He talks about the region and forgot to mention the center is Guangzhou, the biggest and oldest cities in the region. The region didn’t start with Macao and Hong Kong, Guangzhou / Canton have been the main port for millennia
Yeah, that was so weird when he said it all started with the Portuguese getting Macao. Why do you think they wanted Macao? To trade with people already in the area ...
Guangzhou was also the main city historically (not HK), 2,200 years old and a main nexus and port on the naval Silk Route - often one of the world's largest cities through history, as well as through the colonial era. It's still the main anchor to the region, and 2-3x the size of HK.
As a Cantonese native, I have to say that this video started with an awfully, awfully euro-centric historical viewpoint. Guangzhou (Canton) had been the only city in the region open to Maritime trade hundreds of years before the colonization of Macau and Hong Kong, and the historical reasoning should've started at least with that.
Just label it shit white people say. I'm far from someone that's pro china. But that's being done in the prd is impressive. Even the Guangzhou, Foshan, donguan and Shenzhen metro combining along with high speed commuter rail is enough to make people lives easier.
@@de_Voux That's not what euro-centric means. Euro-centric means seeing things from what Europeans thought and still think is important as can be seen from their books and media, which do not have a full understanding of history and geography, and therefore missing out on showing the full picture. For example, in this video on why China developed the way it is, missing out the full picture means missing out important reasons, and misrepresenting some less important reasons as more important. If the video were discussing China's trade relations, then focusing on China-Europe trade and downplaying China-Asia trade could be fair, as long as the evidence shows that one trade relation was more crucial than the other. It is not bad to emphasize the importance of important powers in the world, but it is bad to miss out on information due to a lack of research, or a lack of seeing things from different perspectives, and as a result analyze the importance of certain factors inaccurately.
”I’m in China defender…” 😒 what? Speaking for bullshits against China will just make you communist or something so you felt the strong need to clarify that?
I dont think chinese urbanisation is not bad at all. More services available for people and for the vast majority communal mindsetted chinese its a good thing. But i find a bad mouth-sation of western people is getting worsen year by year.
Well the history of pearl river delta starts not at 1557 AD, but at least at 203 BC, when Guangzhou/Canton became the capital of Nanyue Kingdom, since then it has been one of the most important trade centre in China.
Kinda weird how all countries/nations that existed on contemporary states’ territories are just claimed to be ‘of’ that nation now, like the UK claiming the Kingdom of Northumbria as ‘their own’. But I guess that’s just how it works.
@@wheresmyeyebrow1608 For countries with long histroy like Greece, India, China and Iran, the continuity of ancient and modern states and the link between our ancestors and us are quite clear and touchable. We are not that type of country coming out of global surge of colonism and nationalism in the past few decades.
Guangzhou already lost its culture! Guangzhou don’t know how to speak Cantonese! Only Hong Kong & Macau speak CANTONESE. Hong Kong is International financial center of China. Macau is gambling center of China. Shenzhen is new technology center of China. Guangzhou is just an industrial center of Guangdong.
Hong Kong and Macau very much do not have and were not granted "democracies independent of China." Even before the National Security Law was imposed on Hong Kong, that description would've been inaccurate. And the city certainly isn't "politically autonomous" now.
Well, it is not certainly a politically autonomous anymore after the colour revolution. Thanks to brits and american who like to citing these kind of proxy war in other countries.
@@walhdamaskus2408 As a Hong Konger, that's an awfully Western-centric perspective. We didn't do it on the whim of you Westerners - don't take away our agency in this situation.
By 2030, the GBA will have more than 100 metro lines spanning on more than 2500 km and with 1200 stations. They will be grouped into high speed metro, rapid metro and conventional metro. Adding to that commuter rail line spanning around 2000 km for 11 lines and many HSR train stations connecting to the whole country. Talking about connectivity!!
You said the time between HK and Shenzhen isn't good because of the border crossing. Anybody that has done that journey will tell you it's one of the fastest border crossings in the world, even for Europeans with visas
Hard not to watch this video with your jaw open the entire time. Every fact about China is just mind boggling. Great to get a bit of a geographic picture.
China faces a new future now. Their economic growth is shrinking rapidly, they are having a major demographic issue with working age population already shrinking and total population to begin shrinking soon, their housing market which is 30%+ of the economy is near collapse and best scenario they it will stagnated for years, their banking which is tied to housing lending is also near a crisis, etc. In addition, this climate change isn’t just effecting pearl River delta but affecting the rest of China with major droughts leading to an energy crisis.
@@Homer-OJ-Simpson Yes, sure.. All countries on earth are facing many issues and problems. India is now the rising star, if they can manage their surplus and growing population well!! In many more technologically advanced countries, AI and robotics may help labour shortage!! China is now the largest manufacturing nation with all its supply chain ecosystem, infrastructure including power supply!! India's infrastructure is decades behind China. Its supply chain is still very much dependent on China. It's power generation is only around one tenth of China's!! India still has lots of bottle necks, roads, railways, ports, power supply, etc, etc. And relatively low-educated population. 30 % of India's Indians are illiterate!! So, just wait and watch!! Ok???
@@donnydrumpf9563 most countries issues are pandemic related so likely to go back to normal. Chinas is deeply structural and I described in my original the many structural issues it faces. Those are facts. India is now growing much faster than China but it has a different path. It will not rely on manufacturing as much china did but it will rely heavily on service jobs which already are well over 60% of gdp for India vs china’s under 50%. These jobs originally started with call centers but now include IT, accounting and many other jobs that can be done remotely by an English speaking person.
@@donnydrumpf9563 22% of India is illiterate and it’s dropping fast. Right now Indians labor participation rate is only 41% and increasing vs Chinas declining at 49% (it was 80% 30 years ago). So as more Indians enter the labor force it will help the economy tremendously
I’m left wondering why you’re saying this is awful, aside from the title generating more clicks. Many of these cities are actually very nice places to walk around in. Also wish RUclipsrs at least tried a little bit to not butcher all the names, I mean you can just go to Wikipedia, listen to the name and then say that…
The history of the Pearl River Delta does not start with the Portuguese colonizers. Can anyone include more historic evidence of its importance prior to European invasions?
This video is about Mega cities/city clusters and how they came to be. Not about the beginning history of the Pearl River Delta. There is no reason to go past European colonization, because before that it wasn’t much there.
