Loan Originator Compensation There Are Three Main: Fill & Download for Free

Answering for consumers located in the United StatesThe meltdown started in the fall of 2006, with the collapse of Merit Mortgage in Kirkland, WA. Reports of a fraternity-like culture where the owners hired their frat brothers who knew nothing about lending can be found by a simple google search.The party's over at Kirkland mortgage companySo we start from 2006. At that time, the Conference of State Bank Supervisors had already written the law that President Bush would sign in the summer of 2008:2008The SAFE Mortgage Licensing Act, which required loan originators who work for a mortgage broker or non-depository mortgage lender to take a 20 hour pre-licensing course, pass a comprehensive national exam, take continuing ed each year, pass a background check, submit a set of finger prints, and set forth requirements such as "no felony convictions within the last 7 years and no felonies at all if the felony was a financial related crime." Here is The SAFE Act:Code of Federal RegulationsThe SAFE Act mentions "subprime" but the industry quickly found ways to say "subprime" without using that word because subprime lending was associated with predatory lending. Instead, we started using the phrases, "non-traditional loans" or "non-prime loans" and the first place we see these euphemisms emerge in the law is in the above mentioned ^SAFE Act.2008Housing And Economic Recovery ActSigned by President Bush in the summer of 2008, this law gave us many, many things but I'lll just focus on mortgage lending:1) The above mentioned SAFE Act2) The TARP Funds (troubled asset recovery program) which demanded banks accept capital whether or not they needed it, so more banks like Washington Mutual would not be in danger of failing. Note that after President Obama was elected, he re-allocated the TARP funds to help people obtain loan modifications. This program, while widely criticized is seen as a success.3)"If Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac become insolvent, the government shall guarantee its debt." AND F&F went insolvent about a month and a half later. As of this writing, Fannie and Freddie are still being run under government conservatorship. More fun and games here:Federal takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie MacThe HERA was a bailout of the banking and mortgage lending industries. It was widely unpopular when President Bush signed it into law in the summer of 2008, but today as we look back, the bailout probably saved us from a global economic crisis and another Great Depression. Today, in 2016, Fannie and Freddie have completely repaid the Treasury all the money they borrowed, the list of failing banks has shrunk back down to a reasonably low level, home equity has returned and many underwater homeowners are no longer underwater. It worked. Will we do it again if we face a similar crisis? There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the government WILL bail out the banking and mortgage lending industries should this happen again. Whether or not you approve of HERA, it averted disaster and for that reason alone, a future Congress will likely pass something similar.Don't like helping the big evil banks? Then you and the independent senator from Vermont can go create your own land of free unicorns on some other imaginary planet.Note: All investment banks either failed outright or were acquired during the 2008 crisis except the Vampire Squid: Goldman Sachs.Let's continue.With Countrywide Loans collapsing in the summer of 2007 and Washington Mutual's slow, painful demise, the federal regulators who were suppose to be regulating laws that were put into place in the 1970s such as the Truth in Lending Act and the Real Estate Settlement And Procedures Act, started realizing that they need to do something. So we saw another law:2009The Mortgage Disclosure Improvement ActMDIAThe Federal Reserve and the Federal Trade Commission were suppose to be regulating the Truth in Lending Act. And they didn't do a very good job of holding banks and lenders accountable. So they whipped up this law as an attempt to improve the Truth in Lending Act. MDIA is part of TILA. This law went into effect in the fall of 2009. Without going into long detail about MDIA, the main assault was against liar loans. MDIA required lenders to make sure people had the ability to repay their loan. That mean no more "no documentation" loans. Lenders began asking for tax returns, W-2, bank statements, and other old-fashioned documents that we use to collect and analyze back in the good old 1980s when they were still playing The Cure and Pat Benetar and Heart on our FM radios. Many loan originators began leaving the industry at this time because they could not obtain a license due to previous felony convictions or they thought it was "too hard" to put loans together.2010The Dodd Frank ActPresident Obama signed the Dodd Frank Act in 2010. The Act is massive at well over 2000 pages, but only 3 sections are directed at residential mortgage lending. The rest is aimed at Wall Street. The first thing The Act created was The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Senator Elizabeth Warren's idea. The CFPB now regulates all federal law governing residential mortgage loans (among other things) except Fair Housing, which is still regulated by HUD.By the way, all the links to the laws can be found by scrolling down to the VERY BOTTOM of this page:Regulations > Consumer Financial Protection BureauSince The Dodd Frank Act is so massive, the CFPB began enacting rules one at a time, which gave the industry time to prepare and train their staff. There are so many rules attached to the DFA, it would take quite a long time to list them, but I can do it if you need them. Just let me know. The one we just finished from the fall of 2015 is called the TILA RESPA Integrated Disclosure Rule (TRID) which gave the industry a new, combined early consumer disclosure called the "loan estimate," and a new "closing disclosure." TRID is not a separate law; it is part of the Dodd Frank Act.2011Federal Reserve Board Rule on Loan Originator CompensationThis rule was a direct reaction to predatory lending and the meltdown. The Federal Reserve Board was TEN YEARS too late on this issue so now the FRB no longer gets to regulate The Truth in Lending Act.This rule has three components:1) Loan originator cannot be paid by the customer and also by the lender funding the loan.2) Loan originators cannot be paid a bonus for selling a higher rate or for selling a specific loan program or specific loan terms.3) Loan originators cannot "steer" people into a lower quality loan (think subprime) for the sole purpose of receiving higher compensation.The above three prohibitions helped eliminate the most egregious forms of predatory lending. The FRB Rule was added into The Dodd Frank Act.FRB: Press Release--Federal Reserve announces final rules to protect mortgage borrowers from unfair, abusive, or deceptive lending practices that can arise from loan originator compensation practices--August 16, 20102013Unfair Deceptive and Abusive Acts and PracticesThis law attacks deceptive advertising, which continues to run rampant in the mortgage industry. Don't believe me? Open your spam bin and see deceptive mortgage ads every day promoting products and rates that may or may not exist, that only a very small percentage of people may qualify for, or ads that make it look like you're dealing with a government agency but instead it's just a lead generation vortex designed to suck you in and sell you as a lead to 100 different loan originators. If you're a hot lead, you get sold as a Glengarry Glenn Ross lead and lead gen companies can make some serious coin selling your lead by live-trasnfering you to a licensed loan originator who can get you to sign on the line that is dotted. Beyond your spam bin there are other deceptive ads running on the radio, or coming to your house in the form of a letter or postcard. This Act puts a black and white definition to the words Unfair, Deceptive, and Abusive Acts and Practices and CFPB now has the muscle to enact fines, penalties, order restitution and to make those fines against not just the company but also the individuals, including upper