They also have the hukou system, and migrant workers often do not have the same benefits as native residents.

I think that much of the misunderstanding comes from the perception that China has a highly centralized authoritarian government which is all powerful within the state, which is true to some degree, but the regional governments are what effectively "run" most of the state, including things like infrastructure initiatives that most people would assume are state controlled. The big bold State planning also is in fact implemented in different ways by different provinces.

Then people put that framework into a western context of states and national government, which isn't right either. There is a lot of power balancing and interplay between the provincial and national governments, and the binding force is the CCP itself which doesn't have a clear western parallel either.

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Ericson2314 10 hours ago | parent [-]

Devolving social services to provinces is indeed very American! More than European.

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seanmcdirmid 10 hours ago | parent [-]

You can move to a new state or city to look for services. If you become homeless anywhere in the USA, you are more likely to wind up in a west coast city eventually looking for fair weather and services. In contrast, in China you can’t just move from your poor village to Shanghai and expect help and to not be harassed by police. They at best will just put you on a bus back to your poor village. Even worse, you could have been born in Shanghai but are still considered an illegal immigrant because your parents didn’t have Shanghai hukou. You can be deported to a poor village that you’ve never been to before.

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Ericson2314 8 hours ago | parent [-]

Yeah agreed. I just meant having the provinces operator the services is like here. Hukuo is not like here.

(Though there is a funny internet joke that American NIMBYs want hukuo at home.)

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seanmcdirmid 8 hours ago | parent [-]

Living in Seattle, I have to admit that I’ve thought of wanting hukou before. We will never solve our homeless problem if the more local resources we apply to it and the better we do, the worse the problem gets (because who doesn’t want to show up to get that free housing).

	▲	Ericson2314 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		This is an advantage of pursuing cheap market rate over insatiable section 8 and LIHTC subsidies, yes.