Shanghai is getting more crowded but downtown residents are enjoying a less packed room thanks to an exodus to the suburbs, statistics released yesterday show.

According to the Shanghai Population and Family Planning Committee, the city packs in 2,804 people per square kilometer, up from 2,700 at the end of 2004.

The statistics also showed that the population density within the Inner Ring Road fell from 41,000 at the end of 2004 to 33,900 per square kilometer because of infrastructure development in the suburbs.

However, the density gap between downtown and the suburbs is still wide.

"The population of the downtown area is 10 times that of the suburbs," said Wang Guoqiang, vice director of the National Population and Family Planning Commission, at an international population forum in town yesterday. "This has a negative effect on the city's resources and environment."

Wang said the density in the downtown area in New York City was 2.4 times that of the suburbs, 2 in Paris and 0.5 in Tokyo.

(Shanghai Daily November 9, 2006)