And Europe? Don’t get me started? They never even learned how to wash themselves properly. The women still got hair on their legs and the men are cowards – ready to take Muslim terror-pork up their back-sides.

I think urban growth will be more rapid.

“At the end of 2009, mainland China’s total population was 1.334 billion, with 712 million (53.4%) and 622 million (46.6%) residing in the rural and urban areas respectively.[1] (Mainland China does not include Hong Kong, Macao, or Taiwan.) The rural population fraction was 64% in 2001 and 74% in 1990. The annual population growth rate was estimated at 0.59% (2006 estimate).”

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanization_in_China#cite_note-0

Construction began in November 2009 of the 1,776 km high speed rail between Lanzhou and Urumqi. The trains will run at 350 km/h. A hugely expensive project for a low population region.

That doesn’t diminish the extent of construction — with 1,900 miles planned by 2015, China will have more than twice the rapid transit mileage compared to the United States. And most of those lines will have been built since 2000. The country is adapting rapidly to the needs of its urban constituency.

I should say, in response to what you said about the failings of the high-speed system, that it is interesting that almost all of the metro lines being built are in cities with high-speed service, as demonstrated by the map above. Also, though some rail stations are on the outskirts of the city, virtually every one of those metros is planned to stop directly at the high-speed stations.

But if China waits until it is economically viable to build railways and airports, it will cost many times more to build and maintain them. It’s best to leverage the hoards of workers willing to work for a pittance when they still exist…and they will be drying up soon.