HK, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Foshan: been to many cities of the Pearl River Delta. They all offer great quality of life and excellent public transportation of millions of people.
@@1mol831 i have been to all over Asia, India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Philippines, Thailand... In terms of infrastructure Chinese cities seem to be extremely well managed, but surely there are a lot of problems like pollution and lack of freedom
One of the main reasons allowing Chinese cities to grow the way they did - government ownership of land. Western commentators cannot understand the sheer power the government has to push through projects. The same is not possible in most other countries around the world without intervention from environmental groups, people refusing to give up their land etc.
on the flip side, the same government ownership of the land and the lack of local taxation means that they won't be able to sustain these cities once the stuff has been built. Much like we've woken up to in the US and Europe, its all fine and well to say you're going to build forever but eventually you have to fix what's there and that takes money and the incentives to fix and maintain aren't as attractive as those to tear down and rebuild but you can't always tear down and rebuild
I wouldn't call it Awful cause no other country can manage that much population density within a small amount of land mass, 85 million ppl is equivalent to twice amount of population of Canada and a bit more
The Pearl River Delta is not a single metropolitan area. Even though it is a contiguous urbanized region, the individual cities do not share typical urban infrastructure nor is it feasible to commute between them. This is what separates it from the Greater Tokyo Area, which is defined by communities made up of people who commute into the 23 wards area that makes up inner Tokyo. We’re Japan to play the same game as China here, we’d have to include Nagoya, Ustunomiya and most of Ibaraki prefecture in Tokyo. It just doesn’t make sense.
The goal is to copy what others have done and make it sound like it's something new and successful. On paper it looks good. But often poorly executed. The big bridge from HK has barely any traffic even before Covid. And now it's just a white elephant despite many attempts to use it. People and businesses are just not using it.
After 1997, Hong Kong is Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China. SAR is the highest grade in China autonomous structure. Before 1997, Hong Kong is the most successful colony of UK.
To make this point even clearer - Hong Kong had laid down the FOUNDATION for a functioning democracy that never came. Which makes it even more of a shame as there are democracies around the world that don't run properly because their foundations are flawed. *cough* America and India *cough*
It's not so much 'awful' urbanisation but good urbanisation - sponge cities, connectivity, able to house, clothe, feed and employ a million newcomers each year, HSR, impressive infrastructure riddled with many of the world's largest bridges/ tunnels and the fact it's the world's largest public transport system (Guangzhou alone has a metro network 50% larger than former record holder London, Shenzhen 30%, both of which were largely built in the last decade). 3 of the world's largest airports and 4 of the largest sea ports, and the three largest centres for skyscrapers (Shenzhen and Hong Kong each with more than NYC, Guangzhou set to overtake). Also the fact it's managed to connect the region to the rest of the country on an HSR network, despite being surrounded by mountain chains that cut off Guangzhou so impenetrably, people historically moved abroad than to the rest of the country (hence the Cantonese diaspora, unrecognised ethnicity and culture making up most of the Chinatowns round the world).
While the criticism of the HK-Macao-Mainland connections is warranted, the only way of removing them would be to erode the autonomy of HK and Macao even more than it already did in 2020.
True, but Hong Kong will officially become part of mainland China in 2047 - which is the 50-year deadline after the establishment of the "one country two systems" back in 1997. Macao is 100% part of china as a special administrative zone. There was controversy in HK in 2020, but in the long run, hong kong is destined to be part of china as per the British and Chinese agreement.
@@TheSwedishHistorian The national security law did not break the agreement. There were clauses in the agreement that allowed the national security law to be passed.
@@TheSwedishHistorian You're blinded and misled by one-sided anti-China propaganda. Not a fan of the Chinese govt and its policies but there were literally many protesters/rioters in HK who demanded Hong Kong be separated from China. No country or govt in this world would allow their country's territory to be separated. If anything, those small-minded rioters were the ones who broke the agreement "One Country Two System" and gave the chance to the CCP to impose the National Security Law on HK.
Austin McConnell asked for suggestions of small YT channels worth checking out and your channel came up many times! I just came from there and after watching this, you got yourself a new sub. You’re probably getting more soon, great job!
Didn't you have to go through immigration before the high speed rail connected hong kong? I dont understand your argument about the immigration process when it has been there for centuries....
well made video, but i wish you would reconsider the framing of your description of hong kong and macao. they were colonized parts of china, but the area was widely developed prior to colonization.
9:21 it's alright, we in this area don't speak Mandarin, we speak Cantonese. I disliked this video because our city has been here since year 214 BC, but you made it like as if there's nobody living here till you albinos came.
I lived in New Orleans a long time. Same geological makeup. It looks like they didn't take into consideration the impact of all that weight on a "marsh" land in an area subject to normal flooding and runoff. There is no real fix for this reality. It will cost billions to compensate but will it be worth it. It is one thing to be flooded. But to be flooded by polluted sediment is just dangerous. I bet if the top-down people spoke to the original inhabitants, they could have learned some things.
What did Zhou Enlai have anything to do with establishment of Shenzhen? Are you getting advice and reference from someone got secondary education in China and barely read the textbook?
i don't see what's awful about this seems like really effective leadership and urban planning, the problems are caused by the history of european colonialism in hong kong and macau
In Greater Bay Area, Hong Kong is international financial center. Macau is tourism center. Shenzhen is new technology center. Guangzhou is industrial center.
lmao. "to keep traffic low" on the bridge? the bridge was a vanity project. there's a ferry from HK -> macau that's perfectly serviceable. traffic is low because you essentially need licenses/registration/insurance in HK, macau, and mainland. there was no intention to "keep traffic low." it was a byproduct of having to navigate 2 SAR's
This was a really good video, and very well produced, but it is a very western perspective and lacks a bit of information. The pearl river delta region was not founded by the UK or Portugal and has existed for centuries before that. But perhaps most importantly is the political stuff in the region, as you appear to be completely unaware that China broke its lease agreement with Hong Kong and invaded in 2020. I know it wasn't hugely covered in the west, but it is extremely important for the future of the region. Also I'm not sure about this, but I think they speak Cantonese in that part of China, although I appreciate you calling mandarin by its real name.
I just want to point out Tokyo is a mega cluster that's actually trying to incorporate another mega city Osaka. It takes a shit ton of planning and an extremely robust public transport network for this kind of mega urban area to work. The geography, other than having to be relatively flat and close to ocean ports, etc. honestly doesn't even matter that much.
