Is Regional Discrimination in Big Cities a Serious Problem?

We have heard too many complaints about regional discrimination in metropolises. The most obvious evidence is that now on the Internet there are many demonstrations of regional discrimination. For example, on the local KDS forum in Shanghai, a special noun of “hard disk” has been coined for referring to outlanders; on a certain portal website, there is even a prompt of “civilized society begins from reasonable posting and refuses regional attacks” for its comments.

Nevertheless, in my opinion, the regional discrimination may be exaggerated. One very simple argument is that in recent years, the population of all big cities in China has increased rapidly. Taking Shanghai that has been much questioned as an example, the sixth population census in 2010 indicates that permanent residents are climbing to about 23 million, a 6.6 million increase if compared with the fifth census in 2000. The influx of population from other areas is 8.977 million, increasing by 5.9196 million compared with that of the fifth census; therein the proportion of the permanent resident population from other cities and provinces has doubled from 18.6% in the “fifth census” to 39%.

The rapid increase of migrant population exist in almost all big and medium cities. Thus it seems quite contradictory that the serious anti-alien mood exists in a place while the continuous increase of alien population also exists in the place. Could it be said that these outlanders are willing to give up their dignities for making a living and bear insult for the various discriminations in their residence?

If they are willing to give up dignities for making a living, does it mean that in the eyes of those being discriminated against, the hurt brought by regional discrimination, is rather an exaggerated problem? It might be true, but in my opinion, the more important factor is that in cities, especially in big cities, the regional discrimination is actually hard to be carried out successfully.

Why? Firstly, there are many suppliers in big cities. The utmost reason why other people are going to discriminate against you is that it is profitable. After all, there is scarcely few people who is willing to do harm to others while not benefiting himself. One argument favoring regional discrimination is that when you can’t speak with local accent, you are unable to know the specific information of some products and services, and are provide with less-than-equitable treatment. But in big cities, such phenomena seldom occur, because there are too many suppliers which render a market dominated by buyers in most fields. The competitions are extremely so severe that nobody would give up earning money and discriminate against other people’s origins. Business is business and would not be commingled only because of your imperfect mandarin.

Secondly, it is hard to reach an agreement in cities. IT is also related to the abundance of suppliers. If there were only one supplier in a market, it would be very easy to implement regional discrimination through monopolization. But in the market economy, it’s too difficult to link all suppliers, as Olson explains in his famous book Logic of Collective Action that because of coordination cost, those big groups are unable to act unanimously.

It can be seen from the above that the cost of regional discrimination is very high in big cities, and it’s simply unfeasible. If the regional discrimination once existed in Shanghai, we may only say that it had been executed once successfully in the planned economy. For the planned system, most goods had to be supplied by tickets, which was in essence a sellers’ market. When a person speaking with nonlocal accent appears in a shop without the required tickets, he has to pay a high price.

Yet why do so many people still think that the regional discrimination is serious in public services that exclude non-registered population in big cities? In my opinion, the regional discrimination does not only exist in these places, but also be common in other places. Just because there is few outlanders in these medium and small cities, there are few complaints about it. While in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, there are many people with non-registered status, making this phenomenon magnified. In fact, such discrimination roots in the  “Hukou” policy which can be regarded as China's apartheid, and it’s irrelevant to regional.

Why there are so many people who think that the regional discrimination is very serious in the first-grade cities? The so called “group polarization” in psychology might cast some lights as well. When people with similar ideas are discussing an issue with each other, they usually end with accepting the more extreme opinions, which is exactly what group polarization means. The development of the Internet makes the process much simpler: those who claim that they once were discriminated against spread their experience and feeling on the network, and those people with the same experience spread it, making the opinion be reinforced — even those who have never been discriminated against also think that they have been discriminated against.

Published on Southern Metropolis Daily | August 24, 2012