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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
Yeah, that was so weird when he said it all started with the Portuguese getting Macao. Why do you think they wanted Macao? To trade with people already in the area ...
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.
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.
Just label it shit white people say. I'm far from someone that's pro china. But that's being done in the prd is impressive. Even the Guangzhou, Foshan, donguan and Shenzhen metro combining along with high speed commuter rail is enough to make people lives easier.
@@de_Voux That's not what euro-centric means. Euro-centric means seeing things from what Europeans thought and still think is important as can be seen from their books and media, which do not have a full understanding of history and geography, and therefore missing out on showing the full picture. For example, in this video on why China developed the way it is, missing out the full picture means missing out important reasons, and misrepresenting some less important reasons as more important. If the video were discussing China's trade relations, then focusing on China-Europe trade and downplaying China-Asia trade could be fair, as long as the evidence shows that one trade relation was more crucial than the other. It is not bad to emphasize the importance of important powers in the world, but it is bad to miss out on information due to a lack of research, or a lack of seeing things from different perspectives, and as a result analyze the importance of certain factors inaccurately.
Guangzhou already lost its culture! Guangzhou don’t know how to speak Cantonese! Only Hong Kong & Macau speak CANTONESE. Hong Kong is International financial center of China. Macau is gambling center of China. Shenzhen is new technology center of China. Guangzhou is just an industrial center of Guangdong.
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.
Kinda weird how all countries/nations that existed on contemporary states’ territories are just claimed to be ‘of’ that nation now, like the UK claiming the Kingdom of Northumbria as ‘their own’. But I guess that’s just how it works.
@@wheresmyeyebrow1608 For countries with long histroy like Greece, India, China and Iran, the continuity of ancient and modern states and the link between our ancestors and us are quite clear and touchable. We are not that type of country coming out of global surge of colonism and nationalism in the past few decades.
”I’m in China defender…” 😒 what? Speaking for bullshits against China will just make you communist or something so you felt the strong need to clarify that?
I dont think chinese urbanisation is not bad at all. More services available for people and for the vast majority communal mindsetted chinese its a good thing. But i find a bad mouth-sation of western people is getting worsen year by year.
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
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.
China faces a new future now. Their economic growth is shrinking rapidly, they are having a major demographic issue with working age population already shrinking and total population to begin shrinking soon, their housing market which is 30%+ of the economy is near collapse and best scenario they it will stagnated for years, their banking which is tied to housing lending is also near a crisis, etc. In addition, this climate change isn’t just effecting pearl River delta but affecting the rest of China with major droughts leading to an energy crisis.
@@Homer-OJ-Simpson Yes, sure.. All countries on earth are facing many issues and problems. India is now the rising star, if they can manage their surplus and growing population well!! In many more technologically advanced countries, AI and robotics may help labour shortage!! China is now the largest manufacturing nation with all its supply chain ecosystem, infrastructure including power supply!! India's infrastructure is decades behind China. Its supply chain is still very much dependent on China. It's power generation is only around one tenth of China's!! India still has lots of bottle necks, roads, railways, ports, power supply, etc, etc. And relatively low-educated population. 30 % of India's Indians are illiterate!! So, just wait and watch!! Ok???
@@donnydrumpf9563 most countries issues are pandemic related so likely to go back to normal. Chinas is deeply structural and I described in my original the many structural issues it faces. Those are facts. India is now growing much faster than China but it has a different path. It will not rely on manufacturing as much china did but it will rely heavily on service jobs which already are well over 60% of gdp for India vs china’s under 50%. These jobs originally started with call centers but now include IT, accounting and many other jobs that can be done remotely by an English speaking person.
@@donnydrumpf9563 22% of India is illiterate and it’s dropping fast. Right now Indians labor participation rate is only 41% and increasing vs Chinas declining at 49% (it was 80% 30 years ago). So as more Indians enter the labor force it will help the economy tremendously
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!!
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 RU-vidrs 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…
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?
This video is about Mega cities/city clusters and how they came to be. Not about the beginning history of the Pearl River Delta. There is no reason to go past European colonization, because before that it wasn’t much there.
After 1997, Hong Kong is Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China. SAR is the highest grade in China autonomous structure. Before 1997, Hong Kong is the most successful colony of UK.
To make this point even clearer - Hong Kong had laid down the FOUNDATION for a functioning democracy that never came. Which makes it even more of a shame as there are democracies around the world that don't run properly because their foundations are flawed. *cough* America and India *cough*
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.
The goal is to copy what others have done and make it sound like it's something new and successful. On paper it looks good. But often poorly executed. The big bridge from HK has barely any traffic even before Covid. And now it's just a white elephant despite many attempts to use it. People and businesses are just not using it.
HK, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Foshan: been to many cities of the Pearl River Delta. They all offer great quality of life and excellent public transportation of millions of people.
@@1mol831 i have been to all over Asia, India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Philippines, Thailand... In terms of infrastructure Chinese cities seem to be extremely well managed, but surely there are a lot of problems like pollution and lack of freedom
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.
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).
