This people-oriented urbanization would likely be a very complicated and lengthy process due to the difficulty of allocating the required funds. But it would be tragic if the crime rate continues to climb in urban areas due to the inadequate urbanization of the population.

So the priority is to better coordinate industrialization and urbanization. Without sufficient industrialization, China’s urbanization may end up with a construction spree that creates “ghost cities” in under-developed areas and slums in big and middle-sized cities.

Local governments should not equal urbanization with urban construction. They need to change their way of thinking. Why can they not bring modernity and progress to the countryside? And why not develop the rural economies and provide urban-style social services in rural areas and small towns? Parents would thus not move away to work in cities – and their children would thus not have to move.

Premier Li Keqiang has already talked about the pros and cons of urbanization, stressing that urbanization, industrialization and agricultural modernization should be developed in coordination.

Now the governments need to implement more favorable policies concerning the countryside and small towns, so as to create jobs that offer relatively good salaries and thus provide residents with the opportunity for a better life.

It is much better for the rural young to become urban residents in their rural sweet homes, rather than strangers growing up in cities.