On many occasions I have observed that client states tend to take on the political economy trapping of their imperial betters. That has never been more clear than in Australia right now as our growth has increasingly become dependent upon a Chinese urbanisation model that shifted over the seas from the homeland to various Chinese satellite cities including Sydney and Melbourne.
Those cities have welcomed this urbanisation push that came along with emigrating Chinese and, in Australia at least, we have seen huge infrastructure strains appear because the influx was never planned for. It still isn’t, thanks to the fiscal equalisation mismatch that exists between a Federal government that controls migrant numbers and taxes and states that have to build-out services but have no money to do so. Not to mention local governments which are captured by pre-Chinese model ideologies of green belts and growth boundaries.
This is the profound mismanagement at every level that is causing Australian living standards to fall, as well as driving a great deal of political dyspepsia as local households were never consulted on these enormous changes to their society.
Ironically, today, China shows the way that its urbanisation model actually works to lift living standards. Via Xinua:
By 2020, the size of resident population in Beijing should be controlled to within 23 million and kept at this level thereafter, according to a city planning document for Beijing issued by China’s central authorities.
Moreover, construction land in the city should be reduced to about 2,860 square km by 2020 and to 2,760 square km by 2035, the document said.
The Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and the State Council has approved the general city plan for Beijing during the period between 2016 and 2035, submitted by the CPC Beijing Municipal Committee and Beijing municipal government.
The approval was made public on Wednesday.
Wednesday’s document said the environmental and resource capacity is the rigid limit for the city’s size and measures should be taken to reduce the stress of the city.
The document said control of population and construction will force the city to transform its development mode, upgrade and transform industries, and optimize and adjust its city functions.
The document pledged a “strictest” management of water resources.
Also, the height of the buildings in the city center should be strictly controlled, the document said.
Noting that Beijing is the capital of China and a center of politics, culture, international exchanges and scientific and technological innovation, the document stressed security of the city to ensure a good environment for the work of central authorities.
Central planning. If you want to run the Chinese urbanisation model then you need central planning to ensure that it is done in a way that does not kill the living standards of the existing population.
This is not an argument in favour of central planning more generally and the Chinese model of it comes with its own gigantic downside of massive over-development and wasted resources.
The point is, if you don’t plan for urbanisation, or even worse, are structurally unable to plan, then allowing it to transpire unchecked anyway is completely bonkers.