management.http://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/201307_cfpb_bulletin_unfair-deceptive-abusive-practices.pdfSo what we have here is a wave of consumer protection legislation. When things go bad, consumers complain to the politicians and the regulators and we end up with a bunch of laws aimed right at the residential mortgage lending industry. We went through this around the 1960s-70s. During that consumer protection wave the industry saw the following laws passed:Fair Housing ActTruth In Lending Act (TILA)Real Estate Settlement And Procedures Act (RESPA)Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA)Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA)And now, as a result of the 2008 financial crisis and the long recession, we have seen the following laws passed:Secure And Fair Enforcement Mortgage Licensing Act (SAFE Act)Mortgage Disclosure Improvement Act (MDIA)Federal Reserve Board Rule on Loan Originator CompensationDodd Frank Act (DFA)Unfair Deceptive Acts and Practices (UDAAP)Many in the mortgage industry loves to criticize The Dodd Frank Act and drink the hatorade when President Obama's name is mentioned. I am not one of them.We needed the Dodd Frank Act. We needed all these new rules. Our industry only listens to law. We don't listen to "suggestions" from regulators. Not following the laws comes with consequences and those consequences are monetary in nature. So the company owners complain loudly about all the laws...Yet when it comes to the very end of the line, when we cannot delay the new law or rule any further, our industry always does the right thing and we start following the law....And the world doesn't end. Loans get written, people can buy, sell, refinance, we all make money and we survive and thrive just fine. In the future, we will look back and nod our heads in agreement that ALL the 2008-era laws were necessary, especially the Dodd Frank Act. Just like we look back and realize that laws like Fair Housing and The Equal Credit Opportunity Act were needed in the 1960s and 1970s.Note: States can make their laws tougher than Federal law and some have definitely done that in the wake of the financial crisis and many consumer complaints. Some states have added laws targeting predatory loan modification scammers, and requiring short sale negotiators to hold a loan originator license, laws that give consumers more protections when facing foreclosure, and laws directed at people who want to take advantage of people in foreclosure. Also, some states elevated the relationship between the loan originator and his or her client to that of fiduciary.Let me know how else I can help!

What did China do and India could not, that brought a billion people out of poverty?India basically did everything that China did, they allocated funds to poverty reduction, they introduced market reforms, they initiated government schemes and programs, they sought to focus on agriculture, industry. Though there are many efforts the Indian government took from time to time to reduce poverty, there was a lack of consistency in terms of priority. Also, note some of the models used by China have been emulated in other developing countries, however, no one else has been able to achieve the results China achieved.So, two words to describe how China did things differently from India is by showing "Commitment" & "Consistency". The government of China has consistently made a political commitment to reducing poverty and reflected poverty reduction goals and plans in the national economic plans.To understand what China did differently for poverty reduction in particular, let us:1. focus on what China did right, despite the challenges it faced rather than focusing on what India lacked and the comparative advantages that China had over India (as most analyses attempt to do).2. focus on 'how' China did it rather than only 'what' China did that India did not.What most of us may be aware of is that both China and India were somewhat similar in terms of economic growth and poverty levels till the 1970s and 80s. In fact, till the early 1900s, India's GDP per capita (PPP) remained higher than that of China though China's rural income was rising rapidly during this period.It must also be noted that China’s poverty alleviation efforts entered the take-off stage only since 1978 when it started introducing market reforms alongside government projects to contain poverty. Here again, success was not defined by what they did, rather it was a result of how they did it.Many economists believe that it was the rural reforms of early 1980s that triggered China’s growth and alleviated a record number of people from poverty in just several years. To understand China's success story, let us just briefly study China's history.A short history of China before the rural reforms of 1978The China before late 1970s was not very different from India and many other developing countries. When the People’s Republic of China was just established, China lacked capital and faced international isolation. Influenced by the experience and ideology of the Soviet Union, China placed the development of heavy industry as the top priority if it was to catch up with the developed nations as soon as possible.Most industries in China were State-owned Enterprises (SOEs) that were established in the 1950s and 1960s, covering core industries like energy, aviation, telecom, construction, etc.Then came a reform period, when policymakers in many developing countries (including China and India) attempted to shift their economies away from capital‐intensive sectors towards more labor‐intensive activities, but many of these countries have experienced sluggish growth at best, stagnation at worst. The question is how did China manage its own process of reform so successfully?During 1949-52, a major change in landownership was carried out. Under a nationwide land reform program, titles to about 45 percent of the arable land were redistributed from landlords and more prosperous farmers to the 60 to 70 percent of farm families that previously owned little or no land.Then during the time of the first five-year plans, agricultural sector underwent extensive organizational changes, the authorities encouraged farmers to organize increasingly large and socialized collective units in which families still received some income on the basis of the amount of land or labor they contributed. The 'collectivization' process began slowly but accelerated in 1955 and 1956. In 1957 about 93.5 percent of all farm households had joined advanced producers' cooperatives where income shares were based only on the amount of labor contributed.Faced with economic collapse in the early 1960s, the government sharply revised the immediate goals of the economy and devised a new set of economic policies to replace those of the Great Leap Forward (The Great Leap Forward -- china.org.cn). Economic support for agriculture took several forms. Agricultural taxes were reduced, and the prices paid for agricultural products were raised relative to the prices of industrial supplies for agriculture. There were substantial increases in supplies of chemical fertilizer and various kinds of agricultural machinery, notably small electric pumps for irrigation. In industry, a few key enterprises were returned to central state control, but control over most enterprises remained in the hands of provincial-level and local governments.The general scenario during these times was farmers did not want to work hard because the fruits of their toil where shared among others, rather than just themselves. Likewise, in the state‐owned enterprises (SOEs), shirking was also reported to be a widespread problem, and many SOEs made significant losses.Then post-1978, came a period of different reforms, a major theme of which is government gave strong incentives for individuals ‐ including farmers, managers and local officials.What is important to understand here is that China's progress in alleviating it's poverty levels is a result of three main objectives:1. a sustainable economic growth (as opposed to high economic growth)2. a simultaneous series of social policies for equitable development and3. special programs for poverty alleviation taken by the Government.that led to this:It must however, be noted that