5 ms·

oh, please: http://www.skepticblog.org/2011/02/10/chinas-ghost-cities/ http://www.skepticblog.org/2011/02/10/chinas-ghost-cities/ Edit: Note people said the E

by 2stop 13y ago

oh, please: http://www.skepticblog.org/2011/02/10/chinas-ghost-cities/ http://www.skepticblog.org/2011/02/10/chinas-ghost-cities/ Edit: Note people said the EXACT same thing about china "building roads no body needs" in the early nineties. Now china are running license plate lotteries in order to keep traffic bearable. Just have a sense of scale, when you are trying to migrate 350 million people into urban centres, you need to build a lot of houses.

seanmcdirmid 13y ago
This is too simplistic. There are still roads in china that aren't used much, while inner city infrastructure is insufficient. Also, many houses that are built are villas that farmers from the country side can't afford; Beijing has a lot of empty apartments and a housing shortage at the same time.
- 2stop 13y ago
  Okay, show me a google maps image of a 'ghost city' and I'll zoom it out 2 notches and show you it's (barely) a 'suburb' of a bigger city. Show me the a google maps image of a road that is a under used, and I'll find a bigger road in the US that is used less. People buying houses and not living in them isn't "china building ghost cities" that's "people buying houses and not living in them". By all means believe western propaganda all you like, but given you live/work in china I'm surprised you don't see it for what it is.
  - seanmcdirmid 13y ago
    A "ghost city" is not a ghost city because there is no one to live in it, but there is no one that can afford to live in it. A lot of property is also bought for speculation given that China lacks a property tax. As for highways, truckers avoid the ones that are heavily tolled, leading to heavily congested non-tolled roads (so called 7 day traffic jams...). And have you ever seen a road as empty as Beijing's 6th ring road?
    - 2stop 13y ago
      So your issue is with poverty, and culture not with infrastructure? GDP/capita is pretty shitty in china, I agree. Because time/money ratio is so crap, people are prepared to spend time, to save/earn more money, hence toll roads being an issue, and house speculation being an issue. But no other country has increased GDP/capita faster than china (and on the scale china has) in the history of GDP/capita records.[0] So exactly what are we criticising? [0] http://www.gapminder.org/world/#$majorMode=chart$is;shi=t;ly=2003;lb=f;il=t;fs=11;al=30;stl=t;st=t;nsl=t;se=t$wst;tts=C$ts;sp=5.59290322580644;ti=2012$zpv;v=0$inc_x;mmid=XCOORDS;iid=ti;by=ind$inc_y;mmid=YCOORDS;iid=phAwcNAVuyj1jiMAkmq1iMg;by=ind$inc_s;uniValue=8.21;iid=phAwcNAVuyj0XOoBL_n5tAQ;by=ind$inc_c;uniValue=255;gid=CATID0;by=grp$map_x;scale=lin;dataMin=1800;dataMax=2012$map_y;scale=log;dataMin=282;dataMax=119849$map_s;sma=1;smi=1$cd;bd=0$inds=i101_t001800,,,,;i44_t001800,,,,;i239_t001800,,, http://www.gapminder.org/world/#$majorMode=chart$is;shi=t;ly...,
      - seanmcdirmid 13y ago
        > Because time/money ratio is so crap, people are prepared to spend time, to save/earn more money, hence toll roads being an issue, and house speculation being an issue. The point is that infrastructure investments are often misdirected, poorly thought out, or plain corrupt. China needs "affordable" housing, not property as "speculation opportunities" (and given that there are so few ways to invest money, this is what happens anyways). China needs low logistic costs, but has some of the highest in the world even with their "great" infrastructure; toll roads represent great skimming opportunities for officials and their families. Truck drivers are stuck in a crappy situation where they are forced to overload their trucks just to make ends meet, and hope the fines on the way (justified or not) don't bankrupt them. > So exactly what are we criticising? We were arguing about whether China's infrastructure investments were wise or not.
        2stop 13y ago
        > toll roads represent great skimming opportunities for officials and their families Okay, provide some evidence government officials are 'skimming' from (all) toll roads. That's a pretty big claim, and as far as I can tell, the tolls are either private companies or government run tolls, that isn't corruption, that's taxation and enterprise. So they don't have affordable housing because they don't allow enough things to invest in? All truck drivers have to overload their trucks, and hope they don't get fined? China's a big place, are you sure your statements apply across the whole nation. Or are you pretty much referring to domestic problems in a particular city? Housing is not affordable in the Bay Area (SF)... is that also because they don't have enough to invest in? Truck drivers the world over, are over worked, under paid, and have to resort to drugs, over loading, and sleep avoidance to make it... Is that because of corrupt toll road owners? China has (some) the highest logistic costs in the world? Are you sure about that? Can I see a chart of 'world logistic costs'?
0grr 13y ago
Many western pundits also poopoo'd their HSR efforts, now it's one of the busiest and best rail networks in the world.
stretchwithme 13y ago
If you build things the market is not demanding, however dumb, eventually someone will use these things. Low demand means low prices, even if these prices are too low to justify the investment. Everything has a clearing price, a price that will draw buyers and get it sold. Of course, if prices are held artificially high, it will take forever.
jotm 13y ago
Hmm, I did not consider that. I guess we'll see in a decade or two. My opinion is that many of these constructions will go unused - permanent relocation is a lot harder than just using roads, plus no doubt most of them have already been bought for resale (increasing the price) or rent (which may be more acceptable). Also, there are whole apartment blocks in or near major cities that are still unused despite demand, it's not just ghost cities.
- 2stop 13y ago
  Ghost city: https://www.google.com/maps/preview/place/Delray/@42.2958015,-83.1088506,906m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x883b325b23d576e5:0x6433bea2f265e288 https://www.google.com/maps/preview/place/Delray/@42.2958015...

by 2stop 13y ago

seanmcdirmid 13y ago

This is too simplistic. There are still roads in china that aren't used much, while inner city infrastructure is insufficient. Also, many houses that are built are villas that farmers from the country side can't afford; Beijing has a lot of empty apartments and a housing shortage at the same time.