While the criticism of the HK-Macao-Mainland connections is warranted, the only way of removing them would be to erode the autonomy of HK and Macao even more than it already did in 2020.
True, but Hong Kong will officially become part of mainland China in 2047 - which is the 50-year deadline after the establishment of the "one country two systems" back in 1997. Macao is 100% part of china as a special administrative zone. There was controversy in HK in 2020, but in the long run, hong kong is destined to be part of china as per the British and Chinese agreement.
@@TheSwedishHistorian The national security law did not break the agreement. There were clauses in the agreement that allowed the national security law to be passed.
@@TheSwedishHistorian You're blinded and misled by one-sided anti-China propaganda. Not a fan of the Chinese govt and its policies but there were literally many protesters/rioters in HK who demanded Hong Kong be separated from China. No country or govt in this world would allow their country's territory to be separated. If anything, those small-minded rioters were the ones who broke the agreement "One Country Two System" and gave the chance to the CCP to impose the National Security Law on HK.
I lived in New Orleans a long time. Same geological makeup. It looks like they didn't take into consideration the impact of all that weight on a "marsh" land in an area subject to normal flooding and runoff. There is no real fix for this reality. It will cost billions to compensate but will it be worth it. It is one thing to be flooded. But to be flooded by polluted sediment is just dangerous. I bet if the top-down people spoke to the original inhabitants, they could have learned some things.
lmao. "to keep traffic low" on the bridge? the bridge was a vanity project. there's a ferry from HK -> macau that's perfectly serviceable. traffic is low because you essentially need licenses/registration/insurance in HK, macau, and mainland. there was no intention to "keep traffic low." it was a byproduct of having to navigate 2 SAR's
In Greater Bay Area, Hong Kong is international financial center. Macau is tourism center. Shenzhen is new technology center. Guangzhou is industrial center.
i don't see what's awful about this seems like really effective leadership and urban planning, the problems are caused by the history of european colonialism in hong kong and macau
What did Zhou Enlai have anything to do with establishment of Shenzhen? Are you getting advice and reference from someone got secondary education in China and barely read the textbook?
What would 6-year plans be like compared to a 5-year plan? 4-5 years to get work done and 1-2 years to ensure there are no failures, tofu projects, or financial fuckups?
7:37 Even for rail travel within mainland China I believe it can be a bit more bureaucratic too, with train stations designed like airports, & ID & security checkpoints when you depart, & arriving passengers directed to a different floor of the station from departing ones. The former Apple Daily once calculated that as the new HSR between HK & Guangzhou stops further out in the outskirts in the latter (almost 17km from downtown), the total travel time is not much faster via HSR compared to normal speed rail 8:44 Actually the whole HK-Zhuhai-Macau bridge & tunnel has traffic driving on the right 8:58 You need 3 documents to drive on the bridge & tunnel I remember from HK to Zhuhai - a closed road permit (which is sold/auctioned in limited quantities & thus quite expensive I heard), a special license plate for use in mainland China (which you can now print on paper & display on the windscreen - previously you had to apply in advance for green metal licence plates to be fixed on your vehicle's exterior) & mainland China vehicle insurance. If you want to drive to Macau, you'll be forced to park at a designated carpark at the Macau side of the bridge & then ride public transport, probably as Macau's roads are quite narrow. However you can skip these bureaucracy by crossing this bridge & tunnel via coach instead. Its been calculated to be slower but cheaper than ferry
Another interesting thing to note is that HK has long been an economic experiment that its colonial masters - first Britain then China -have never dared back home. A fantastic money making cow it is the world's freest economy where only 20% of the richest pay marginal tax, but the end result being the world's most unequal developed city after NYC, where the rest of the 80% are trapped in the working class and a third in the absolute precariat. One third struggle to feed themselves, 1/5 of schoolkids and 1/3 of seniors miss a meal, and over 200,000 are effectively homeless living in 'coffin homes' -it more resembles a typical Third World city of the 20th Century, where taxation went largely unenforced. Despite the world's best education results and high HDI, poverty is systemic and entrenched -witness the highrise slums of HK and Macau whilst across the border they would long have been replaced, oft undemocratically. Contrast also how the Mainland now has 75% middle class in the urban areas, despite on paper the GDP smaller in nominal terms and HKers having multiple times higher pay (but multiple times lower quality of life). The phenomenon is now seeing HKers reverse the flow on the border and trying to get out. Anywhere else and such inequality would have devolved into a cesspit of crime, forcing the capital to flee -however Confucian culture, a lack of democracy with authoritarian leadership (throughout Colonial and PRC times) and the fact there's nowhere to flee to, with both UK and China barring HKers citizenship, ensured the survival of the machine.
The 1x1 meter homes (barracks) for the homeless is a neat idea though. A good way for them to stay indoors while working on any job while not wasting taxpayer money on programs with questionable success. Ive wondered why the rest dont move to the mainland for better homes but now I understand a bit more, cool thanks bro.
The real 'awful urbanisation' is the gradual loss of culture from the villages, the displacement of people and families, the continual destruction of older inner city buildings and neighbourhoods and the widening gap between mega-rich and ultra-poor. What you have outlined in this video is China's attempt to congregate megacities on a mass scale and clearly, the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.
