Peking University, Nov. 3, 2012：When the term “urbanization” is ever mentioned, the first impression coming to our mind may be prosperity. In fact, many people nowadays tend to equate urbanization with stronger economic growth, quicker technological advance, and better quality of life. Everything seems so positive. However, to Professor Rachel S. Franklin, this is not the whole picture.

“If there are areas experiencing population increase and enjoying the benefits of this process, there has to be some other regions which face the problem of declining.” Professor Franklin, a demographer and geographer from Brown University, introduced to us the other side of urbanization. According to the statistics shown in her presentation, more than half of the areas in the United States now experience the influence of decreasing population. These areas include mainly non-metropolitan counties in the mid and southern states. In contrast to these shrinking places, the metropolitan areas have witnessed a rapid increase of population in the last decade, to which international immigrants contribute a lot.

The urban decline sets serious problems for the local governments to cope with. When people keep moving out, the residential structure begins to collapse. “In some counties, there are only a few households in the large community, leaving a lot of houses empty,” Professor Franklin said. “It will cause severe security worries because in some cases break-ins become more frequent.” In order to solve this problem, some counties choose to tear down empty houses and give more lands to the remaining residents. “This is just a makeshift. You’ve got to attract people back in the end,”Professor Franklin added with great concern.

Not only does rapid process of urbanization affect the declining areas, but it also has negative impacts on the areas which enjoy the high rate of urbanization. In Professor Franklin’s opinion, cities in the metropolitan areas should think in advance about the sustainable development. How to keep super cities function well while the regional population keeps increasing would be the question to which the first priority is given.

Later in the panel discussion, Professor Partha Gangopadhyay from the University of Western Sydney threw more lights on the negative side of urbanization. He brought to surface the problem of working poverty, gender discrimination, and wage gaps. With more and more people moving into big cities, the living standard has not been improved to the same level for everybody. There are inevitable discriminations against certain groups. “Some of the reasons behind this phenomenon haven’t been made clear.” Professor Gangopadhyay attached importance to researches in this field.

China has experienced rapid economic growth for more than 30 years. In this process, it cannot avoid the knotty problems of urbanization. Rural areas in China now confront similar dilemmas: with young people migrating to big cities, only old people and children are left to face the rough reality, which makes a lot of arable land uncultivated and increases the difficulty of maintaining infrastructure. Still, it cannot be predicted where the process of urbanization will lead us to. But at least one thing is certain: when people encounter the term “urbanization” next time, they should have second thoughts.

Reported by: Liao Songyuan

Edited by: Zhang Jiang