What would 6-year plans be like compared to a 5-year plan? 4-5 years to get work done and 1-2 years to ensure there are no failures, tofu projects, or financial fuckups?
7:37 Even for rail travel within mainland China I believe it can be a bit more bureaucratic too, with train stations designed like airports, & ID & security checkpoints when you depart, & arriving passengers directed to a different floor of the station from departing ones. The former Apple Daily once calculated that as the new HSR between HK & Guangzhou stops further out in the outskirts in the latter (almost 17km from downtown), the total travel time is not much faster via HSR compared to normal speed rail 8:44 Actually the whole HK-Zhuhai-Macau bridge & tunnel has traffic driving on the right 8:58 You need 3 documents to drive on the bridge & tunnel I remember from HK to Zhuhai - a closed road permit (which is sold/auctioned in limited quantities & thus quite expensive I heard), a special license plate for use in mainland China (which you can now print on paper & display on the windscreen - previously you had to apply in advance for green metal licence plates to be fixed on your vehicle's exterior) & mainland China vehicle insurance. If you want to drive to Macau, you'll be forced to park at a designated carpark at the Macau side of the bridge & then ride public transport, probably as Macau's roads are quite narrow. However you can skip these bureaucracy by crossing this bridge & tunnel via coach instead. Its been calculated to be slower but cheaper than ferry
Another interesting thing to note is that HK has long been an economic experiment that its colonial masters - first Britain then China -have never dared back home. A fantastic money making cow it is the world's freest economy where only 20% of the richest pay marginal tax, but the end result being the world's most unequal developed city after NYC, where the rest of the 80% are trapped in the working class and a third in the absolute precariat. One third struggle to feed themselves, 1/5 of schoolkids and 1/3 of seniors miss a meal, and over 200,000 are effectively homeless living in 'coffin homes' -it more resembles a typical Third World city of the 20th Century, where taxation went largely unenforced. Despite the world's best education results and high HDI, poverty is systemic and entrenched -witness the highrise slums of HK and Macau whilst across the border they would long have been replaced, oft undemocratically. Contrast also how the Mainland now has 75% middle class in the urban areas, despite on paper the GDP smaller in nominal terms and HKers having multiple times higher pay (but multiple times lower quality of life). The phenomenon is now seeing HKers reverse the flow on the border and trying to get out. Anywhere else and such inequality would have devolved into a cesspit of crime, forcing the capital to flee -however Confucian culture, a lack of democracy with authoritarian leadership (throughout Colonial and PRC times) and the fact there's nowhere to flee to, with both UK and China barring HKers citizenship, ensured the survival of the machine.
The 1x1 meter homes (barracks) for the homeless is a neat idea though. A good way for them to stay indoors while working on any job while not wasting taxpayer money on programs with questionable success. Ive wondered why the rest dont move to the mainland for better homes but now I understand a bit more, cool thanks bro.
American doesn’t stand a chance at competing with this. It’s population is split, it’s large, mostly coastal cities are hated and public transport is trash.
Did Guangzhou own a long history as an center of region? Just tell you the fact, Guangzhou boomed just around 1800 (only trading port of Qing dynasty) and died after 1842 (first Opium war).
7:52 That's the wrong station. Hung Hom Station shown in the video shut down all trains to mainland due to COVID, the High Speed Rail station is called Hong Kong West Kowloon Station
I'd argue these bridges and other infrastructure were put there ahead of time before they start to push for a higher level of integration (e.g., less paper work at the 'boarder' between the mainland and Hongkong) 8:41
The real 'awful urbanisation' is the gradual loss of culture from the villages, the displacement of people and families, the continual destruction of older inner city buildings and neighbourhoods and the widening gap between mega-rich and ultra-poor. What you have outlined in this video is China's attempt to congregate megacities on a mass scale and clearly, the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.
British got permanent sovereignty over Hong Kong island (City of Victoria, and still the heart of Hong Kong). Later, they got 99 years lease for Kowloon and New Territories (majority areas of what is known Hong Kong). Though, they also return sovereignty of Hong Kong island in 1997.
It's a well put together video but I saw some glaring inaccuracies which massively undermined the quality in my opinion and my confidence in the host. For one thing he's popped Zuhai onto where Sanzaozhen should be on his little jigsaw map. Was it just so that the piece had something written on it? Maybe that's artistic license but it could be misleading. Also there wasn't much mention of Guangzhou and the history was veering onto revisionist.
Awful? Do one about Brazil, one about US.... I want to see how awfully a organized urbinazation matches agains places where ppl live in their cars, tents or favelas.
This video has just error after error. Very very poor research. At least get the facts right. 1. The development of the Pearl River Delta started LONG before the Portuguese were allowed to established an outpost at Macau. The Qin dynasty incorporated the area into its empire in 214BC and made Panyu the local capital. Even before its incorporation the area was already a major shipbuilding settlement for a seafaring people. During the Tang dynasty Canton was one of if not the largest port on Earth even possessing a Persian quarter. 2. Britain did not sign a 99 year lease over Hong Kong. HK Island was ceded in perpetuity after the First Opium War. Kowloon was ceded in perpetuity after the Second Opium War. The New Territories were leased for 99 years in 1898. 3. Neither Hong Kong, Macau nor mainland China are democracies by any conceivable metric. 4. While increasing connectivity within cities on the Chinese side of the border makes a lot of sense, various connectivity projects linking Hong Kong with cities on the Chinese side faced immense opposition for a simple reason. Most have no reason to ever cross the border. There are more people moving between Hong Kong and Canada on the other side of the Pacific than across into Guangdong.
You could have used a better title, not a clickbait one. If "Awful" means to meet climate changes and pollution, Japan's Tokyo Circle maybe the worst with typhoons and earthquakes, with additional nuclear radiations, which is applaused by you westerners, especially tourists. And the bridge, why so many bureaucracies? Because British forces HK to drive on left, and westerners are against any law adjustment in HK when it comes to adapt to the mainland for "Freedom".
your video is 10yrs outdate. china dont suffer from smog for over 10yrs now. every video including your use old smog video and try to pass as present....lol
the way China manages public transit is the most efficient and I’ll argue the best system in the world, the logistics of moving people around efficiently is the only way a mega city cluster can be managed
@@kaiwut So I am I lmao. That's what I mean by "Anglo accent." In English a good approximation is "ShinJin." He said "ShinJen." Guy obviously doesn't speak Mandarin so him just getting the "j" sound is already better than 90% of English speakers who probably would've pronounced it with a "z" sound instead. And Xinjiang sounds nothing like what he said, the way Anglo speakers pronounce that isn't nearly correct either lol
When your country has more than a billion people to feed, but half of your land is not so livable, awful urbanization will appear. But I think because of the solidification of classes and the trend of declining birthrates, urbanization in China will be better in the future.
