uniquely successful among the world's economies in developing both a world class freight rail system and a world class passenger rail system. One of China's early objectives in developing its high speed rail program was to free space for its large freight train volumes.

Caption: Trucks on the A7, north of Barcelona (by author)

Among other nations, only Russia can compete with China and the United States in rail freight, having moved approximately 2.2 trillion tonne kilometers in 2012.

Rail freight remains by far the most important in the United States compared to the other three largest economies. Rail freight continues to carry more tonne kilometers in the United States than trucks. The situation is much different in Europe, where trucks carried four times the volume of freight rail. Rail freight is even less significant in Japan, where trucks carry more than 15 times the volume of rail freight.

One possibly surprising fact lies with the substantial increase in China's truck volumes over the last decade. China now has a volume of truck traffic that is four times that of trucks in either the European Union or the United States.

In 2003, trucks carried 60 percent less of the nation's metric tonne mileage than freight rail. By 2013, that had been reversed with tracks carrying 130 percent more volume than freight rail.

However China's dominance is even greater in water borne freight, at nearly 6 times the European Union volume and more than 10 times the volume of the United States (Figure 5). Even so, China's largest freight volumes are carried on waterways, such as the Yangtze River. Over the past 10 years waterway volumes tripled. It is even expected that there will be a significant increase in shipping on the ancient Grand Canal (Figure 6).

Freight market shares among the major modes are shown in Figure 7.

India

Another of the world's largest economies, India, also relies heavily on roads. According to the World Bank 65 percent of the freight and nearly 90 percent of passengers are carried by roads in India, though late detailed data is not available. Yet India also has the largest passenger rail usage in the world. Only China is close, and the two nations have been near equal, at least over the last decade. In 2003, China trailed India by seven percent in passenger kilometers by train. Complete Indian Railway data for 2013 is not yet available. However, if the average trip length in 2013 was the same as in 2012, China will have moved to within two percent of India's passenger rail volume. Both nations are far above Japan and the European Union, ranked third and fourth, and almost 90 percent above Russia, which has a reputation for high passenger rail volumes.

The Future

With economic growth in China slowing (though still at rates that would satisfy virtually any other nation) its transport growth of the past decade seems likely to moderate. On the other hand, the other large emerging economy, India, which has substantially trailed China, could assume a Chinese trajectory. The newly elected Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government is committed to economic advance and infrastructure development. Market facilitating policies like those that have propelled China (see the late Noble Laureate Ronald Coase and Ning Wang, How China Became Capitalist), could lead to a similar story about India in a decade or two.

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Note 1: The latest data on international transport varies by year, even within nations (such as the United States). This analysis compares the latest data, which is 2012 (Europe and Japan), 2013 (China) and the United States (2011, with some 2009). This latest years available permit comparing the general scale of differences and, particularly in the United States, changes from the earlier data are likely to have been modest, as a result of the Great Financial Crisis and the great economic malaise that has followed. The principal data sources are the Bureau of Transportation Statistics in the United States, the National Bureau of Statistics in China and Eurostat for the European Union and Japan.

Note 2: A passenger kilometer (or passenger mile) is the distance traveled times the number of passengers. Thus, a car going 5 kilometers with one passenger produces 5 passenger kilometers. With two passengers, there are 10 passenger kilometers.

Note 3: A tonne kilometer is a metric tonne (2.204 pounds or 1,000 kilograms) of freight times the number of kilometers traveled. The US ton (short ton) has 2,000 pounds or 907 kilograms.

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Wendell Cox is principal of Demographia, an international public policy and demographics firm. He is co-author of the "Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey" and author of "Demographia World Urban Areas" and "War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life." He was appointed to three terms on the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission, where he served with the leading city and county leadership as the only non-elected member. He was appointed to the Amtrak Reform Council to fill the unexpired term of Governor Christine Todd Whitman and has served as a visiting professor at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, a national university in Paris.

Photograph: Grand Canal in Suzhou (by author)