China’s large-scale poverty reduction has been achieved largely due to rapid growth of per capita income. The social policy programs taken up by government, though they helped in achieving many developmental milestones, they alone could not have been successful in reducing the poverty numbers on a scale as large as was achieved. Nevertheless, there is statistical evidence showing improvements in poverty levels when government programs were carried out consistently.So, we will start by understanding the reforms introducing market principles in China, which began in 1978 and were carried out in two stages but before that let us learn about a small story that is said to have inspired the reforms of 1978.An inspiring story of what led the post-1978 rural reforms?A famous story in China, called the The Xiaogang village story -- china.org.cnexplains the root cause behind China's transformation. In 1978, the farmers in a small Chinese village called Xiaogang gathered in a mud hut to sign a secret contract. They thought it might get them executed.Instead, it wound up transforming China's economy in ways that are still reverberating today.According to Yen Jingchang, who was a farmer in Xiaogang in 1978, "Back then, even one straw belonged to the group. No one owned anything. Work hard, don't work hard — everyone gets the same, there was never enough food, and the farmers often had to go to other villages to beg. Their children were going hungry. They were desperate".So, in the winter of 1978, after another terrible harvest, they came up with an idea: Rather than farm as a collective, each family would get to farm its own plot of land. If a family grew a lot of food, that family could keep some of the harvest.Despite the risks, they decided they had to try this experiment — and to write it down as a formal contract, so everyone would be bound to it. By the light of an oil lamp, Yen Hongchang wrote out the contract.The farmers (a total of 18 villagers) agreed to divide up the land among the families. Each family agreed to turn over some of what they grew to the government, and to the collective. And, crucially, the farmers agreed that families that grew enough food would get to keep some for themselves.The contract also recognized the risks the farmers were taking. If any of the farmers were sent to prison or executed, it said, the others in the group would care for their children until age 18.The farmers tried to keep the contract secret — Yen Hongchang hid it inside a piece of bamboo in the roof of his house — but when they returned to the fields, everything was different.At the end of the season, they had an enormous harvest: more than in the previous five years combined. The per capita income of Xiaogang climbed to 400 yuan from 22 yuan.That huge harvest gave them away. Local officials figured out that the farmers had divided up the land, and word of what had happened in Xiaogang made its way up the Communist Party chain of command.At one point, Yen Hongchang was hauled in to the local Communist Party office. The officials swore at him, treated him like he was on death row.However, Fengyang Prefecture's Party Secretary, Wang Yuzhao, was open-minded. Yan had an audience with Wang, who had heard of Xiaogang's efforts and had been told that its harvests looked favorable. He promised to protect the village as long as their practice didn't spread.Later, Yan’s action received strong support from the then Party chief of Anhui Province, Wan Li, during a period of time when no official endorsement was given by the central government.And fortunately for Mr. Yen and the other farmers, at this moment in history, there were also powerful people in the Communist Party who wanted to change China's economy.Deng Xiaoping, the Chinese leader who would go on to create China's modern economy, was just coming to power. So instead of executing the Xiaogang farmers, the Chinese leaders ultimately decided to hold them up as a model.Within a few years, farms all over China adopted the principles in that secret document. People could own what they grew. The government launched other economic reforms, and China's economy started to grow like crazy.Today, the Chinese government is clearly proud of what happened in Xiaogang. That contract is now in a museum. And the village has become this origin story that kids in China learn about in school.How China did it?I've divided this section into four stages each speaking in detail of some crucial efforts introduced by the government during the period of the given stage.As can be observed from below chart, maximum drop in number of poverty-stricken people is observed in the first stage which is the most important of all.Poverty reduction in the second stage is inconsistent, this is when progress slowed down and stagnated in the period of 1986-92. The reasons were many: reduced commitment of the central government towards widespread public services, the shift to development strategies in favor of the coastal areas without enough compensation for poor western areas, combined with insufficient funds contributed to the stagnation of poverty reduction.During the third stage a comprehensive anti-poverty program was formally established and the Chinese government's renewed commitment to poverty reduction started to show some results.The last stage starts in 2001 when China joined the WTO.STAGE 1 (1978 to mid 1980s) DETAIL:In 1978, the poverty-stricken population numbered 250 million (per China's official poverty line), making up 30.7 percent of the total rural population, according to the poverty standard designated by the Chinese Government.There were many causes giving rise to such a large number of poverty-stricken people, of which the main one was that the operation system in agriculture did not suit the needs of the development of the productive forces, so that peasants lacked the enthusiasm for production. In this way, reform of the system became the main way to alleviate poverty.So, the first stage of China's reforms, in the late 1970s to early 1980s, involved the de-collectivization of agriculture, the opening up of the country to foreign investment, and permission for entrepreneurs to start businesses. However, most industry remained state-owned.Following the example of such stories as above, the government first initiated several major reforms, all of which had the spirit of empowering ordinary people or local governments to make their own economic choices and reap the rewards of those choices. Some of the important reforms were:Household Responsibility System (HRS)Launched in the early 1980s, the household responsibility system was an agriculture production system, which allowed households to contract land, machinery and other facilities from collective organizations. The principle of the HRS is that individual households can claim the residual of their own production after fulfilling the grain quota to both the state and collective units.In order to protect the benefits of the farmers, the government also adjusted agricultural policies to increase and loosen the price of agricultural products step by step.For example, between 1979 and 1983, price of grains was increased by 20%, oilseeds 25%, cotton 27%, etc while prices in selected agricultural inputs were reduced. The peasant families, now having better control over production and sales of agricultural surpluses, took full advantage of the price incentives thereby broadening the scope of free market and raising China's agricultural productivity.As a result, not only have the purchase prices of agricultural products (which determine the incomes of large parts of the population) increased, the volume of farm produce purchased by the state increased 85% during the period. China's success in this area was determined by the fact that they were able to achieve this while avoiding budget deficits.Dual-track Price System (DTS) and development of TVEsIn China prior to 1978, most prices were set by the government alongside quantity targets.When the need for reform was accepted, the question of how to move the economy from a planned one towards a market-oriented system arose.At first the state gradually ended the control on many agricultural prices and then by the mid-1980s introduced this dual track strategy for most industrial goods also.In 