Bro just ignored how it works since the public transportation system is great. They don't just rely on highways. There are busses and bikes infastructures and a walkable city
Your criticism of the HSR link seems pretty dumb. The time taken to get to the station and to go through immigration exist with the slower modes. The percentage increase is lower than you might think if you just look at the one part of the journey but it still saves time. Also it would've been nice if you put a little bit more effort into getting your pronunciations of the city names a bit better.
As a Chinese who lives in the region he's describing: 1. The cross-border arragement was simply not designed for EVERYONE's short-haul trips. There exists a demographic that travel from Hong Kong to Shenzhen and Guangzhou and vice versa serve, which is business people who don't go far from commercial areas around stations. Only when travel distance is longer does hsr make more sense for everyone else. 2. I don't think his pronunciations are bad except for Dongguan, but hey, he's excused for probably never having studied Chinese extensively before.
You talk about pollution in the greater Bay Area but use photos that are clearly taken in Shanghai. In Shanghai these days, it’s usually fog (instead of smog) that cover the skyline
Hope there will talk more about the political problems in Hong Kong and China. I think there is a different culture after Hong Kong is been colonised by Britain for 150 years🙏🏾
I beg to differ. Hong kong culture (and macanese culture) are still quite similar to that of the Guangzhou "natives" (those whose families have been around the area for generations)
This kind of Western Centric nonsense is why you guys are better off stick to Europe. Hong Kong is not important. It has been superseded by Shenzhen several years back. The tech industry is in Shenzhen. The manufacturing Dongguan. All that HK is good for is finance.
Thanks for watching, check out another video we ahve about China’s Fight to Claim Antarctica: ruclips.net/video/SpKVE7oC3qg/видео.html
you misspelled have btw, anyways ive seen both videos and loved them, keep up the good work
I wish a Time-traveler Industrialized Bronze Age China. We would have colonized space by 2900 BCE!!!
Wow can you be more sensationalist and shameless?
Let me guess the author of that article u read ..CIA?? Western Elites? Klaus Shwab? WEF? Bil Gates?
He talks about the region and forgot to mention the center is Guangzhou, the biggest and oldest cities in the region. The region didn’t start with Macao and Hong Kong, Guangzhou / Canton have been the main port for millennia
agreed, foreign nations have been using Guangzhou for centuries prior to Macau and Hong Kong
Yeah, that was so weird when he said it all started with the Portuguese getting Macao. Why do you think they wanted Macao? To trade with people already in the area ...
He also says that soon after Britain took over Hong Kong but it was 300 years after lol.
@@himanshusingh5214 that's where its coming from the 4 point proper
Pretty faulty with the backstory
Guangzhou was also the main city historically (not HK), 2,200 years old and a main nexus and port on the naval Silk Route - often one of the world's largest cities through history, as well as through the colonial era. It's still the main anchor to the region, and 2-3x the size of HK.
omg i remember your blog i was obsessed w it
@@naomiathens Oh thank you - never realised peeps actually read it! x
Is it true that Hong Kongers act superior to people from Guangzhou and consider them and their Cantonese inferior?
@@zupermaus9276 i remember running into it through skyscrapercity :)) i was so obsessed
How did HK became the city it was when Guangzhou was there all along?
As a Cantonese native, I have to say that this video started with an awfully, awfully euro-centric historical viewpoint. Guangzhou (Canton) had been the only city in the region open to Maritime trade hundreds of years before the colonization of Macau and Hong Kong, and the historical reasoning should've started at least with that.
Just label it shit white people say. I'm far from someone that's pro china. But that's being done in the prd is impressive. Even the Guangzhou, Foshan, donguan and Shenzhen metro combining along with high speed commuter rail is enough to make people lives easier.
Euro-centric historical view is not a bad thing, actually, because even now Europe and it's legacy - are the actual drivers of our progress.
@@de_Voux That's not what euro-centric means. Euro-centric means seeing things from what Europeans thought and still think is important as can be seen from their books and media, which do not have a full understanding of history and geography, and therefore missing out on showing the full picture. For example, in this video on why China developed the way it is, missing out the full picture means missing out important reasons, and misrepresenting some less important reasons as more important.
If the video were discussing China's trade relations, then focusing on China-Europe trade and downplaying China-Asia trade could be fair, as long as the evidence shows that one trade relation was more crucial than the other.
It is not bad to emphasize the importance of important powers in the world, but it is bad to miss out on information due to a lack of research, or a lack of seeing things from different perspectives, and as a result analyze the importance of certain factors inaccurately.
@@de_Voux sounds familiar China 1000years ago...
@@shuli6021 theyve gone from criticizing chinese arrogance to emboding it
I’m no China defender, but the bad effects of Chinese urbanization can be found in any mass urbanization process
In china they don’t care at all.
Yeah and in china^100
Lol thank you
”I’m in China defender…” 😒 what? Speaking for bullshits against China will just make you communist or something so you felt the strong need to clarify that?
I dont think chinese urbanisation is not bad at all. More services available for people and for the vast majority communal mindsetted chinese its a good thing. But i find a bad mouth-sation of western people is getting worsen year by year.
Well the history of pearl river delta starts not at 1557 AD, but at least at 203 BC, when Guangzhou/Canton became the capital of Nanyue Kingdom, since then it has been one of the most important trade centre in China.
Kinda weird how all countries/nations that existed on contemporary states’ territories are just claimed to be ‘of’ that nation now, like the UK claiming the Kingdom of Northumbria as ‘their own’. But I guess that’s just how it works.
@@wheresmyeyebrow1608 For countries with long histroy like Greece, India, China and Iran, the continuity of ancient and modern states and the link between our ancestors and us are quite clear and touchable. We are not that type of country coming out of global surge of colonism and nationalism in the past few decades.
