The early-1990s finds an unprecedented tide of rural workers flooding into big cities such as Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Beijing. According to a recent survey, in Shanghai alone there are more than 2.5 million migrant workers.
There is an ambivalent feeling towards rural workers. No one denies the important contribution rural workers have made to the urban development. They have done most of dirty, dangerous and underpaid jobs in heavy industries, construction sites and other fields that city residents are unwilling to enter. They have become an indispensable part of urban life to a point where the machinery of a city connot operate without those cogs, though small and unnoticed. Yet an anti-migrant attitude runs consistently through the mainstream of urban consciousness. City residents complain that migrant workers have worsened traffic and sanitation problems and have threatened to take already scarce urban jobs. They also blame them for the sharp rise in the urban crime rate.
Despite the problems posed by migrants, one thing is certain: a grand, prosperous edifice of the city is based on the work of millions of migrant workers.