1981, the central government started allowing some enterprises which had fulfilled their planned production quotas, to sell their surplus output at market prices, while their planned quota production was sold at state-set prices.Dual track system was introduced here because Deng Xiaoping wanted to make use of pre-existing institutions. It is through this system thatChina had succeeded without any losersbecause the old suppliers did not leave the market; moreover, the new suppliers entered the market. Buyers with the highest willingness to pay were getting the planned output and the supplier with the lowest marginal costs was assigned to produce goods and services (Qian Yingyi, 2003).It is argued that if China adopted the market liberalization suddenly at that time, the economic reforms would have definitely failed because there was no law to protect the property right of the privatization. China lacked the legal, institutional and governance structures needed to support an economic system based on private ownership.There is also the question of domestic industries losing their protection once the economy is open to foreign investors while small-scale industries shutting down due to their inability to compete with large-scale industries. By protecting the domestic industries from forced shutdowns, China also avoided fluctuations in unemployment due to involuntary shifts in major employment sectors and ensured economic growth translated to additional employment opportunities. Between 1978 and 1994, employment in state-owned firms alone increased by 40 million.It must also be noted that the 'domestic industries' here refers to 'market-oriented public enterprises tied to local governments based in town-ships and villages'. They are called “township-village enterprises” (TVEs) and were mostly set up in the rural areas. Their existence was hence important not only due to their being a source of tax-revenue for local rural governments, but it also helped reduce the number of people migrating from rural to urban areas.Another advantage provided by the dual-track system is that growth in economic output during these initial years was mostly generated by TVEs. The term TVEs, post 1984, included enterprises sponsored by townships and villages, the alliance enterprises [private stock companies] formed by peasants, other alliance enterprises, and individual enterprises.The enterprises established during 1958-61 were called "Commune and Brigade Enterprises" earlier and were restricted to the production of iron, steel, cement, chemical fertilizer, hydroelectric power, and farm tools, they also however, came to be classified as TVEs since 1984. During 1978, when the reforms were initiated, there were 1.5 million of these industries but by 1985, the number jumped to 12 million TVEs. Output from TVEs increased from 49 billion yuan in 1978 to 1.8 trillion yuan by 1992 while total TVE employment grew from 28 million in 1978 to a peak of 135 million in 1996.So, in a way, the gradual dual-track system also helped China to avoid repeating the mistakes of 1949-1978 when it adopted a series of rapid reforms which showed economic improvement in the short-term but resulted in conflict, poverty, unfair distribution and high levels of corruption in the long run.Social policy programs for poverty alleviation taken by the GovernmentIn addition to the agricultural and industrial policy reforms, development of TVEs, etc during early 1980s, the government had also undertaken several initiatives with relief funds and development funds targeting of neglected areas where mass poverty existed.Development of poverty-stricken Areas in the Central and Western Regions was a priority. While the eastern coastal areas took the lead in economic development, taking full advantage of their own strengths, the central and western regions remained relatively backward. Economic growth per capita in these poor areas during 1978-89 was 30% less than that of the coastal provinces.Therefore, China's rural poor were mostly concentrated in the central and western regions, living in scattered areas in deserts, hills, mountains and plateaus. These regions are characterized by the largest number of poor people, and the deepest degree and most complicated structure of poverty.Of the 592 poverty-stricken counties named by the Chinese Government on its priority poverty relief list in 1994, 82 percent are situated in the central and western regions.Some individual projects that focused to eliminate poverty by developing poverty striken areas included:--Project for harnessing small watersheds in Danfeng County, Shaanxi Province;As early as 1987, Danfeng County was listed in the state program of poverty alleviation. At that time, it was one of the poorest counties in China, with a per capita income of 125 Yuan. The efforts of poverty alleviation over the past decade have been quite successful. More than 90 percent of poor farmers have been raised above the poverty line; 90 percent of the villages have road access; all villages have power supply, and 80 percent of the villages have clean drinking water supply. In 2001, the net income per capita in the rural areas of the county was 1,100 Yuan (compared with the national poverty line of 750 Yuan per capita), although it was only 44 percent of the net income per capita in rural China that year.--Project for improving the soil of farms in Mabian County, Sichuan Province;Mabian is not only a major target of poverty alleviation in Leshan City, but also one of China’s poor counties encountering most difficulties in poverty alleviation. It has received support from many sides for poverty alleviation—not only policy and funding support from the central government, but also key support from governments at the provincial and city levels. Each year, it receives funds in fiscal transfer payments up to 20 million Yuan for the normal operation of county and township governments. Annual loans at discounted interest rates for the purpose of poverty alleviation average at 10 million Yuan and food-for-work investments amount to 4.5 million Yuan. In addition, Mabian has also received financial assistance for poverty alleviation from international organizations and bilateral donors.As a result of development with poverty alleviation for nearly 20 years, rural poverty has been alleviated substantially in Mabian. In 2001, per capita possession of grains in rural areas reached 404 kg. Now that basic food supply is no longer a problem among poor people, the key point of future anti-poverty development should be to increase the cash incomes of farmers and generate more employment for them.--The Three Xis‟ Agricultural Development Project;Launched in 1982, targeted 3 regions 'Dingxi' and 'Hexi' in Gansu Province, and 'Xihaigu' in Ningxia Autonomous Region.Of these Dingxi Prefecture in Gansu Province and Xihaigu Prefecture in the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, once known as the "poorest places on earth,". Agriculture and extractive industries are key to Dingxi's economy.The prefecture is known as the “home of potatoes” in northwest China. There are more than 300 different kinds of Chinese medicinal plants and herbs found in the area and Longxi County is also home to one of the largest Chinese medicine trading centers in the country.Despite rapid development and a construction boom in “Dingxi City” in recent years, the prefecture is still one of the poorest areas in China. All seven of its districts/counties are classified as national-level poverty-stricken counties. Today mining and extraction of rare earths are key drivers of economy in Gansu Province.The Food-for-Work Policy and Expansion of Rural Employment in Poor Areas in Western ChinaLaunched in 1984, the project was started for constructing infrastructures in poverty-stricken areas. 