@@wheresmyeyebrow1608free Northumbria and Mercia from the oppressive south Saxon kingdoms who think Anglians and Saxons are the same!
Pretty sure there were people there before the Portuguese came to Pearl River Delta
Of course, he is misleading, the culture and economy center of that party of china was and still is Guangzhou. Not HK or Macao.
It's to be expected. White folks only really care about other white people.
Guangzhou already lost its culture! Guangzhou don’t know how to speak Cantonese! Only Hong Kong & Macau speak CANTONESE. Hong Kong is International financial center of China. Macau is gambling center of China. Shenzhen is new technology center of China. Guangzhou is just an industrial center of Guangdong.
Hong Kong and Macau very much do not have and were not granted "democracies independent of China." Even before the National Security Law was imposed on Hong Kong, that description would've been inaccurate. And the city certainly isn't "politically autonomous" now.
Well, it is not certainly a politically autonomous anymore after the colour revolution. Thanks to brits and american who like to citing these kind of proxy war in other countries.
@@walhdamaskus2408 As a Hong Konger, that's an awfully Western-centric perspective. We didn't do it on the whim of you Westerners - don't take away our agency in this situation.
By 2030, the GBA will have more than 100 metro lines spanning on more than 2500 km and with 1200 stations. They will be grouped into high speed metro, rapid metro and conventional metro. Adding to that commuter rail line spanning around 2000 km for 11 lines and many HSR train stations connecting to the whole country. Talking about connectivity!!
You said the time between HK and Shenzhen isn't good because of the border crossing. Anybody that has done that journey will tell you it's one of the fastest border crossings in the world, even for Europeans with visas
Hard not to watch this video with your jaw open the entire time. Every fact about China is just mind boggling. Great to get a bit of a geographic picture.
Thanks for tuning in Phil, you're totally right, my jaw was on the floor the whole way through the research process 🤯 - Andy
China faces a new future now. Their economic growth is shrinking rapidly, they are having a major demographic issue with working age population already shrinking and total population to begin shrinking soon, their housing market which is 30%+ of the economy is near collapse and best scenario they it will stagnated for years, their banking which is tied to housing lending is also near a crisis, etc. In addition, this climate change isn’t just effecting pearl River delta but affecting the rest of China with major droughts leading to an energy crisis.
@@Homer-OJ-Simpson Yes, sure.. All countries on earth are facing many issues and problems. India is now the rising star, if they can manage their surplus and growing population well!! In many more technologically advanced countries, AI and robotics may help labour shortage!! China is now the largest manufacturing nation with all its supply chain ecosystem, infrastructure including power supply!! India's infrastructure is decades behind China. Its supply chain is still very much dependent on China. It's power generation is only around one tenth of China's!! India still has lots of bottle necks, roads, railways, ports, power supply, etc, etc. And relatively low-educated population. 30 % of India's Indians are illiterate!! So, just wait and watch!! Ok???
@@donnydrumpf9563 most countries issues are pandemic related so likely to go back to normal. Chinas is deeply structural and I described in my original the many structural issues it faces. Those are facts.
India is now growing much faster than China but it has a different path. It will not rely on manufacturing as much china did but it will rely heavily on service jobs which already are well over 60% of gdp for India vs china’s under 50%. These jobs originally started with call centers but now include IT, accounting and many other jobs that can be done remotely by an English speaking person.
@@donnydrumpf9563 22% of India is illiterate and it’s dropping fast. Right now Indians labor participation rate is only 41% and increasing vs Chinas declining at 49% (it was 80% 30 years ago). So as more Indians enter the labor force it will help the economy tremendously
I’m left wondering why you’re saying this is awful, aside from the title generating more clicks. Many of these cities are actually very nice places to walk around in. Also wish RUclipsrs at least tried a little bit to not butcher all the names, I mean you can just go to Wikipedia, listen to the name and then say that…
It’s anti china propaganda
the title will help this video to be pushed to more audience by the anti China RUclips.
@@jk9876 this^
@@jk9876 RUclips is actually very pro CCP. any negative comment on the current state of China and it is immediately flagged and demonetized
The history of the Pearl River Delta does not start with the Portuguese colonizers. Can anyone include more historic evidence of its importance prior to European invasions?
This video is about Mega cities/city clusters and how they came to be. Not about the beginning history of the Pearl River Delta. There is no reason to go past European colonization, because before that it wasn’t much there.
@@Ace-mw9pm what? Guangzhou existed more than a millenia before European colonization.
HK, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Foshan: been to many cities of the Pearl River Delta. They all offer great quality of life and excellent public transportation of millions of people.
Quality of life is not good, but public transportation is good.
@@1mol831 i have been to all over Asia, India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Philippines, Thailand... In terms of infrastructure Chinese cities seem to be extremely well managed, but surely there are a lot of problems like pollution and lack of freedom
One of the main reasons allowing Chinese cities to grow the way they did - government ownership of land. Western commentators cannot understand the sheer power the government has to push through projects. The same is not possible in most other countries around the world without intervention from environmental groups, people refusing to give up their land etc.
It's not really that unheard of, the majority of the worlds countries are currently dictatorships
Gimme liberty or gimme death brother 💜
We understand. We fought to get rid of it and them.
Yes now they're not controlled by Government yay..... They're controlled by corporate interest.
on the flip side, the same government ownership of the land and the lack of local taxation means that they won't be able to sustain these cities once the stuff has been built. Much like we've woken up to in the US and Europe, its all fine and well to say you're going to build forever but eventually you have to fix what's there and that takes money and the incentives to fix and maintain aren't as attractive as those to tear down and rebuild but you can't always tear down and rebuild
I wouldn't call it Awful cause no other country can manage that much population density within a small amount of land mass,
85 million ppl is equivalent to twice amount of population of Canada and a bit more
Leave Canada (the countryside of USA), Go to visit those mega city clusters in the world.
The Pearl River Delta is not a single metropolitan area. Even though it is a contiguous urbanized region, the individual cities do not share typical urban infrastructure nor is it feasible to commute between them. This is what separates it from the Greater Tokyo Area, which is defined by communities made up of people who commute into the 23 wards area that makes up inner Tokyo. We’re Japan to play the same game as China here, we’d have to include Nagoya, Ustunomiya and most of Ibaraki prefecture in Tokyo. It just doesn’t make sense.
Were, not we're.
