China Goes Urban

For the first time in the country’s long history, more Chinese live in cities than in the country. Of the country’s 1.35 billion people, slightly more than 51% now live in towns and cities.

The shift began in the 1980s and has continued to maintain its strength because there have been plenty of jobs (mainly in manufacturing) available in the cities. That, too, may be changing as urban workers have begun demanding higher wages and other financial support as the cost of living in the cities rises.

As the population gets more urbanized, manufacturing is leaving China for places like Vietnam and Cambodia, where millions of poor rural citizens will come to the countries’ cities in search of work. It’s not likely that manufacturing in Vietnam and Cambodia will surpass China anytime soon, but rising labor costs are a factor in economic projections that show China’s economy growing at about 7% in the next five years. In 2012, the country’s economy grew by 8.9%, the slowest in two years.