18 poverty-stricken zones as the key targets of national poverty alleviation priorities.The food-for-work policy is the most important policy relating to investment by the central government in infrastructure construction in poor areas. Prior to the mid-1990s, the food-for-work policy was implemented in the form of payment in kind. At that time, the central government mainly provided commodities such as grains, cotton, clothing and low- and medium-grade industrial products as payment in kind for the building of roads and projects for drinking water supply for people and animals. Once a project was finalized, the local government provided funds to purchase construction materials, such as cement, explosives and reinforcing bars, and construction tools. Then it organized poor farmers to participate in the construction and paid them, as their wages, the commodities provided by the central government.Prior to the mid-1990s, the government strategy mainly targeted poverty stricken areas but after the mid-1990s, the strategy shifted to poor rural households.STAGE 2 (Mid 1980s to early 1900s) DETAIL:The Second phase of China's Economic reformsTVEs thrived from 1978 to 1989, and were largely dismantled between 1989 and 1996.This is said to be the beginning of the second stage of reforms in China, in the late 1980s and 1990s, it involved the large-scale privatization and contracting out of much state-owned industry and the lifting of price controls, protectionist policies, and regulations, although state monopolies in sectors such as banking and petroleum remained. This is when China's market price and planned price converged while dual‐track was eventually unified into a single track, or market price.This is also the period (early 90s) during which China's GDP per capita started rising more rapidly as compared to India.Note: Large-scale government planning programs alongside market characteristics and participatory economic growth is what has helped raise China's per-capita income and reduced poverty in the beginning of the 1980s reform period. However, China's progress in poverty reduction was not sustained during the second half of the 1980s and early 1990s. Between 1988 & 1989 (one year), the number of poverty-stricken people in rural areas briefly increased from 96 million to 102 million.The shift in China's development strategy (towards export-led industrialization) thus affected the progress in poverty reduction. The industrial restructuring, transformation of employment, income distribution and social welfare systems, social differentiation deepened, the income disparity increased and urban poverty became a more prominent issue.It must be noted that prior to 1990s, the poverty issue in urban China was of less significance as the number of the urban poor was much smaller and they were well provided for under the urban social relief system. Besides, there are relatively few studies of urban poverty as China’s official poverty reduction strategy is based on the assumption that poverty is a rural problem.Since the 1990s, the process of labor and social security reform in both state-owned enterprises and urban private sector employment led to millions of workers becoming redundant and tens of thousands of urban families falling into poverty because of unemployment. Things began to worsen in the second half of the 1990s with concern over what was seen as a “new urban poverty” caused partly by a wave of rural-urban migration and partly by mass unemployment.But in the long term, the government of China has been able to control and bring down rural poverty through economic reforms as well as various rural development programs many of which were the continuation of works started in early 1980s.STAGE 3 (1994 to 2000) DETAIL:Before 1997, poverty alleviation funds were allocated only through the central government. After 1997, provincial and other local governments took a greater role, and provincial governments took more overall responsibility for poverty alleviation, especially in rural areas. Two most important plans that were introduced during this period were:The "8-7" Poverty Alleviation Plan (The third stage of Poverty alleviation)From 1994 to 2000, China developed and implemented the "8·7" Poverty Alleviation Plan, with the strategic goal of solving in seven years the food and clothing problem of the poorest 80 million people living in dire poverty. For this group living in absolute poverty, the Plan set forth the following standards for poverty alleviation:1. ensure the vast majority of poor households have over 500 Yuan of annual net income per capita (at 1990 constant prices); and2. assist poor households to create stable basic conditions for solving the food and clothing problem by developing 0.5-1-mu farmland with high, stable yields per capita; by developing 1-mu land of fruit trees or other kinds of trees per household, or 1-mu land of cash crops; by transferring one laborer per household to township enterprises or developed regions, and, by developing one branch of fish breeding and poultry raising, or other domestic sidelines, per household.Analysis indicates that the 8-7 Plan assisted China’s poverty reduction, and contributed to both the social and economic development of China’s poor areas. During 1994–2000, officially designated “poor” counties delivered higher than average growth in grain and agricultural production, and in household net income. The growth rate of agricultural GDP in the officially designated “poor” counties was 7.5 percent, compared to the national average of 7 percent. Household net income per capita increased from RMB 648 to RMB 1,337, growing at an annual rate of 12.8 percent, 2 percentage points higher than the national average.China claims that by the beginning of 1997 since the program was initiated, the proportion of the population living below the national poverty line fell to 58 million.However, a World Bank study--Poverty Reduction and the World Bank: Progress and Challenges in the 1990s (hereafter called Poverty Report) reported that 350 million people were poor in 1993. This report measured the number poor Chinese by international standards of poverty, used for cross-country comparisons of poverty levels. The international standard used by the World Bank takes $1 a person a day as the poverty threshold while the national poverty line used in the Strategy translates into roughly 60c a person a day.And using the World Bank’s $1/day income measure, and the total number of poor is estimated to have dropped from about 490 million in 1978 to 88 million in 2000.Micro FinanceIn the beginning, microfinance was introduced into China as an instrument and special credit technique of poverty reduction. The earliest microfinance project in China was North Grassland and Stockbreeding Development Project, implemented by IFAD in 1981.But the first real microfinance institution appeared at the end of 1993. It was carried out by the Rural Development Institute (RDI) of China Academy of Social Science (CASS) in Yixian County of Hebei Province, supported by the Ford Foundation and Grameen Trust. In this period, microfinance projects were mainly funded and supported technically by international grants, NGOs and soft loans from government.Then since 1996, to fulfil the MDGs (Millennium Development Goals) in China, a government-led ‘Strategic Microcredit Poverty Reduction Project’ along with Agricultural Development Bank of China came onto stage. Boosted by government, these projects expanded rapidly in some poor provinces like Shanxi, Sichuan, Yunan, Hebei, Guangxi and Guizhou. And many governmental institutions such as the Poverty Reduction Office system, the civil administration system, the social security system, Women Unions and the Handicapped Association got involved in it. Most of these projects began in rural areas, but microcredit to laid-off workers in urban areas also started at this stage.In 2000, the ‘3R Strategy’ (Rural industry, Rural areas and Rural residents) was brought forward by the Chinese government and emphasized as the most important task. This indicated that the formal rural financial institutions have entered into microfinance formally on a large scale, and the goal of microfinance has extended from poverty reduction to provision of financial services to rural households and micro companies. The scale of microcredit boomed dramatically in several years.Microcredit issued by rural cooperative financial institutions in this period was different from the previous mode and Grameen Bank mode. One innovation was the Credit Certificate system. A Credit Certificate was held individually by the household. All the credit history is recorded on the certificate, and a borrower can apply for a loan whenever he or she needs.STAGE 4 (2001 and