@@xenxander Your such a grammar Nazi. I cant believe their are anyone like that on this whole world.
They are trying to turn it into a Tokoyo.
Great point but I think you meant Yokohama/Saitama/Chiba instead of Nagoya. Nagoya has its own metropolitan area centred around it.
The goal is to copy what others have done and make it sound like it's something new and successful. On paper it looks good. But often poorly executed. The big bridge from HK has barely any traffic even before Covid. And now it's just a white elephant despite many attempts to use it. People and businesses are just not using it.
Just a point of clarification, Hong Kong was not democratic under British rule as suggested
After 1997, Hong Kong is Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China. SAR is the highest grade in China autonomous structure. Before 1997, Hong Kong is the most successful colony of UK.
They had rights and rule of law though
To make this point even clearer - Hong Kong had laid down the FOUNDATION for a functioning democracy that never came. Which makes it even more of a shame as there are democracies around the world that don't run properly because their foundations are flawed. *cough* America and India *cough*
The Pearl River Delta is experiencing massive water and air pollution - OP proceeds to show footage of Beijing and Shanghai 😅
You're talking crap, ignorant idiot.
It's not so much 'awful' urbanisation but good urbanisation - sponge cities, connectivity, able to house, clothe, feed and employ a million newcomers each year, HSR, impressive infrastructure riddled with many of the world's largest bridges/ tunnels and the fact it's the world's largest public transport system (Guangzhou alone has a metro network 50% larger than former record holder London, Shenzhen 30%, both of which were largely built in the last decade). 3 of the world's largest airports and 4 of the largest sea ports, and the three largest centres for skyscrapers (Shenzhen and Hong Kong each with more than NYC, Guangzhou set to overtake). Also the fact it's managed to connect the region to the rest of the country on an HSR network, despite being surrounded by mountain chains that cut off Guangzhou so impenetrably, people historically moved abroad than to the rest of the country (hence the Cantonese diaspora, unrecognised ethnicity and culture making up most of the Chinatowns round the world).
Right. The title of this video really had nothing to do with the topic. Seems like good urbanism to me
Dont take these youtube channel seriously. These self proclaim specialist youtubers always knows everything in any subjects. 😂😂😂
While the criticism of the HK-Macao-Mainland connections is warranted, the only way of removing them would be to erode the autonomy of HK and Macao even more than it already did in 2020.
True, but Hong Kong will officially become part of mainland China in 2047 - which is the 50-year deadline after the establishment of the "one country two systems" back in 1997. Macao is 100% part of china as a special administrative zone. There was controversy in HK in 2020, but in the long run, hong kong is destined to be part of china as per the British and Chinese agreement.
@@ioachimtalmazan-obol7476 china has already broken that agreement
@@TheSwedishHistorian The national security law did not break the agreement. There were clauses in the agreement that allowed the national security law to be passed.
@@TheSwedishHistorian You're blinded and misled by one-sided anti-China propaganda. Not a fan of the Chinese govt and its policies but there were literally many protesters/rioters in HK who demanded Hong Kong be separated from China. No country or govt in this world would allow their country's territory to be separated. If anything, those small-minded rioters were the ones who broke the agreement "One Country Two System" and gave the chance to the CCP to impose the National Security Law on HK.
@@kaichodesuwa imagine looking at what happen at HK and taking chinas side.
Are we to ignore 05:07 when someone gets hit in the face?
I saw that 😅
Austin McConnell asked for suggestions of small YT channels worth checking out and your channel came up many times! I just came from there and after watching this, you got yourself a new sub. You’re probably getting more soon, great job!
That's very cool! And thank you for subing. welcome to Faultline Daniella, it's a pleasure to have you here! 👋
Didn't you have to go through immigration before the high speed rail connected hong kong? I dont understand your argument about the immigration process when it has been there for centuries....
well made video, but i wish you would reconsider the framing of your description of hong kong and macao. they were colonized parts of china, but the area was widely developed prior to colonization.
More developed than the rest of China. But still not that developed.
cluster cities are great for mass transit and if done right allows for far less poluation
9:21 it's alright, we in this area don't speak Mandarin, we speak Cantonese.
I disliked this video because our city has been here since year 214 BC, but you made it like as if there's nobody living here till you albinos came.
Hong kong and Macau are not democracies and they have never been.
Your editing and storytelling is amazing!
Thank you so much!!
Can't wait for your channel to blow up in popularity. Some of the best edutainment in youtube
I lived in New Orleans a long time. Same geological makeup. It looks like they didn't take into consideration the impact of all that weight on a "marsh" land in an area subject to normal flooding and runoff. There is no real fix for this reality. It will cost billions to compensate but will it be worth it. It is one thing to be flooded. But to be flooded by polluted sediment is just dangerous. I bet if the top-down people spoke to the original inhabitants, they could have learned some things.
nice pov
Everything about the presentation for these videos is so good. I really appreciated the illustration of the region using puzzle pieces.
What did Zhou Enlai have anything to do with establishment of Shenzhen? Are you getting advice and reference from someone got secondary education in China and barely read the textbook?
id never thought about this kind of crossover of geography and anthropology! really cool concept, excited to see more!!
The transportation between china mainland and Hong Kong isn’t annoying for us, because that’s how we understand city travels
i don't see what's awful about this seems like really effective leadership and urban planning, the problems are caused by the history of european colonialism in hong kong and macau
Such an amazing part of the world. You really captured the scale and wonder of it. Looking forward to more!
Thanks Iain, I'm really excited to one day visit myself and see the huge scale in person. - Andy
@@FaultlinevideosChi Na is a joke
I can’t wait to see the sights and sounds in xijang
In Greater Bay Area, Hong Kong is international financial center. Macau is tourism center. Shenzhen is new technology center. Guangzhou is industrial center.
3:47 "democracies independent from china" lmao what a joke.
lmao. "to keep traffic low" on the bridge?
the bridge was a vanity project. there's a ferry from HK -> macau that's perfectly serviceable.
traffic is low because you essentially need licenses/registration/insurance in HK, macau, and mainland. there was no intention to "keep traffic low." it was a byproduct of having to navigate 2 SAR's
This was a really good video, and very well produced, but it is a very western perspective and lacks a bit of information. The pearl river delta region was not founded by the UK or Portugal and has existed for centuries before that. But perhaps most importantly is the political stuff in the region, as you appear to be completely unaware that China broke its lease agreement with Hong Kong and invaded in 2020. I know it wasn't hugely covered in the west, but it is extremely important for the future of the region. Also I'm not sure about this, but I think they speak Cantonese in that part of China, although I appreciate you calling mandarin by its real name.
