The Chinese Migration

According to the report A Nation of City Slickers from The Economist Magazine, China now has more city dwellers than farmers.  More impressive is the rate at which migration in the country has occurred.

In 1980 fewer than a fifth of Chinese lived in cities, a smaller urban proportion than in India or Indonesia. Over the next ten years the government remained wary of free movement, even as it made its peace with free enterprise. Touting a policy of “leaving the land but not the villages, entering the factories but not cities”, it sought industrialisation without urbanisation, only to discover that it could not have one without the other.   -- The Economist 

This report reinforces what I'm reading in the novel Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China.  Leslie Chang shares stories about the migration of Chinese from rural countryside villages into the factory towns and larger cities.  Migrants would come in by the trainloads and saturate factory towns.  Developing relationships over time, Leslie was then able to share the stories and experiences of the girls whose lives were changed by the factories.

Does anyone find this migration ironic?   Occurring not just in China, but in countries all over the world, the urban population is increasing across the globe.  With the internet, smarter technology, and the increased popularity of working from home, why is everyone still insisting on congesting cities?  A person in the US can be linked digitally with a coworker in Asia, Europe, or Australia.  You would think this digital connection would allow us the freedom to disperse.  Also a growing trend is sustainable development - going back to nature.  But, it seems people want to design and live in 'earthy' homes in the midst of vast expanses of urban sprawl ... not nature.