beyond) DETAIL:In 2001 the central government also changed its method of allocating funds, moving from a system based on projects to one based on a series of poverty measurement indicators. These indicators include the number of poor people, the annual per capita net income of farmers, the local financial situation, and the need for policy adjustments.It must be remembered that poverty alleviation funds have been an important part of China's poverty alleviation efforts since the early 1980s.Poverty alleviation funds include funds allocated by the central government and by local governments at multiple levels, under different categories, and through various government agencies. Poverty alleviation funds from the central government include funds in the following five categories:(1) development funds,(2) food-for-work funds,(3) development funds for ethnic minorities,(4) funds for poverty-stricken state-owned farms and forestry farms, and(5) interest subsidies for discounted loans. These funds are managed by various relevant management authorities.2001 is also the year when the Chinese government converted its flagship anti-poverty program into a new poor village public investment program based on participatory village planning. The previous investment program had targeted poor counties since 1986, with no participatory component.The Chinese poor village investment program is distinctive for at least two reasons:First, in terms of sheer size, the Chinese program is without doubt one of the largest poverty alleviation programs in the world. About 140 million persons, or 15 percent of the rural population, live in officially designated poor villages.Second, the Chinese program is one of the few examples of community-based development initiated and administered by the government of a developing country rather than international donors.Sources & Further Reading:Quality of Life: India vs. China by Amartya Sen21 Major Poverty Alleviation Programmes Launched in IndiaEconomic history of China (1949–present)The Land Reform -- china.org.cnThe Xiaogang village storyThe Secret Document That Transformed ChinaHousehold Responsibility System -- china.org.cnAgricultural Price Policies: Issues and Proposal S (Economic & Social Development Papers)Jun 1987 by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United NationsDual-track Price System -- china.org.cnDual Track System Burst the Economic growth in China During 1978 to 1989Township and Village EnterprisesChinese economic reformPage on oecd.orgThe Development-oriented PovertyReduction Program for Rural ChinaPage on ilo.orgPage on worldbank.orgJiangxiPage on cornell.eduPage on undp.orgPage on iza.orgPage on ox.ac.ukPage on ifpri.orgPage on berkeley.eduThe population argument has been deliberately excluded in this answer (for reasons discussed in the comments section).A comparison of India's and China's population problem is discussed in a separate answer:Vanita Ashar's answer to How could China achieve population control so fast but India could not?

All photographs and maps are the creation and property of the author, except for Google Earth images, which are the property of GoogleI have to say at the outset that this question is overly broad. There are differences between Chinese cities, and between neighborhoods within Chinese cities. As for “Western” cities, the differences are even greater, since “The West” encompasses a broad array of nations spread across far-flung corners of the planet.Honestly, Chinese cities contain multitudes. What they are like depends on what part of the city you are talking about, when it was built, who lives there, and what the function of the neighborhood is. In some Chinese cities you can find narrow alleys lined with dense, older housing, home to working class people, with bicycles parked outside and laundry hanging out to dry:Nearly all older, working class neighborhoods in Chinese cities are within walking distance of a “wet market” where you can buy fresh produce and freshly butchered meat. These folks have little need for modern supermarkets.“Urban villages” are a common feature in many Chinese cities. Formerly agricultural villages, they urbanized and densified when the city footprint expanded to surround themIn other parts of Chinese cities, you might find ultra-modern architecture, luxury shopping centers, fashionable high-rises, and whimsical public art:A number of Chinese cities were essentially colonized by England, France, Germany, Japan, or Russia during the 19th century. In those cities, the foreign colonizers left their imprint in architecture that still stands today. Today, these “foreign style” streets are often Chinese hipster districts full of bars and coffeeshops.One feature common to every Chinese city is at least one “walking street” which is similar to the “high street” common to most European cities, and is home to major brand name shops.At Chinese New Year, Chinese cities transform themselves much as Western cities do at Christmastime, with colorful decorations everywhere:It’s very common to find traditional elements in Chinese cities, such as temples and gates like this one:It’s not uncommon to find the old and new mixed in the same urban tableau:If you were to travel back to 500 years ago, you’d find that, apart from differences in architectural styles, Chinese cities and “Western” cities (i.e. European cities) were quite similar, in both form and function.In the pre-modern era, the majority of people in both China and Europe lived in rural areas and engaged in agricultural work (usually some form of serfdom). Only a minority of people (around 10%) lived in cities. These were traders, merchants, and the military, religious and political elite. Both European and Chinese cities were typically surrounded by defensive walls, and located along rivers or coastlines. The cities were densely inhabited and compact (like in the image below), small enough to walk from one end to the other in less than a day. Streets were narrow, wide enough for pedestrians and horses. Street networks were organic and maze-like (with some exceptions, like Beijing which followed a grid-like structure for spiritual reasons).Here are some examples of traditional Chinese urban form that still exists today, as seen in Google Earth. The following image is of Nanluoguxiang, a neighborhood made up of Ming Dynasty-era “hutong” (alleys) in central Beijing.The next Google Earth image is Lijiang old town. Although much of the old town was destroyed in an earthquake in 1996 and most of the “old-looking” buildings today are in fact modern reproductions, the historic maze-like urban form has been preserved, much to the delight of the millions of tourists who stroll through its cobblestone lanes every year.Chinese and Western cities began to diverge in the 19th century when twin processes of industrialization and urbanization played out in tandem. With the introduction of railroads, and later automobiles, Western cities rapidly expand behind their pre-modern footprints into newly built suburbs (sometimes known as “streetcar suburbs”). No longer was the city limited in size to the distance one could walk in a day’s time. At the same time, transformations in the political economy of western nations meant more and more people were moving to cities in search of opportunity. At the turn of the 20th century, the progressive political movement played out in cities as the birth of modern urban planning, with the “City Beautiful” movement promoting the public goods of infrastructure, sewers, public parks, and mass transit.All the while, as Western cities were growing in population, area, and prosperity, Chinese cities remained in a state of arrested development. At the turn of the 20th century, China was still governed by the weak Qing Dynasty, and the majority of its people were peasants residing in rural villages. There was some early efforts at urban modernization in China at this time. The governments of Germany, France, England, and Russia managed sections of Chinese cities known “concessions” extracted from the weak Qing government, and in these areas they introduced modern architecture, gridiron street networks, sewers, and streetcars. But then China was plunged into a half century of chaos, with the Xinhai Revolution, the Warlord era, World War