As of the end of 2012, two villages in Zhangjiagang had gained the national-level eco-village title, 84 the provincial-level title and 13 city-level title in Suzhou.
While visiting the country's rural settlements is often like traveling back in time, workers and even tourists flock to Yonglian village to see "the future of the Chinese countryside".
Fan Huiping has seen both sides of migrant life. He joined the exodus of workers who left Jiangsu province's Zhangjiagang city in the 1980s, when it was a poor farming settlement. He now lives among the 600,000 migrants who flock to his hometown-turned-boomtown, where the average annual per capita GDP is about $23,000 - 4 times the national figure. That's why he supports the city government's New Citizens Initiative, which seeks to better balance privileges enjoyed by migrants - whom the city instead calls "new citizens" - and locals.
