Joel Kotkin joins Seth Barron to discuss China’s urbanization, class tensions in Chinese cities, and the country’s increasingly sophisticated population surveillance.

Rapid migration from China’s countryside to its cities began in 1980. Many of the rural migrants arrived without hukou, or residential permits, making it harder to secure access to education, health care, and other services. The result: the creation of a massive urban underclass in many Chinese cities. Rising tensions in urban areas has led Chinese officials to look to technology for alternative methods of social control, ranging from facial-recognition systems to artificial intelligence.

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  1. colleenb Member
    colleenb
    @colleenb

    Interesting look at (don’t forget they’re Communist) China.  I keep thinking that the West will win  out because of freedom of information and thought.  Then I think about the anti-science views (such as transgenderism, climate change, etc) and wonder if we will not be all that much ‘freer’ than the Chinese to solve problems and confront reality.  We are still ahead of them but ….?

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