China - A great land full of great lads.

HandsomeJonny

Was browsing the internet and came across this. If you thought Ireland build some amount of ****e during the boom look at this.

Seems absolutely mental. Now I don't know much about economics but if their housing bubble collapses what actually happens. How does this effect all the dependant economies. Now I can see why there is so much mine work in Australia to build all this ****. Has anyone ever been to China and seen any of this construction. Link claims that there are is a ghost city in China twice as big as Los Angeles :eek:

jonnyfingers

Could use those ghost cities for zombie apocalypse film locations I suppose.

Prodigious

Be fairly unreal for a huge game of airsoft or paintball.

Mr Benevolent

More smug US anti-everyone shite. The US has plenty of abandoned cities.

Sergeant

Mr Benevolent wrote: »

More smug US anti-everyone shite. The US has plenty of abandoned cities.

Jesus, talk about reading into things that aren't there.

pabloh999

Mr Benevolent wrote: »

More smug US anti-everyone shite. The US has plenty of abandoned cities.

Abandoned cities?
Where?

Simon Gruber Says

I read that Detroit is on it's way to becoming one and having been there not too long ago I could see why. A dump of the highest order with tons of abandoned buildings. The roads are also in far worse condition than Dublin, which is ironic for the "Motor City" as it once was.

Peregrine

Ask them if they wanna swap. We'll give them Mullingar for a highrise city

Wibbs

China has about the biggest commodities bubble in history. Some of the stuff that goes on is very reminiscent of the madness of the Celtic Tiger magnified by a millionty percent. Watched a great documentary about the last 10 years of this lovely little Chinese rural village that got turned into a city. It was scarily reminiscent of Ireland in the boom in one way. The amount of folks in construction or property or landlords was high and seen as a way to easy money, the shops were interesting too. Loads of new shops selling furniture and building stuff and tiles. Loadsa tile shops. IMHO you wanna foresee an imminent bubble and subsequent bust? Too many tile shops. Remember Dublin 5 years ago? Tile emporiums all over the place.

One area they differ in though is that while as a culture they'll bet on two raindrops running down a window, they don't like to "bet" on credit, so there hasn't been the credit/free money boom shenanigans of Ireland and the West. They're more likely to scrimp and save and work bloody hard to achieve their goals.

But yep it's worrying. The Chinese may find a way to beat the odds, they're a clever lot, but I dunno. Their other big problem is their aging population. The demographics that was instrumental in fueling their sharp rise is aging. They're very likely to get old before they get rich.

Other issues include the sharp divide between the urban and rural populations in earnings. Millions are being left behind in many ways. That could well lead to unrest, as could central government's attempts to curb that unrest. As it is they have by far the highest amount of people executed of any nation on earth. In a culture where family ties and connections are a big deal that could come back to bite them too.

Wibbs

pabloh999 wrote: »

Abandoned cities?
Where?

Indeed. Where? Detroit is a city in major decline, but what others are out there? Plus a city in decline and a city built for no one are two very different economic trajectories.

VinLieger

Wibbs wrote: »

Indeed. Where? Detroit is a city in major decline, but what others are out there? Plus a city in decline and a city built for no one are two very different economic trajectories.

Exactly an abandoned city in america was abandoned probably for economic/enviornmental reasons.
China is actively building cities that nobody lives in to keep its construction industry going

BillyMitchel

pabloh999 wrote: »

Abandoned cities?
Where?

Just a guess from what I've read and seen. Flint, Michigan? Didn't loads of big companies pull out? Going back a few years too so things might of changed.

Pilotdude5

When it does collapse is anyone interested in forming a Boards group to buy our own cheap city?

JJayoo

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/dec/06/china-flatten-mountain-lanzhou-new-area

n what is being billed as the largest "mountain-moving project" in Chinese history, oneof China's biggest construction firms will spend £2.2bn to flatten 700 mountains levelling the area Lanzhou, allowing developers to build a new metropolis on the outskirts of the north-western city.

