Fu Yan’an, a former villager in rural Chongqing, taught himself law and now works as a lawyer in the county seat, earning RMB 4,000-5,000 a month. In 2007, he bought an apartment for RMB 200,000 and this year had his spouse, children and parents’ status upgraded, making them all permanent residents of the town. As a result, he obtained, in one installment, compensation for their abandoned land and a subsidy for resettlement that totaled RMB 21,500. The bulk of this money plus some of his savings totaling RMB 27,000, he dedicated to endowment insurance for his parents, providing them each a monthly pension of RMB 200.

The city of Chongqing has absorbed an additional 3 million of China’s floating population over the past 12 years, many of them leaving unattended their contracted village plots and houses. The municipal government plans to register all of its 3 million rural migrants as permanent urban residents within a year or two. “An extra 3 million population will mean tens of billions yuan in consumption, which will be a real driver of local economic growth,” remarks Mayor Huang Qifan. “In addition, it means 3 million fewer in the countryside leaving more resources and higher incomes for villagers who stay put.” This July, the municipal government issued household registration reform policies and inaugurated 17 working mechanisms related to land, housing, social security, education and health care. The goal for 2020 is to increase Chongqing’s urbanization rate (the proportion of urbanites to the entire local population) from the current 28 percent to 60-70 percent. A projected 10 million villagers becoming townies will make that happen.

However, investigation reveals that at least 90 percent of villagers polled are not willing to surrender their plots for the dazzle of city life. Though an urban residential status entices migrants with employment, public housing, old-age care, medicare and education, the benefits are not delivered simultaneously as a package. And what if they find no means to make a living once they arrive? The municipal government has responded to their concerns by designing a flexible withdrawal arrangement, allowing a three-year grace period during which they can technically continue to hold their plots, homestead and woods back in their village. As an accessorial policy, the municipal government will separate the right to collect what a piece of farmland yields from the right to dispose of the land. The former right is reserved for three years for farmers who have taken urban residential status, while the right of land disposal will be transferred to trust companies to facilitate aggregation of plots for scale farming.

The first group of farmers exchanging earthy countryside for urban grit will likely be the children of older migrant workers. “This is because this generation has an urban experience spanning 10 or 20 years already and don’t require immediate government outlay on medical and old-age care. Moreover, they contribute social security fees while employed which significantly reduce the government’s burden to maintain the fund,” says Mayor Huang. Currently China is focusing its urbanization drive on small cities and towns. Studies show that cities of 1-4 million have the best comprehensive performance, exhibiting balanced levels of economic development, education and public health services, as well as sound management of the environment, transportation and land resources.

New Life, New Label

In the eastern coastal province of Jiangsu, the population of migrant workers has exceeded 10 million. Nanjing, Wuxi and Suzhou have seen an annual double-digit increase of new arrivals for years, and Kunshan has simply become an immigrant city, with a registered native population of 690,000 and an immigrant population of 1.3 million. In these cities, the old label of “rural migrants” has been replaced by “new citizens.”

A provincial study on 3,000 such “new citizens” shows that 70 percent of them admitted they enjoyed the treatment conferred by their new status, and 75 percent expressed satisfaction with their new urban life. Many of them have advanced to become managers of enterprises, or are involved in local politics as deputies to people’s congresses and members of the local committee of the people’s political consultative conferences. Chang Shuying, a 37-year-old “new citizen” and ordinary worker in the Jiangsu Zhongdan Chemical Group, is one such deputy to the provincial people’s congress. She is concerned about judicial unfairness, inadequate medical services, the dire conditions of urban slums, and the high medical costs pressuring ordinary people. Her appeals and proposals to the people’s congress have led to gradual resolution of these problems.

Yu Hai, professor of sociology at Fudan University, points out that the change in title from “migrant workers” to “new citizens” indicates a shift in social attitudes and the inevitable fusion of rural migrants into urban society. Discrimination against migrant workers is both institutional and social, and it is hoped the new label marks the waning of social discrimination and increasing social equity.

New Urban Centers

The county seat of Shuyang is the site that KFC selected for its first fastfood outlet in the northern Jiangsu countryside. The county seat looks as urban and modern as any average city, with thick traffic and a dozen large shopping malls doing flourishing trade. Like Shuyang, many of Jiangsu’s other small cities and towns have large commercial establishments whose annual transactions exceed RMB 10 million. The region is a magnet to many rural dwellers who want to move and settle down.

Government intervention has kept housing prices in Shuyang 30 percent lower than in surrounding urban areas. Each of the last six years has seen an annual influx of 30,000 new arrivals to the county seat, and its core urban population has increased from under 200,000 to 460,000 in the same period. Suzhou Industrial Park encompasses dozens of residential buildings inhabited by over 10,000 migrant workers. It is reported that more than 70 percent of migrant workers in Suzhou have moved into apartment buildings erected by the municipal government. In Wuxi, city authorities have invested over RMB 1 billion constructing 5,200 communities (exceeding in total 2 million square meters) specifically for migrant workers. Now more than 50 percent of Wuxi’s migrant workers are congregated in these communities.