A recent poll carried out by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences showed that in Beijing's city construction not enough attention has been paid to the needs of low-income earners. Some sociologists pointed out that several measures had begun to cause "practical harm."

At the beginning of last year, the Beijing municipal government proposed to build Beijing as an habitable city. The proposal was widely praised by the general public.

Since then, Beijing had devoted much effort and money to its city construction improvement. However, little achievement has been made. In fact, the city's habitability has even fallen back compared with last year.

In December 2005, the Business Weekly magazine and the Horizon Research Consultancy Group jointly published a list on Chinese cities' habitability degree in 2005. The list showed that Beijing's habitability ranking had dropped from the third position in 2004 to the 15th.

On June 6, 2006, the Horizon Research Consultancy Group selected 20 cities in China and published a list on their favorability degree for making investment. The list showed that Beijing ranked first on the list. However, in another list published by the same company on a city's habitability, Beijing came 19th , or second from bottom.

On June 22, Professor Zhang Wenzhong from the Geosciences and Resources Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences led a research team to conduct a questionnaire investigation among more than 11,000 people. The poll result concludes that Beijing's habitability has dropped to 63.8 points, just passing the qualified mark.

By analyzing the poll result, researchers found that people earning a monthly income of over 10,000 yuan was most satisfied with the city's habitability, while families earning 3,000 yuan or less were "most unsatisfied" with the city's habitability.

Regarding the correlation between people's sense of habitability and their monthly income, researchers explained that at present, Beijing's city construction work had not provided much convenience to low-income earners. This had caused a negative impact on their living quality that covered nearly every aspect of their life, including daily life, transportation, safety issue, health and comfort.

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