I love that we talk about capital and how much capital China has when is a communist party. The world we live in, Contradictions at every corner.
So the Pearl River Delta is inconvenient because of imperialism
Chinese imperialism and Western imperialism
I just want to point out Tokyo is a mega cluster that's actually trying to incorporate another mega city Osaka. It takes a shit ton of planning and an extremely robust public transport network for this kind of mega urban area to work. The geography, other than having to be relatively flat and close to ocean ports, etc. honestly doesn't even matter that much.
ik this is a year old comment but I think you meant yokohama... osaka is on the other side of japan lol
Fantastic dive!
Glad you enjoyed this one Jamie!
This is all pretty mind blowing to be honest. Very well researched and put together, yet again. And love the puzzle!
Thank you for your support! The team worked very hard on this one.
It's not well researched
@@Faultlinevideos nice job bullshitting history lmao
For an illiterate
What would 6-year plans be like compared to a 5-year plan? 4-5 years to get work done and 1-2 years to ensure there are no failures, tofu projects, or financial fuckups?
7:37 Even for rail travel within mainland China I believe it can be a bit more bureaucratic too, with train stations designed like airports, & ID & security checkpoints when you depart, & arriving passengers directed to a different floor of the station from departing ones. The former Apple Daily once calculated that as the new HSR between HK & Guangzhou stops further out in the outskirts in the latter (almost 17km from downtown), the total travel time is not much faster via HSR compared to normal speed rail
8:44 Actually the whole HK-Zhuhai-Macau bridge & tunnel has traffic driving on the right
8:58 You need 3 documents to drive on the bridge & tunnel I remember from HK to Zhuhai - a closed road permit (which is sold/auctioned in limited quantities & thus quite expensive I heard), a special license plate for use in mainland China (which you can now print on paper & display on the windscreen - previously you had to apply in advance for green metal licence plates to be fixed on your vehicle's exterior) & mainland China vehicle insurance. If you want to drive to Macau, you'll be forced to park at a designated carpark at the Macau side of the bridge & then ride public transport, probably as Macau's roads are quite narrow. However you can skip these bureaucracy by crossing this bridge & tunnel via coach instead. Its been calculated to be slower but cheaper than ferry
0:44 “the world is watching the greater Bay Area” no we ain’t
Another interesting thing to note is that HK has long been an economic experiment that its colonial masters - first Britain then China -have never dared back home. A fantastic money making cow it is the world's freest economy where only 20% of the richest pay marginal tax, but the end result being the world's most unequal developed city after NYC, where the rest of the 80% are trapped in the working class and a third in the absolute precariat. One third struggle to feed themselves, 1/5 of schoolkids and 1/3 of seniors miss a meal, and over 200,000 are effectively homeless living in 'coffin homes' -it more resembles a typical Third World city of the 20th Century, where taxation went largely unenforced. Despite the world's best education results and high HDI, poverty is systemic and entrenched -witness the highrise slums of HK and Macau whilst across the border they would long have been replaced, oft undemocratically. Contrast also how the Mainland now has 75% middle class in the urban areas, despite on paper the GDP smaller in nominal terms and HKers having multiple times higher pay (but multiple times lower quality of life). The phenomenon is now seeing HKers reverse the flow on the border and trying to get out. Anywhere else and such inequality would have devolved into a cesspit of crime, forcing the capital to flee -however Confucian culture, a lack of democracy with authoritarian leadership (throughout Colonial and PRC times) and the fact there's nowhere to flee to, with both UK and China barring HKers citizenship, ensured the survival of the machine.
The 1x1 meter homes (barracks) for the homeless is a neat idea though. A good way for them to stay indoors while working on any job while not wasting taxpayer money on programs with questionable success.
Ive wondered why the rest dont move to the mainland for better homes but now I understand a bit more, cool thanks bro.
American doesn’t stand a chance at competing with this. It’s population is split, it’s large, mostly coastal cities are hated and public transport is trash.
Hi from Shenzhen! Not chinese but damn does this resonate with me on a big level
this video is the single reason why the interent need more people like you, keep it up!
Thank you for the support!
@@Faultlinevideos Why u gotta clickbait tho?
Did Guangzhou own a long history as an center of region? Just tell you the fact, Guangzhou boomed just around 1800 (only trading port of Qing dynasty) and died after 1842 (first Opium war).
7:52 That's the wrong station. Hung Hom Station shown in the video shut down all trains to mainland due to COVID, the High Speed Rail station is called Hong Kong West Kowloon Station
“Extreme events such as smog and acid rain “😂I nearly chucked my phone across the room.(greetings from tianjin)
I'd argue these bridges and other infrastructure were put there ahead of time before they start to push for a higher level of integration (e.g., less paper work at the 'boarder' between the mainland and Hongkong) 8:41
And even if you cross by other means you still have to go through customs 😩
So fast transport + customs
Or
Slow transport + customs
@@Khimera66 that custom might be gone after 25 years when Hongkong is integrated back into China 50 years since 1997 or even earlier, who knows
The real 'awful urbanisation' is the gradual loss of culture from the villages, the displacement of people and families, the continual destruction of older inner city buildings and neighbourhoods and the widening gap between mega-rich and ultra-poor. What you have outlined in this video is China's attempt to congregate megacities on a mass scale and clearly, the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.
British got permanent sovereignty over Hong Kong island (City of Victoria, and still the heart of Hong Kong). Later, they got 99 years lease for Kowloon and New Territories (majority areas of what is known Hong Kong). Though, they also return sovereignty of Hong Kong island in 1997.
This reminds me a lot of nyc since it’s 5 cities combined into 1. You have the main city Manhattan feeding the overspill into the other boughs
It's a well put together video but I saw some glaring inaccuracies which massively undermined the quality in my opinion and my confidence in the host. For one thing he's popped Zuhai onto where Sanzaozhen should be on his little jigsaw map. Was it just so that the piece had something written on it? Maybe that's artistic license but it could be misleading. Also there wasn't much mention of Guangzhou and the history was veering onto revisionist.
Nice video. I learned a lot!