China are also currently building a 700 mile long aqueduct to bring water up to the North from the south. It's made from 40 meter long sections each weighing 12000 tonnes.

opinion guy

HandsomeJonny wrote: »

Was browsing the internet and came across this. If you thought Ireland build some amount of ****e during the boom look at this.

Seems absolutely mental. Now I don't know much about economics but if their housing bubble collapses what actually happens. How does this effect all the dependant economies. Now I can see why there is so much mine work in Australia to build all this ****. Has anyone ever been to China and seen any of this construction. Link claims that there are is a ghost city in China twice as big as Los Angeles :eek:

Don't be alarmed Op - these are just screen shots from the new SIM city game


Edit: ....or perhaps the boss of China gets to play Sim city in realtime from his office ??????

ScumLord

Wibbs wrote: »

Other issues include the sharp divide between the urban and rural populations in earnings. Millions are being left behind in many ways.

It's more than just a divide from what I've heard it's more along the lines of citizens and plebs. The country folk aren't even entitled to an education as I remember it.

Wibbs wrote: »

Indeed. Where? Detroit is a city in major decline, but what others are out there? Plus a city in decline and a city built for no one are two very different economic trajectories.

They have a few towns that would probably be classed as cities by Irelands standards IE: Galway sized. Abandoned mines and resort towns.

Dravokivich

Loads of old Google Maps and Bing images in that article there. An Apt I lived in didnt show up on Google Maps until last year. Would have been built around 10 years ago.

WayneMolloy

Isnt their answer to this, knock down the unoccupied properties and build them again? Once their bubble bursts, Australia and New Zealand will be in big trouble. They have been making a packet selling the chinese lads raw materials.


Their one hild policy is about to turn around and take a chunk out of their arse - http://edition.cnn.com/2012/11/14/opinion/china-challenges-one-child-brooks

Fascinating country, would love to visit. Told my mate that before and he piped back - "so would I, man. Eating chicken curries and three in ones everyday."

Hes a bit dim.

The Chinese aren't stupid and it's hard to know what their long-term plan is but one thing they have in their favour is that if a bubble bursts tomorrow and they start from scratch they'll still have their massive manufacturing base and export surplus.
They have a chance to do their development differently than everyone else did. They also have to do it while keeping 1.3 billion people with no democracy happy.

crockholm

I regularly check into a skyscraper/construction website/forum, and what the Chinese are building at the moment is phenominal, about 4 towers 600+ metres high, a dozen 500+,and a plethora of otherwise giant buildings, kinda rooting for them to complete the buildings and one day visit these mega-cities.

RATM

I was in China in about 2002, the start of the building boom, at least in Beijing and Shanghai. At the time the national controversy was about how they were building the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River, a river that previous dynasties had diverted and re-diverted for their own benefits.

The gas thing was a huge area of land was going to get flooded to facilitate them dam. Part of that land contained a city of 2 million people. They literally just went ahead and told 2m people to leave town and then they flooded the whole thing where it remains underwater to this day.

I remember a scuba diving instructor remarking that a city underwater like that would make for a great dive.

The polices of the Communist Party really are just plain daft sometimes. They couldn't give too hoots about the people on the ground.

ScumLord

RATM wrote: »

I was in China in about 2002, the start of the building boom, at least in Beijing and Shanghai. At the time the national controversy was about how they were building the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River, a river that previous dynasties had diverted and re-diverted for their own benefits.

The gas thing was a huge area of land was going to get flooded to facilitate them dam. Part of that land contained a city of 2 million people. They literally just went ahead and told 2m people to leave town and then they flooded the whole thing where it remains underwater to this day.

National geographic did an article on the three gorges Dam in the last issue. The area has become very well off now apparently. To give some idea of the mindset of people there now they were interviewing a guy that changed his name to "money".

They built an impressive underwater museum there so you can go down and look at ancient carvings that used to mark high and low tide on the river.

