I used to live in a city famous for its prosperity and urbanity in China. Our family moved to the city ten years ago. The city is known as one of the special economic region which was favored by some central government policies and had gone through a period of rapid growth. Back to decades ago, the city was once a small fishing village. But with the exceptional geographic advantage the central government decided to push the economic development of the city and make it a new economic center. Investment and talents were attracted from all over the country to the city in the past two decades, gave the city the best conditions to become one of the symbolic developed city in the South China. As a result of the talent introduction policy, a large group of new immigrants became crucial and dominant part of the city. They are highly competitive and ambitious, mastered the main operation and development of the city. As a result, the majority of the original people from the local area were somewhat marginalized since most of them were only trained with fishing and business trade.
As for me, I have always liked the city and felt proud of the harmonious environment and urbanity until I started my internship in a local newspaper. In the newspaper company there was a reporter who likes digging unknown facts about the city, the facts that were not allowed to be presented in our newspaper and the other mainstream media presses. So he chose to put them on his personal blog. He was originally from the local area and had seen its tremendous transformation from a fishing village to a modern city. He told me that there are a lot of places where people usually don't see and are hardly able to see. Places where the city bus lines failed to reach to and people can barely drive to given the unclear road sign. People always enjoy the life in the city because they are kept away from some "abandoned" areas, some blind spots of this modern city.
The reporter took me to some of these places during my internship, and what I saw worried me: there is this school poorly constructed and staffed in a very remote area of the city which was built for some students from needy households. It is not covered in the bus line, and the road to the school hasn't been repaired for a long time, so that students have to walk to the school for maybe up to hours. The classrooms were made with materials of the least quality, and stairs shake when people step on. There is also this neighborhood hidden in an unnoticed area of the city, which is made up of several extreme poor households. Clean water can not be guaranteed, let alone grocery stores. There is a river came across the neighborhood that is polluted and stinky, and sitting by the river was a small discarded factory.
Those were just a small corner of the unpleasant scenes of the city. There places were isolated from the other urban areas, and kept from the public's eyes. PETER APPLEBOME once pointed out that the image of cities in the public mind is not what the city really looks like. He also mentions in his article "As Urban Blight Worsens, Victims Find Their Isolation Is Deepening" that the isolation of the urban poor is growing. However, what's more are out there besides these visible phenomenon? People always choose the convenient way to see the problem, turn a blind eye to the increasing rate of unemployment, and the ever widening gap between the rich and poor. But all these factors exacerbated and are still accelerating the lopsided development of this city.
This special immigration phenomenon and poor urban development planning added to a serious urban strain: the city becomes overcrowding and there is not enough resources to meet the basic housing and health needs of the existing population. The city was segregated and the poor areas remained unnoticed and lack of attention. People would argue that although the immigrants brought prosperity to the city, they also took advantage of most of the resources and left the local people little chance to improve their living. But I would say the less considerate urban development planning should take the fall for that. There is no policy favor the local residents or even refer to how to arrange their unemployment. There is no policy concerns the over-pursuing on environment. The unsustainable development caused damaged environment, unemployment, people leave at poverty line, large gap of individual wealth, etc. In a word, it caused the longevity of the city development.
To eliminate poverty and maintain the urban social justice, is the fundamental means to achieve the sustainable development of urban society. Community or neighborhood are the basic living units for urban area. However, the uneven development among different communities hugely affects the urban function, damages the city stability, causes poverty, and hinders the overall sustainable development.
Urbanity is how residents interact with each other and with the world. It should be about relationships, trust, hope, responsibility, and above all, community. But now we can seldom see our dream picture of the city. We see urban environmental degradation, which is often described to be directly correlated with rapid urban growth and industrialization. Urbanization is driven by a shift of jobs from agriculture to industry and services. Economic opportunities become more and more concentrated in urban areas. Behind all the rapid development, people are paying high price by putting increasing pressure on environment and disadvantaged urban residents. What is worse, because of urban poverty, the poor become the most affected by and at the same time contributing to environmental degradation. Usually, more disadvantaged neighborhoods in urban area encounter the most serious environmental problems.
So how can we establish a comprehensive urban anti-poverty system? In the process of urban development, the economic development, social development, and environmental well-being must be addressed together to achieve a sustainable development. Ignoring any aspect would bring down the other two, which implies that the importance of the interconnection of all the three aspects We need to increase the sustainability of urban resources. Initiatives could involve improving the social security, employment, health care, education, and housing, etc. The sustainable development means long-term synergy through changes in every aspects of city planning to stay within the limits of available urban resources. It is true that starting something new is often more attractive than fixing what we already have. Thus planning and developing in a sustainable way can be more convenient and economic in the long-run.
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