You really deserve 100 times the subscribers you have my man!
Awful? Do one about Brazil, one about US.... I want to see how awfully a organized urbinazation matches agains places where ppl live in their cars, tents or favelas.
09:25 It's also not the first language of most people living there.
"Cluster cities" sound like something out of a post apocalyptic novel, some judge dredd shit.
This video has just error after error. Very very poor research. At least get the facts right.
1. The development of the Pearl River Delta started LONG before the Portuguese were allowed to established an outpost at Macau. The Qin dynasty incorporated the area into its empire in 214BC and made Panyu the local capital. Even before its incorporation the area was already a major shipbuilding settlement for a seafaring people. During the Tang dynasty Canton was one of if not the largest port on Earth even possessing a Persian quarter.
2. Britain did not sign a 99 year lease over Hong Kong. HK Island was ceded in perpetuity after the First Opium War. Kowloon was ceded in perpetuity after the Second Opium War. The New Territories were leased for 99 years in 1898.
3. Neither Hong Kong, Macau nor mainland China are democracies by any conceivable metric.
4. While increasing connectivity within cities on the Chinese side of the border makes a lot of sense, various connectivity projects linking Hong Kong with cities on the Chinese side faced immense opposition for a simple reason. Most have no reason to ever cross the border. There are more people moving between Hong Kong and Canada on the other side of the Pacific than across into Guangdong.
I came here to see how the Urbanization is bad, all I got instead was a history lesson
Hong Kong had no lease. The lease was for the 'New Territories' adjacent to Hong Kong.
Awful? the 5 island of New york is more clustered than the 11 cities of pearl delta
Clickbait title…
@0:35 that's Chinatown in San Francisco 💀
You could have used a better title, not a clickbait one.
If "Awful" means to meet climate changes and pollution, Japan's Tokyo Circle maybe the worst with typhoons and earthquakes, with additional nuclear radiations, which is applaused by you westerners, especially tourists.
And the bridge, why so many bureaucracies? Because British forces HK to drive on left, and westerners are against any law adjustment in HK when it comes to adapt to the mainland for "Freedom".
More on this topic plz🇯🇲👍🏾
your video is 10yrs outdate. china dont suffer from smog for over 10yrs now.
every video including your use old smog video and try to pass as present....lol
Not only urbanization. EVERYTHING.
great video not a big fan of the use of "awful" in the title though doesn't really match the content of the video and comes off weird to me
Really good stuff, subscribed
1:28 lmao pearl delta river, it's pearl river delta
the way China manages public transit is the most efficient and I’ll argue the best system in the world, the logistics of moving people around efficiently is the only way a mega city cluster can be managed
Him pronouncing Shenzhen as Xinjiang
He didn't though? The "zh" in Shenzhen sounds like a "j" in English. He's pronouncing it more or less correctly with an Anglo accent.
@@bobjones2959 I am literally Chinese, I just compared it to what the automated captions stated. He pronounced it more closely as "Shin Jian"
@@kaiwut So I am I lmao. That's what I mean by "Anglo accent." In English a good approximation is "ShinJin." He said "ShinJen." Guy obviously doesn't speak Mandarin so him just getting the "j" sound is already better than 90% of English speakers who probably would've pronounced it with a "z" sound instead. And Xinjiang sounds nothing like what he said, the way Anglo speakers pronounce that isn't nearly correct either lol
@@bobjones2959 ok yeah im wrong in that way, I just wanted to highlight google automated captions registering it closer to "Xinjiang"
@@kaiwut Because google would probably only recognize it as "Shenzhen" if he made the pronunciation worse, like if he said "Shen-zen" or something.
When your country has more than a billion people to feed, but half of your land is not so livable, awful urbanization will appear. But I think because of the solidification of classes and the trend of declining birthrates, urbanization in China will be better in the future.
And then they collectively failed to pay mortgage and get more loans
Bro just ignored how it works since the public transportation system is great. They don't just rely on highways. There are busses and bikes infastructures and a walkable city
You keep switching between Pearl Delta River and Pearl River Delta, make up your mind! xD
Does anybody know where the river mouth at 2:30 is located?
I am pretty sure most cities around the world have similar problems. Except for maybe immigration.
Your criticism of the HSR link seems pretty dumb. The time taken to get to the station and to go through immigration exist with the slower modes. The percentage increase is lower than you might think if you just look at the one part of the journey but it still saves time.
Also it would've been nice if you put a little bit more effort into getting your pronunciations of the city names a bit better.
As a Chinese who lives in the region he's describing:
1. The cross-border arragement was simply not designed for EVERYONE's short-haul trips. There exists a demographic that travel from Hong Kong to Shenzhen and Guangzhou and vice versa serve, which is business people who don't go far from commercial areas around stations. Only when travel distance is longer does hsr make more sense for everyone else.
2. I don't think his pronunciations are bad except for Dongguan, but hey, he's excused for probably never having studied Chinese extensively before.
The 99 year lease shouldve been written off as a British cultural practice
I feel like Hong Kong is very polluted already
You talk about pollution in the greater Bay Area but use photos that are clearly taken in Shanghai. In Shanghai these days, it’s usually fog (instead of smog) that cover the skyline
把Hong kong去掉比較合適，甴曱市和廣東城市並列一張圖是對我們珠三角的侮辱❤
Hope there will talk more about the political problems in Hong Kong and China. I think there is a different culture after Hong Kong is been colonised by Britain for 150 years🙏🏾
Yeah like in all the autonomous regions of China and still being part of the people's republic
I beg to differ. Hong kong culture (and macanese culture) are still quite similar to that of the Guangzhou "natives" (those whose families have been around the area for generations)
What these detailed map book called ??
4:30 how do you say it’s in the top 4 largest in the world when it’s literally #1
This kind of Western Centric nonsense is why you guys are better off stick to Europe. Hong Kong is not important. It has been superseded by Shenzhen several years back. The tech industry is in Shenzhen. The manufacturing Dongguan. All that HK is good for is finance.
you don't have to be fluent at mandarin to google how to pronounce place names
If the native people went back to the traditional way of living. They wouldn't need to rely on outside help.
Zooming into the map is not smooth and is unpleasant to look at. Apart from that good video!
There are too many damn people on the planet, and we're acting like termites stripping the earth clean as we chomp our way into every nook and cranny.
Awful? huh?