Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
economic slowdown in recent years, and its backdrop of continued global financial
struggles, will certainly force Xi and his team to sharpen its focus. That said, more eco-
nomic growth exacerbates two of the city's fundamental problems: overpopulation and
pollution.
Population Pressures
Most of the workers you see on building sites across the capital are out-of-towners from
the provinces. It's estimated that more than seven million Běijīng residents are migrant
workers: that's a massive 36% of the city's already huge population, which is soon set to
pass the 20-million mark. And ever-expanding population figures place added pressure on
the environment. In fact, some analysts predict that it's the environment that will be Xi's
number one concern in the coming years.
The Great Pall of China
Air pollution was brought into focus in the summer of 2012 when the government called
for the US embassy to stop publishing its daily Běijīng pollution readings on its highly
popular Twitter feed. The figures were wildly out of sync with official air-pollution levels
published by Běijīng's Environmental Protection Bureau.
Whatever the figures, there's little doubt that Běijīng's air quality has deteriorated since
the pre-Olympics clean-up, and visitors will be shocked by the pall of pollution haze that
sometimes hangs over the city. There is, however, cause for optimism: Běijīng recently
added 3800 natural-gas buses to its fleet - more than almost any other city in the world -
and the already excellent subway system continues to be expanded. Public transport in
general also remains incredibly cheap, and in a nod to the capital's rich cycling tradition, a
new bike-sharing scheme was about to be unveiled as this topic went to press.
