The Truth About China's Awful Urbanization

The Greater Bay Area is the world’s largest and most populous urban area. A city cluster that has urbanised exponentially in the past twenty years! And it’s all because China managed to connect the dots… between talent and opportunity, connectivity and most importantly between geography and its people. But is this mega region and the 20 others China intends to expand working?

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Faultline is produced by:

Executive Producer/Story Editor/Host: Andy Burgess
Story/Research: Aparna Ganesan
Editor/Motion Graphics: Andy Burgess
Assistant Producer/Editor: Ivan Veselov
Artwork: Tim Burgess of Wild Tales Illustration

Chapters:
00:00 - 00:54 - 20 City Clusters
00:54 - 01:24 - Megacities
01:24 - 02:14 - The Greater Bay Area
02:14 - 02:50 - What is a delta?
02:50 - 04:29 - History of the Pearl River Delta
04:29 - 05:28 - The GBA's Economy
05:28 - 05:47 - Population Increase
05:47 - 07:12 - How did China do it?
07:12 - 08:06 - Connectivity
08:06 - 09:11 - The Megabridge
09:11 - 10:01 - City Clusters & Connections
10:01 - 11:45 - The Greater Bay Area is at risk!
11:45 - 13:00 - Conclusion

#china #geography #cityclusters #city #megacity

Sources 🔗

[Peizxcv]

He talks about the region and forgot to mention the center is Guangzhou, the biggest and oldest cities in the region. The region didn’t start with Macao and Hong Kong, Guangzhou / Canton have been the main port for millennia

[aranciadicapri]

As a Cantonese native, I have to say that this video started with an awfully, awfully euro-centric historical viewpoint. Guangzhou (Canton) had been the only city in the region open to Maritime trade hundreds of years before the colonization of Macau and Hong Kong, and the historical reasoning should've started at least with that.

[zupermaus]

Guangzhou was also the main city historically (not HK), 2, 200 years old and a main nexus and port on the naval Silk Route - often one of the world's largest cities through history, as well as through the colonial era. It's still the main anchor to the region, and 2-3x the size of HK.

[pizzajona]

I’m no China defender, but the bad effects of Chinese urbanization can be found in any mass urbanization process

[RESatellite]

I wouldn't call it Awful cause no other country can manage that much population density within a small amount of land mass,
85 million ppl is equivalent to twice amount of population of Canada and a bit more

[maggiemomo]

Pretty sure there were people there before the Portuguese came to Pearl River Delta

[iluvfood]

Just a point of clarification, Hong Kong was not democratic under British rule as suggested

[wrux]

You said the time between HK and Shenzhen isn't good because of the border crossing. Anybody that has done that journey will tell you it's one of the fastest border crossings in the world, even for Europeans with visas

[ulterior_web]

I’m left wondering why you’re saying this is awful, aside from the title generating more clicks. Many of these cities are actually very nice places to walk around in. Also wish YouTubers at least tried a little bit to not butcher all the names, I mean you can just go to Wikipedia, listen to the name and then say that…

[ricofung]

Hong Kong and Macau very much do not have and were not granted "democracies independent of China." Even before the National Security Law was imposed on Hong Kong, that description would've been inaccurate. And the city certainly isn't "politically autonomous" now.

[gatimtse]

Well the history of pearl river delta starts not at 1557 AD, but at least at 203 BC, when Guangzhou/Canton became the capital of Nanyue Kingdom, since then it has been one of the most important trade centre in China.

[RahOfMarch]

The history of the Pearl River Delta does not start with the Portuguese colonizers. Can anyone include more historic evidence of its importance prior to European invasions?

[vvjp]

One of the main reasons allowing Chinese cities to grow the way they did - government ownership of land. Western commentators cannot understand the sheer power the government has to push through projects. The same is not possible in most other countries around the world without intervention from environmental groups, people refusing to give up their land etc.

[eb-wrouhih]

American doesn’t stand a chance at competing with this. It’s population is split, it’s large, mostly coastal cities are hated and public transport is trash.

[rickfeng]

9:21 it's alright, we in this area don't speak Mandarin, we speak Cantonese.
I disliked this video because our city has been here since year 214 BC, but you made it like as if there's nobody living here till you albinos came.

[HctrLnds]

By 2030, the GBA will have more than 100 metro lines spanning on more than 2500 km and with 1200 stations. They will be grouped into high speed metro, rapid metro and conventional metro. Adding to that commuter rail line spanning around 2000 km for 11 lines and many HSR train stations connecting to the whole country. Talking about connectivity!!

[PhilEdwardsInc]

Hard not to watch this video with your jaw open the entire time. Every fact about China is just mind boggling. Great to get a bit of a geographic picture.

[hughmungusbungusfungus]

The Pearl River Delta is not a single metropolitan area. Even though it is a contiguous urbanized region, the individual cities do not share typical urban infrastructure nor is it feasible to commute between them. This is what separates it from the Greater Tokyo Area, which is defined by communities made up of people who commute into the 23 wards area that makes up inner Tokyo. We’re Japan to play the same game as China here, we’d have to include Nagoya, Ustunomiya and most of Ibaraki prefecture in Tokyo. It just doesn’t make sense.

[jootan]

3:47 "democracies independent from china" lmao what a joke.

[zupermaus]

It's not so much 'awful' urbanisation but good urbanisation - sponge cities, connectivity, able to house, clothe, feed and employ a million newcomers each year, HSR, impressive infrastructure riddled with many of the world's largest bridges/ tunnels and the fact it's the world's largest public transport system (Guangzhou alone has a metro network 50% larger than former record holder London, Shenzhen 30%, both of which were largely built in the last decade). 3 of the world's largest airports and 4 of the largest sea ports, and the three largest centres for skyscrapers (Shenzhen and Hong Kong each with more than NYC, Guangzhou set to overtake). Also the fact it's managed to connect the region to the rest of the country on an HSR network, despite being surrounded by mountain chains that cut off Guangzhou so impenetrably, people historically moved abroad than to the rest of the country (hence the Cantonese diaspora, unrecognised ethnicity and culture making up most of the Chinatowns round the world).