ABSTRACT
The town-village gap varies, of course, according to the development level of the district. What marks one village as a step toward town life in rural Yunnan would be mocked in a prosperous Pearl River Delta location as hopelessly "backward." Many of the have adopted town like regulations prohibiting the running wild of domesticated animals in the streets, and some have even proscribed them from the village center altogether. Townized villages have made the new 1980s national requirement of education through junior middle school possible, but access to senior middle school is still better at the town level, and that difference is part of the remaining town and country gap. The disparity between rich and poor districts in education is emblematic for the entire range of social welfare benefits and services. New money and mobility have combined with the general deregulation of civic life to give an opportunity for all kinds of illegal activities that were mostly absent.
