China’s Competition for Living Space

Individual Reflective Paper on China's competition for living space Documentary:- Summarize a documentary of China's rapid urbanization and conflictual urban spatial space- Describe and explain a moment or scene in the documentary that is found to be controversial
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Introductory
Urbanization is on the rise globally. In China, the growth of urban centres took centre stage due to the high population in the country. This growth has not been without challenges, often affecting low-class citizens and immigrant workers who move from one city to another. The documentary China's competition for living space by DW discusses and exposes these challenges affecting especially the low-class and immigrant workers as the government strives to develop urban centres in the country. This paper summarizes the DW documentary aired in 2021 and analyzes the law that the government owns all the agricultural land, which is controversial
Documentary Summary
China's competition for living space was aired on May 30th 2021. It tells the story of urbanization in China and the competition for living spaces due to its high population. The need to have the most developed cities has made China develop mega cities that often serve the wealthy society members. Most Chinese people are moving to the cities, and the population is overwhelming the infrastructure leading to the sprouting of urban villages to accommodate the growing population in the urban areas. The documentary explains that most people believe living and working in the cities guarantee better pay and high living standards.
German architect Erk Schaffarczyk has lived and worked in China for eleven years. He says that people think they can find their fortune in the big cities, mentioning Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen as having grown exponentially due to rural-urban migration in the country. According to Erk, most people looking for work in the cities cannot afford it and thus move from one place to another. He says people prefer working in cities to home because they can only work in the no longer viable fields because the land has become contaminated and infertile. However, renting an apartment in the city is expensive and migrant workers cannot afford it, forcing them to rent rooms in the urban villages. The Chinese government considered these urban villages a hindrance to the progress and development of modern city structures. Thus, it demolished them to create space for skyscrapers and malls for modernization.
Corruption is rampant in China, a vice that significantly affected the compensation scheme for villagers. It was during the regime of Hu Jintao, who was China's president between 2003 and 2013. However, Xi Jinping's regime has changed the situation considerably, and the villagers are evacuated orderly and compensated heavily to surrender their lands for urbanization.
A controversial moment
A controversial moment in the documentary is the law that entitled all agricultural land to the government. This law meant that the people who registered for rural citizenship could not maximize their lands' productivity and enjoy the farm's income. This law frustrated the farm owners who had to transform to being landlord...