2stop 13y ago
Okay, show me a google maps image of a 'ghost city' and I'll zoom it out 2 notches and show you it's (barely) a 'suburb' of a bigger city. Show me the a google maps image of a road that is a under used, and I'll find a bigger road in the US that is used less. People buying houses and not living in them isn't "china building ghost cities" that's "people buying houses and not living in them". By all means believe western propaganda all you like, but given you live/work in china I'm surprised you don't see it for what it is.
- seanmcdirmid 13y ago
  A "ghost city" is not a ghost city because there is no one to live in it, but there is no one that can afford to live in it. A lot of property is also bought for speculation given that China lacks a property tax. As for highways, truckers avoid the ones that are heavily tolled, leading to heavily congested non-tolled roads (so called 7 day traffic jams...). And have you ever seen a road as empty as Beijing's 6th ring road?
  - 2stop 13y ago
    So your issue is with poverty, and culture not with infrastructure? GDP/capita is pretty shitty in china, I agree. Because time/money ratio is so crap, people are prepared to spend time, to save/earn more money, hence toll roads being an issue, and house speculation being an issue. But no other country has increased GDP/capita faster than china (and on the scale china has) in the history of GDP/capita records.[0] So exactly what are we criticising? [0] http://www.gapminder.org/world/#$majorMode=chart$is;shi=t;ly=2003;lb=f;il=t;fs=11;al=30;stl=t;st=t;nsl=t;se=t$wst;tts=C$ts;sp=5.59290322580644;ti=2012$zpv;v=0$inc_x;mmid=XCOORDS;iid=ti;by=ind$inc_y;mmid=YCOORDS;iid=phAwcNAVuyj1jiMAkmq1iMg;by=ind$inc_s;uniValue=8.21;iid=phAwcNAVuyj0XOoBL_n5tAQ;by=ind$inc_c;uniValue=255;gid=CATID0;by=grp$map_x;scale=lin;dataMin=1800;dataMax=2012$map_y;scale=log;dataMin=282;dataMax=119849$map_s;sma=1;smi=1$cd;bd=0$inds=i101_t001800,,,,;i44_t001800,,,,;i239_t001800,,, http://www.gapminder.org/world/#$majorMode=chart$is;shi=t;ly...,
    - seanmcdirmid 13y ago
      > Because time/money ratio is so crap, people are prepared to spend time, to save/earn more money, hence toll roads being an issue, and house speculation being an issue. The point is that infrastructure investments are often misdirected, poorly thought out, or plain corrupt. China needs "affordable" housing, not property as "speculation opportunities" (and given that there are so few ways to invest money, this is what happens anyways). China needs low logistic costs, but has some of the highest in the world even with their "great" infrastructure; toll roads represent great skimming opportunities for officials and their families. Truck drivers are stuck in a crappy situation where they are forced to overload their trucks just to make ends meet, and hope the fines on the way (justified or not) don't bankrupt them. > So exactly what are we criticising? We were arguing about whether China's infrastructure investments were wise or not.
      - 2stop 13y ago
        > toll roads represent great skimming opportunities for officials and their families Okay, provide some evidence government officials are 'skimming' from (all) toll roads. That's a pretty big claim, and as far as I can tell, the tolls are either private companies or government run tolls, that isn't corruption, that's taxation and enterprise. So they don't have affordable housing because they don't allow enough things to invest in? All truck drivers have to overload their trucks, and hope they don't get fined? China's a big place, are you sure your statements apply across the whole nation. Or are you pretty much referring to domestic problems in a particular city? Housing is not affordable in the Bay Area (SF)... is that also because they don't have enough to invest in? Truck drivers the world over, are over worked, under paid, and have to resort to drugs, over loading, and sleep avoidance to make it... Is that because of corrupt toll road owners? China has (some) the highest logistic costs in the world? Are you sure about that? Can I see a chart of 'world logistic costs'?

0grr 13y ago

Many western pundits also poopoo'd their HSR efforts, now it's one of the busiest and best rail networks in the world.

stretchwithme 13y ago

If you build things the market is not demanding, however dumb, eventually someone will use these things. Low demand means low prices, even if these prices are too low to justify the investment. Everything has a clearing price, a price that will draw buyers and get it sold. Of course, if prices are held artificially high, it will take forever.

jotm 13y ago

Hmm, I did not consider that. I guess we'll see in a decade or two. My opinion is that many of these constructions will go unused - permanent relocation is a lot harder than just using roads, plus no doubt most of them have already been bought for resale (increasing the price) or rent (which may be more acceptable). Also, there are whole apartment blocks in or near major cities that are still unused despite demand, it's not just ghost cities.

2stop 13y ago
Ghost city: https://www.google.com/maps/preview/place/Delray/@42.2958015,-83.1088506,906m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x883b325b23d576e5:0x6433bea2f265e288 https://www.google.com/maps/preview/place/Delray/@42.2958015...