How big is Big?

Can't resist commenting on an article in the China Daily entitled "Low-carbon urbanization is way forward for China." I ran across the article as part of my part-time day job maintaining a website for a national nonprofit whose focus is on sustainable communities, among other things.

So the question: Just how big is China? Try this on for size:

By 2020, there will be an estimated 300 million people (equal to the US population) in China moving to cities.

Image every man, woman and child in America packing everything and moving to a new home. Now consider doing that -- moving everyone in America -- in just 10 years.

And that rate of urbanization, according to the China Daily article, is not really very fast.

China's urbanization rate in 2008 was 46 percent, far below the 61 percent in middle-income countries and 78 percent in wealthy countries.

China, of course, has no intention of slowing what it sees as its climb from poverty into the realm of middle income. But with energy consumption of urban residents 3.5 to 4 times that of the rural population, the size of the challenge China's urbanization creates is unmistakable: Big!

Last year, the McKinsey Global Institute released a report entitled "Preparing for China's Urban Billion." Among its findings:

The policy choices that China's leaders make at national and local levels can alter the shape of urbanization significantly. [McKinsey Global Institute] finds that an urgent shift in focus from solely driving GDP growth to an agenda of boosting urban productivity—achieving the same or better economic results with fewer resources—is not only an opportunity but a necessity.

What will the world look like when my son, The Kid, is an old man of, say, 58? That's 40 years from now. What will Big! look like then?