II, and the Communist-National Civil War.After the Communist Victory in 1949, Mao Zedong presided over three decades of national policy that emphasized rural over urban development. Paranoid that China’s coastal cities were vulnerable to attack by the Americans, Mao relocated thousands of factories to inland rural areas. Urban populations actually declined during this time, as middle class urban youth (including a young Xi Jinping) were “sent down” to the countryside to learn the virtues of a rural life.What construction did take place in Chinese cities during the rule of Mao Zedong can generally be divided into two categories: cheap, concrete, Soviet-style communal housing barracks, and monumental architecture designed to celebrate the Communist Party or grandiose public spaces such as Tiananmen Square which could host mass political rallies.It’s fair to say that in 1976, at the time of Mao’s death, the contrast between Chinese cities and their Western counterparts was the starkest in history. At this point, Western cities had undergone the upheaval of modernism, reached majority urbanization, and were already entering with a new era of consumer industry-led post-modernism, deindustrialization, demographic change, white flight, and suburbanization and exurbanziation. A visitor to a Chinese city at this same point in time, on the other hand, would have found that little had changed in 100 years. That same visitor would have founds streets devoid of cars, and filled instead with bicycles. All of that would change rapidly at the helm of China’s new, market-led leadership under Deng Xiaoping.Housing is one area where Chinese cities diverge significantly from Western cities. The vast majority of housing in Chinese cities is in the form of apartment buildings. In this, the divergence between Chinese cities and American cities is more acute than that between Chinese cities and European cities. Single-family homes (literally, “mansions” in Chinese) are rare and extremely rare. Moreover, most Chinese cities mandate that single-family homes are only allowed in the distant suburbs far outside the city center.Apartment housing in China can be divided into two main types: socialist era danwei apartments and market era apartment high-rises. Socialist era housing dates from the 1950s - 1980s. Residents did not pay any rents. Apartments were provided for free by one’s work unit. That said, conditions were poor and a large family (remember, this is before the one child policy was instituted) could expect to share cramped living space. Apartment buildings were functionalist and minimalist, with unfinished concrete facades, and a uniform walkup height of seven stories. Most of these apartments lacked kitchen and bathroom facilities, residents relied on shared common facilities instead. The following Google Earth image shows neighborhoods of Maoist era danwei housing in Beijing.When Deng put China’s economy on the path to “reform and opening” in the early 1980s, he also ushered in the fastest and largest-scale urbanization movement the world has ever seen. China would accomplish in the next 30 or so years what it took Western cities more than a century to accomplish. One of the biggest policy changes in the reform and opening era was the privatization of the danwei housing. Starting in the 1990s, housing that was previously maintained and furnished under the state-run economy was transferred to residents as commodity housing. This act led to what is probably the largest wealth transfer in Chinese history. Overnight, China minted millions of urban property holders. Over the next decade or three, depending on the neighborhood, some of these urban housing units would gain 1000% to 10000% of their original value on the private housing market. In the Maoist era, the economic divide between urban and rural Chinese was minimal. But after this act, a class of urban property-owning elites was created, and China’s wealth gap has grown ever since. Those who were lucky enough to live in government-subsidized housing units on the cusp of privatization gained capital which they then used to invest in more housing in the new economy.Today many neighborhoods in the older urban cores of Chinese cities still contain a large stock of socialist era danwei apartment buildings. However, the owners of these apartments rarely live there themselves. The owners use their profits to buy newer commodity apartments in more suburban neighborhoods of cities, and rent out the older apartments to urban migrants or to parents looking for “school district apartments.” Most have been retrofitted so they now contain basic bathrooms and kitchens. The following image shows a neighborhood of socialist era danwei apartment buildings in Kunming with solar hot water heaters on the roofs.Sometimes, this older housing is demolished to make room for new market rate developments. However, the cost to developers is high because they must according to law compensate each resident at the market rate determined by the government. So instead, developers usually leave this older inner city housing untouched and turn to greenfield sites in more suburban outlying districts farther away from the city center to develop new market rate housing. The following Google Earth image is of a commodity housing development in a suburban district of Beijing. Note the presence of empty land adjacent to the property development, a common occurrence in China’s urban greenfield development.Property development in China is undertaken by huge corporations with billions of dollars in their portfolios, who have close connections with the government and enjoy preferential policies and low interest loans from state-owned banks. Small and medium scale developers, common in Western cities, are almost non-existent in China. Chinese property developers acquire greenfield sites from local city governments at auction. Usually, these greenfield sites formerly contained farmland and rural villages. The villagers are first evicted by the local government, given nominal compensation and often a promise of a new apartment somewhere in the suburbs (but without rural land on which to practice their traditional livelihoods). The land is then subdivided by city planners into enormous plots and sold to property developers at a rate much higher than the rate used to compensate the evicted farmers. The following Google Earth image shows a section of Century City, an early 2000s development in suburban Kunming. It is typical of Chinese commodity housing developments which appear to be planned to appeal to those viewing the development from a bird’s eye perspective.Chinese property developers never build one apartment building at a time, like property developers in the West do. Instead, they will develop one huge plot (known in Chinese as a “xiaoqu”), typically several acres in size, at the same time. One plot will inevitably contain dozens of identical high-rise apartments, usually 32 stories in height. Chinese urban planning law issues strict regulations on the amount of natural sunlight that must penetrate every new apartment unit, so as a result, high-rises are widely spaced apart with ample open space in between, or arranged around a man-made lake. Below is a site plan for a typical Chinese xiaoqu.Another facet of contemporary cities is the 城中村 or chengzhongcun, which literally translates as “village within the city” and is perhaps better translated as “urban village”. As the following series of 3 images shows, urban villages were originally rural villages surrounded by farmland, as you can see in the image of Xian Village in the 1970s (image courtesy of the Guangzhou Urban Planning Exhibition Hall). Over time, they were “swallowed up” by expanding urban footprints. Xian Village (as seen in the second image, taken from Google Earth’s historical data) was for years located immediately next to Guangzhou’s new CBD and premier urban district, the “Zhujiang New Town”. In 2018, Xian Village was completely demolished (third image, also Google Earth) and is currently a giant pile of rubble. It will be redeveloped as office towers and high rises. The original village landowners are now multimillionaires, as they were given compensation by the developer. However, the hundreds of thousands of migrant workers who