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.
7:52 That's the wrong station. Hung Hom Station shown in the video shut down all trains to mainland due to COVID, the High Speed Rail station is called Hong Kong West Kowloon Station
Awful? Do one about Brazil, one about US.... I want to see how awfully a organized urbinazation matches agains places where ppl live in their cars, tents or favelas.
@@kaiwut So I am I lmao. That's what I mean by "Anglo accent." In English a good approximation is "ShinJin." He said "ShinJen." Guy obviously doesn't speak Mandarin so him just getting the "j" sound is already better than 90% of English speakers who probably would've pronounced it with a "z" sound instead. And Xinjiang sounds nothing like what he said, the way Anglo speakers pronounce that isn't nearly correct either lol
This was a really good video, and very well produced, but it is a very western perspective and lacks a bit of information. The pearl river delta region was not founded by the UK or Portugal and has existed for centuries before that. But perhaps most importantly is the political stuff in the region, as you appear to be completely unaware that China broke its lease agreement with Hong Kong and invaded in 2020. I know it wasn't hugely covered in the west, but it is extremely important for the future of the region. Also I'm not sure about this, but I think they speak Cantonese in that part of China, although I appreciate you calling mandarin by its real name.
the way China manages public transit is the most efficient and I’ll argue the best system in the world, the logistics of moving people around efficiently is the only way a mega city cluster can be managed
The title of the video is a bit misleading. Sure, it mentions challenges, but one would not infer that the GBA is experiencing "awful urbanization" from the content of this video.
Bro just ignored how it works since the public transportation system is great. They don't just rely on highways. There are busses and bikes infastructures and a walkable city
nice video, despite the awful clickbait title and extremely euro-centric historical view ignoring Guangzhou (canton) has been a trading centre for millenia before european's arrival.
Your criticism of the HSR link seems pretty dumb. The time taken to get to the station and to go through immigration exist with the slower modes. The percentage increase is lower than you might think if you just look at the one part of the journey but it still saves time. Also it would've been nice if you put a little bit more effort into getting your pronunciations of the city names a bit better.
As a Chinese who lives in the region he's describing: 1. The cross-border arragement was simply not designed for EVERYONE's short-haul trips. There exists a demographic that travel from Hong Kong to Shenzhen and Guangzhou and vice versa serve, which is business people who don't go far from commercial areas around stations. Only when travel distance is longer does hsr make more sense for everyone else. 2. I don't think his pronunciations are bad except for Dongguan, but hey, he's excused for probably never having studied Chinese extensively before.
When your country has more than a billion people to feed, but half of your land is not so livable, awful urbanization will appear. But I think because of the solidification of classes and the trend of declining birthrates, urbanization in China will be better in the future.
you need to change your microphone; what you're saying is intesting, but hard to understand... Purely a mehanial issue, otherwise, well , hard to grasp
This kind of Western Centric nonsense is why you guys are better off stick to Europe. Hong Kong is not important. It has been superseded by Shenzhen several years back. The tech industry is in Shenzhen. The manufacturing Dongguan. All that HK is good for is finance.
Hope there will talk more about the political problems in Hong Kong and China. I think there is a different culture after Hong Kong is been colonised by Britain for 150 years🙏🏾
I beg to differ. Hong kong culture (and macanese culture) are still quite similar to that of the Guangzhou "natives" (those whose families have been around the area for generations)
As mentioned, your history on the area is wrong, what a clickbait title, if the way China does urbanization is awful, where's the video on the USA's urbanization ???
'the 15 minute journey was cut down to 14 minutes, sounds amazing right?' not really no. 'you should arrive 45 minutes early' why is this even brought up?
Video seems interesting but I couldn't stand the constantly changing music and sounds so had to give up after 2 minutes. Seems almost like a Chris Morris parody.
Those transit problems you mentioned are actually the fault of the british and the west coz HK and macau maintains separate system till now. Hope HK and Macau be integrated fully to acheive full economic potential
No I don't think we'll see a seamless cross border travel experience anywhere near our times. HK (and Macau more so) now allows people 130+ countries going in visa-free. Do you think Shenzhen and Zhuhai can do that?
Who gives a shit about ‘economic potential’ when your political and social rights become more at stake? I mean it’s too late now but thinking like that is absolutely soulless.
He is clearly talking out of his you know where.. pearl river Delta, yatze river dealta are the best semi planned maga centers.. do we really need an American talking about Urbanization? Really?
A lot of the comments are quite defensive about Guangzhou. Fair enough, old Canton is the OG city of the region. But Guangzhou of today is not as dynamic or important as Hong Kong or Shenzhen. Even Macau is class leading in its own category. Guangzhou is sort of a filler city.
Filler city. Meanwhile being one of the lagest and first few citied where reform and opening up kick off. Being a capital of Guangdong region, the city that help link all of these cities together in former greater bay area. Macau other than being allowed gambling isn't anywhere close to important overall. The city definately isn't as important as HK and Shenzhen, but definately not Macau.
