城鎮化並非經濟靈藥
Who opposes urbanisation? No one, it seems. In the past decade, as hundreds of millions of people have left the countryside, the cheerleaders for more and bigger cities have grown increasingly numerous and vocal.
誰反對城市化？看上去，似乎沒有人反對。過去十年，隨着數億人離開鄉下，倡導發展更多更大城市的人越來越多，他們發出的聲音也越來越響亮。But is urbanisation really an economic panacea for the 60m who become city-dwellers each year? And will it deliver the returns expected across Africa and Asia?
但對每年變身爲城市居民的6000萬人而言，城市化真是一劑經濟上的靈丹妙藥嗎？城市化能在亞非各國帶來預期的回報嗎？The evidence should give us pause. Take the recent pollution in Chinese cities, or the worse levels of Indian ones. Then there are the ever greater numbers living in urban squalor – for example, the 60m to be added to slums this decade on top of the 825m already living in such places. And, despite being home to just over half the world’s population, cities account for more than 70 per cent of its waste and greenhouse gases.
在事實證據面前，我們應該停下來想一想。看看中國城市最近的污染情況、或是印度城市更加糟糕的環境。接下來還會有更多的人居住在城市的骯髒角落裏——例如，目前全球城市的貧民窟中已有8.25億人口，在這個十年內，這個數字還會再增加6000萬。此外，儘管城市人口只佔全球總人口的一半多一點，但城市產生的垃圾和溫室氣體卻佔全球總量的70%以上。
So why is urbanisation deemed crucial to global development? The answer is the entrenched belief that, as creators of prosperity, cities are the key to modernity.
那麼，爲什麼還有人認爲城市化對全球發展有着十分重要的作用？答案是，有些人堅定地認爲：作爲繁榮的創造者，城市是邁向現代化的關鍵。Such thinking must be replaced with a more nuanced approach that recognises the countryside’s potential to create equitable, sustainable development. This is particularly true in Asia, where governments are happy to fund urban development but not to invest in rural areas. In China, for example, less than 10 per cent of government spending in the 1980s and 1990s was allocated to the rural economy, despite the fact it supported 75 per cent of its people.
我們必須摒棄這種思維，代之以更細緻入微的思考方式，要認識到農村創造公平、可持續發展的潛力。這一點尤其適用於亞洲。目前，亞洲各國政府很樂於投資發展城市，不願意投資農村地區。例如，上世紀八、九十年代，中國政府支出中只有不到10%用於發展農村經濟——儘管農村養活着中國75%的人口。This is not a call to reverse urbanisation. It is a call to strengthen rural development, to make the villages and townships that still house most Asians places that offer decently paid work and support a proper education, health and cultural infrastructure. It is about reversing policies that empty the countryside and discount its economic value.
這並不是在呼籲逆轉城市化進程，而是在呼籲加強農村發展，讓仍是多數亞洲人居住家園的村鎮能夠提供薪酬體面的工作、以及支撐適當的教育、醫療和文化基礎設施。爲此，應該改變把農村變爲“空巢”和不重視農村經濟價值的政策。Bold new policies should be built around three elements.
大膽的新政策應圍繞以下三點制定。First, we must understand how cities are fed by industrialised agriculture, using massive inputs of chemical fertilisers and pesticides aided by large-scale mechanisation. By removing work opportunities, this displaces rural populations.
首先，我們必須明白工業化的農業是如何哺育城市發展的：工業化的農業使用大量化肥和殺蟲劑，輔以大規模的機械化。這一過程擠掉了農業的就業機會，農村人只得離鄉進城。In light of the challenge of feeding 10bn people by mid-century, we need to look at measures that will add value to the rural economy. This will call for repricing inputs and ecosystem services such as watersheds and biodiversity to reflect their true environmental costs and benefits, which would in turn nudge modern farming towards being more labour intensive.
面對本世紀中葉要養活100億人口的難題，我們必須想辦法增加農村經濟的價值。爲此，要重新制定集水區、生物多樣性等投入要素和生態系統服務的價格，以反映它們真正的環境成本和收益——這反過來將推動現代農業朝着更加勞動密集型的方向發展。This is far from fanciful. Japan – whose farmers are even now resisting attempts to open up its markets to foreign imports under talks to set up a Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal – has a tradition of labour-intensive agriculture. It is highly subsidised but remains part of most landscapes, including many urban ones. More than 5m Japanese continue to secure their food direct from farmers.
這並非不切實際的想象。日本擁有勞動密集型農業的傳統（即便是現在，日本農民也在抵制向進口產品開放日本市場的企圖——開放日本市場是跨太平洋夥伴關係(TPP)貿易協定談判對日方提出的要求）。日本農業享受高額補貼，農村地區風景秀麗、甚至與很多城市的風光融爲一體。逾500萬日本人仍直接從農民手中獲取食物。One reason for Japan’s continued fondness for artisan farming is high prices for inputs, especially energy. As a result, the cost of labour remains competitive in both the traditional and modern sectors – and Japan retains a bias towards employing people rather than machines, despite being a leader in the construction of industrial robots.
日本一直鍾愛精耕細作農業的一個原因是，投入要素價格很高，尤其是能源。結果，勞動力成本不管是在傳統部門還是在現代部門都仍具競爭力。此外，儘管日本在建造工業機器人方面位居世界前列，但日本卻一直偏愛使用人工，而不願使用機器。Second, governments should direct greater investment to rural transport, irrigation, communication and storage infrastructure. This would allow farmers to reach markets where consumers can pay a premium for value-added foodstuffs and reduce Asia’s high levels of wastage.
其次，政府應該引導更多投資流入農村交通、灌溉、通訊和貯藏基礎設施。這將使得農民能夠進入那些顧客願爲高附加值食品支付高價的市場，緩解亞洲浪費嚴重的現象。Rural energy provision should be stepped up. In India, 400m people have no electricity in their homes. But whereas energy for urban households is subsidised, country-dwellers are left to fend for themselves. The same is true of water supply and sanitation services.
農村能源供給應該加強。在印度，有4億人在家中使不上電。城市家庭使用能源享受補貼，農村居民卻只能自己想辦法。供水和衛生服務方面也是如此。Third, governments should take a fresh look at property rights for the rural poor, granting farmers secure ownership to encourage them to invest in their land rather than leave it for poorly paid urban work.
第三，政府應該重新審視農村貧困人口的財產權，賦予農民可靠的所有權，鼓勵他們投資於自己的土地、而不是離開土地到城市謀份薪酬微薄的工作。Of course, such measures will not end the superficial attraction of cities to the displaced rural poor. However, by supporting the search for sustainable economies that guarantee a decent livelihood to all, they will show there are alternatives to abandoning centuries of links to the land for a precarious urban existence.
當然，此類措施並不會使城市對流離失所的貧困農民喪失表面上的吸引力。不過，通過爲摸索可持續經濟發展道路提供支持、確保所有人都活得體面，這些措施將向我們展示出，除了放棄世世代代以來與土地的聯繫、到城裏謀一份不穩定的生路之外，人們還有其他選擇。The writer is founder and chief executive of the Global Institute for Tomorrow and author of ‘Consumptionomics’
本文作者是Global Institute for Tomorrow創始人、首席執行官，著有《消費經濟學》(Consumptionomics)一書