used to live in the low-cost tenant housing quarters of this former urban village were given no compensation at all.The author took the following photo amidst the rubble of Xian Village in late 2018, with the towers of Zhujiang New Town CBD in the background. Urban villages in Chinese cities play an important function as a social safety valve. They are a source of low cost housing for the many urban migrants who come to Chinese cities in search of economic opportunities (in the past most worked in the industrial sector, but today more and more are working in the service sector). Although crowded, these urban villages are not slums. They are vibrant communities that make possible the functioning of the modern Chinese city (otherwise, China’s low paid service staff would never afford to live in the city, where housing costs are astronomical). Within the urban villages are all sorts of small businesses and entrepreneurial activity. It is a great shame that Xian Village no longer exists. It was once home to more than 100,000 migrant workers, who were able to take advantage of its central location to walk to or ride a bike to their jobs in the nearby CBD. Now that their homes are gone, they must relocate, probably to cheap housing in neighborhoods far away from their jobs, requiring them to spend hours on crowded bus or subways to commute to work each day.Chinese suburbs, composed mainly of high rise apartments, offer a striking contrast with American suburbs, which are usually composed of single-family houses. The contrast is slightly less with European cities, where high-rise suburbs also exist, and where single-family home suburbs are not as low density as in the United States. However, European suburbs usually have a more heterogenous mix of housing types, such as duplexes and low- and mid-rise apartments than that found in Chinese suburbs. The following image shows a typical Chinese suburban xiaoqu where the buildings are uniform in style, height, and tone:Another distinguishing feature of Chinese suburban xiaoqu is that they are typically closed-access. In this way they are similar to gated communities in the West, although without the necessary distinction of being high-end. A single xiaoqu covering several acres will often possess only one or two entry points, controlled with an electronic card reader, gates, and 24 hour security guard. This guarantees that only the residents of the xiaoqu enjoy access to the open space within. It also has a significant impact on the urban morphology or urban form of contemporary Chinese cities.Urban morphology refers to the structure of the city. If you break a city down to its most basic building blocks, you have blocks and streets. Universal principles of urban planning and design tell us that small blocks and narrow streets make for better cities. Smaller blocks and narrower streets make walking more pleasant, giving the pedestrian more choices of paths from A to B. They slow down fast-moving traffic. They create tighter-knit neighborhoods. Small blocks and narrow streets are common in European cities and some American cities. They are common in the older urban cores of Chinese cities. Unfortunately, they are not common in China’s newer urban districts.Because Chinese commodity housing is developed in large-scale xiaoqu, modern Chinese blocks are necessarily huge by comparison to Western urban blocks. Because Chinese blocks are so large, there is not room for a fine-grained network of smaller streets. As a result, all traffic must be funneled onto a few arterial streets. In order to accommodate all this traffic, modern Chinese streets are extremely wide by comparison with Western streets. This combination of large blocks and wide streets, as seen in the following Google Earth image, makes for environments which are extremely unfriendly to pedestrians, and which encourage and reward automobile use over walking and bicycling.The following image contains two maps, each showing different neighborhoods in Shanghai. The map on the left shows part of Shanghai’s urban core, the map on the right shows a new urban district of Shanghai. Both maps show the exact same area (3 km x 3 km). Note how different the urban form in the two maps appears. The map on the left contains a dense network of narrow streets, which subdivide this 9 sq km zone into hundreds of small blocks. The map on the right contains mainly wide arterial streets, and the 9 sq km zone is subdivided into just a few dozen blocks. The map on the right, unfortunately, is what most modern Chinese cities look like today. The neighborhood on the left is much more diverse, fun, exciting, and colorful. Unfortunately, neighborhoods like this are a dying breed in China today.The next shows three more maps, each map showing a section of a different city. Again, all three maps show the exact same area: a 3 km by 3 km square. The map of San Francisco shows that city’s downtown area, whose urban form dates to the late 1800s and early 1900s. Note the preponderance of small blocks. The map of Phoenix shows a typical suburban neighborhood of that city, dating from the 1950s. Although suburban Phoenix is not a typical example of “pedestrian-friendly” urban planning, we can see that from an urban form perspective, the size of the blocks is still relatively small. The map of Beijing shows a newly developed commodity housing xiaoqu in the suburbs outside the 5th Ring Road. Note the huge scale of the blocks here. Very typical of modern Chinese urban planning, and completely out of scale with Western urban form.Today, China’s official urbanization rate is 50%, but the actual figure is higher because China’s antiquated household (or “hukou”) registration system classifies millions of low-skilled workers who left their villages to work in the factories and service industries of the cities as “rural population.” The government is actively promoting urbanization, in some cases literally wiping villages off the map and forcing rural populations to relocate in newly built cities. Demographers estimate that China will achieve an urbanization rate on par with the United States (~85%) in another 10–20 years.In other aspects of urban development, Chinese cities have already surpassed Western cities. There are 35 Chinese cities today with subway systems, more than in all of Western Europe combined. Of those 35 subway systems, 28 opened in the last 10 years alone. An additional 10 Chinese cities will have new subway systems open in the next 2–3 years. Chinese cities currently occupy the top three spots in the world for longest subway systems.In population density, Chinese cities are on a path towards convergence with Western Cities. In the past, Chinese cities were amongst the densest in the world, but in the last 25 years they have seen their population densities drop significantly. This has happened despite the fact that Chinese cities have gained in population. This is possible because Chinese cities have expanded in land area faster than they have grown in population. The following maps show the expansion in land area of seven Chinese cities since 1990:In 1990, Chinese cities were roughly on par with other Asian cities in population density. Today they are significantly less dense than cities in Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.Circa 1990, Chinese cities were on average 1.35 times denser than European cities and 5.40 times denser than American cities. Today, they are only 1.05 times denser than European cities on average, and 3.30 times denser than American cities.Urban sprawl is a common phenomenon in the cities of both the United States and China. Formerly separate cities are “blending” into each other as they expand around the edges. The Pearl River Delta area (which the Chinese government is trying to brand as the 粤港澳大湾区, or “Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area”) is a prime example of this. The following map shows the urban footprints of the cities that make up this megaregion, circa 1991 and 2014. The map superimposes modern density data over these two snapshots in time. The effect is to show that the areas that were already urbanized prior to the 1990s are the densest parts of the megaregion today, whereas most of the areas that were urbanized since the 1990s are of much lower density.