China Watch Blog

China Watch Blog has learnt that Beijing, Shanghai, Dalian, Hangzhou, Shenzhen, Tianjin, Qingdao, Xiamen, Yantai and Wuhu are the top 10 cities picked by foreigners that are top on the list as their favourite cities.

Based on an online voting (http://vote.chinajob.com/) organized by International Talent magazine, the results of the “2010 Amazing China – the Most Attractive Chinese Cities for Foreigners” was announced on Jan 5, 2011 and reported by the China Daily.

The selection attracted more than 179,000 foreign participants from June to November 2010, and the ballot covers 353 cities, at the prefecture level or above, in Chinese mainland (excluding Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan).

Another 10 cities were nominated: Nanjing, Wuhan, Guilin, Sanya, Chengdu, Changchun, Changsha, Lanzhou, Dali and Nanning.

The judging panel consisted of 40 foreign experts, including 39 Chinese Government Friendship Award recipients.

Foreigners and foreign experts participated by casting their votes based on two general aspects: “city environment for working and entrepreneurship”, “city living environment” and 10 detailed indexes.

Based on the 343 online questionnaires received by the organizer, influential factors in attractiveness of Chinese cities include: living environment; health care and public security; long-term work opportunities and potential, work environment; public services for foreigners; international atmosphere and multicultural environment; policies about talent and motivation; social factors contributing to success of business; long-term opportunities for communication and cooperation.

China Watch Blog has learnt that some 400 million people are set to move from rural areas to cities over the next 15 years, according to a McKinsey Global Institute report.

A China Daily report says there are fears that the already crowded big cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Chongqing will not be able to cope with the ever more rural migrants. Many from the government downward believe the only solution will be to create a new generation of smaller cities, many of them satellites to existing cities.

Mark Yaolin Wang, professor at the department of resource management and geography at the University of Melbourne, believes one of the only solutions is to transform 2,000 existing towns into cities.

“They are a much better route to development. These towns have existing infrastructure and distinctive heritage and culture,” he said.

“The problem with creating new cities around existing larger cities is that they lack character and have no personality.” Despite being the world’s most populous country with 1.3 billion people, China remains one of the least urbanized countries in the world.

Although its level of urbanization increased from 13 percent in 1950 to 41 percent in 2005, according to McKinsey, it remains well below the 75 percent levels found in the United States and Europe.

Even by 2025, after the next wave of rural migrants, the figure is only set to increase to 64 percent By then eight cities, Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Chongqing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Tianjin and Wuhan, will have populations of more than 10 million with some already megacity behemoths.

Wang at Melbourne University said one of the challenges will be persuading rural migrants to move to smaller cities. “People will still want to move to the bigger cities because that is where the better jobs and opportunities are,” he said.

“If people keep drifting to the bigger cities, the problem will become unsustainable. Already people in professional jobs are finding the cost of living, particularly property, in the major cities unaffordable and this I think will provide an opportunity to the development of small- and medium-sized cities, since they will be the only alternative.”

Rural migration is now much more fluid in China as a result of the gradual relaxation of the hukou, or household registration system.

In the past, it has been difficult for people with rural hukou to obtain registration in urban areas and they have often relocated illegally.

China Watch Blog has learnt that Shanghai has been adjudged the sexiest city in China with Hong Kong as the runner-up in a survey by Horizon Research that sought to gauge the sex appeal of Chinese cities.

Thanks to Shanghai city’s metropolitan style and prosperous economy, the people around the country deemed it “quite gorgeous.” Respondents said Hong Kong’s glamorous stars in show business give the port city a sexy aura.

Chongqing’s reputation for beautiful women pushed the southwestern city to third place in the 30-city survey of nearly 6,600 people aged between 18 and 60.

“Cities are made up of people and they share some common temperaments,” said He Fan, a manager of Horizon Research. “There are sexy people. So are cities.”

He said the survey was open-ended, allowing respondents to name any city they considered sexy based on their definition of sexy and to give their reasons.

Completing the survey required some imagination. Although most of the interviewees could identify their sexiest cities, 33 percent could not identify any cities as sexy.

According to the survey, 17 percent of all the respondents considered Shanghai the sexiest city. The top three reasons: “modern city, strong economy and prosperous,” “landmark buildings,” and “big events such as Expo.”

Among people who mentioned Shanghai as sexy, 22 percent pointed to Shanghai’s modernization and strong economic environment, and 20 percent mentioned landmarks such as the Bund, the Oriental Pearl TV Tower and the Huangpu River. Seventeen percent said the World Expo gave Shanghai its sex appeal. Only 5 percent said the town’s attractive women made Shanghai sexy.

“This survey can just give us another angle to observe the city values and it could be a good reference for cities to promote themselves,” He added. “Sometimes urban planners may not know what people really like about the city.”

The rest of the top 10 sexiest cities of China are:

Beijing, for being the capital and for its cultural treasures; Guangzhou, for its openness; Shenzhen, for the special economic zone; Hangzhou, for the attractive West Lake, weather and beautiful women; Sanya, for its beautiful beaches and tropical scenes; Dalian, for the good environment of the coastal city; and Macau, for night life and casinos.