Outside the big new city the fishermen are living the old life and have started having more than one child. The fisherman said he saw one of his friends burying his parents on his own and decided it would be better that his children had family they could depend on after the parents are gone. They think it's worth the fine.

smurgen

pabloh999 wrote: »

Abandoned cities?
Where?

a lot of new orleans.america has massive amounts of abandoned housing. the country has gone down the tubes massively since 2008, just type tent cities usa into google.

smurgen

Dravokivich wrote: »

Loads of old Google Maps and Bing images in that article there. An Apt I lived in didnt show up on Google Maps until last year. Would have been built around 10 years ago.

yeah looks like a very crappy article, i mean there's some pictures from very high up with the writing "see any people?" . How you expected to be able to see any people even if they are there from that height?

Dravokivich

smurgen wrote: »

yeah looks like a very crappy article, i mean there's some pictures from very high up with the writing "see any people?" . How you expected to be able to see any people even if they are there from that height?

And then the caption about all the abandoned housing, is actually a picture of an apartment complex people appear to be living in! :pac:

smurgen

Sergeant wrote: »

Jesus, talk about reading into things that aren't there.

im not so sure this website is as balanced as you may think, there does seem to be a bias going on http://www.businessinsider.com/san-jose-real-estate-flash-sale-2013-4 and http://www.businessinsider.com/baml-us-home-prices-to-rise-8-2013-3

CucaFace

Id imagine if the bubble burst those developers would just go under and that would be about it really. You wouldn’t see anything like what happened here, happen there.

The reason they are now basically the most successful economy in the world, and the west is in a bit of a mess financially is because they do not believe in using credit as a way of paying for things. They save up and then use their own money.

Which is why a huge amount of what is owed in the world is owed to China.

I guess worst case scenario would be China having to call in these debts which could cause huge trouble for certain countries, especially the USA who are in major debt to China. That could cause a major problem in the world markets, so I doubt china would go down that route either.

For Forks Sake

Some mad pictures from Time taken in a city called Ordos. http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1975397_2094492,00.html

pabloh999

smurgen wrote: »

a lot of new orleans.america has massive amounts of abandoned housing. the country has gone down the tubes massively since 2008, just type tent cities usa into google.

I think you're missing the point.
Nothing on this scale seems to be happening anywhere else. Building block after block after block of empty skyscrapers hoping people will come to them.
New orleans wasn't just built in a few short years and never lived in.
It grew like a normal city would. There was an unprecedented natural disaster there a couple of years ago which displaced a lot of people.

dreamers75

Oddly talking about this today.

US ghost cities

http://www.bankrate.com/finance/real-estate/8-ghost-towns-1.aspx

More us

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/AYq2zW/matadornetwork.com/trips/28-freaky-ghost-towns-you-can-visit?switch_theme=mobile/

Theres an article i cant find about world ones (which was what i was talking about earlier).

They make for some cracking pics (the others ones, ones above are okish).

TheUsual

I like Chinese.

There's 1.4 billion of them in the world today, you better learn to love them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04QoA44c23A

rusheen

64 million empty apartments in china
Ghost cities being built at a rate of ten a year.
An example , a Huge mall with 1500 shops opened six years ago and its is still empty and there still building more .....
whats going on ?

Thinkingaboutit

Simon Gruber Says wrote: »

I read that Detroit is on it's way to becoming one and having been there not too long ago I could see why. A dump of the highest order with tons of abandoned buildings. The roads are also in far worse condition than Dublin, which is ironic for the "Motor City" as it once was.

There are quite a lot of new businesses in the center of Motown, and State of Michigan has taken charge of it. Its suburbs are doing fine, and there's even a fairly okay incorporated city right (with a Polish population) in the middle of it, well not the middle, but surrounded by Detroit. The now Arab town of Dearborn was carved out of Detroit as a white Ford company town, and it's doing fine. Now there's Stockton and other places doing badly, but the thing with the Chinese ghost cities is that no one ever lived there, while dreams died in some of these failing or failed US cities. It's a result of a weirdly distorted banking system in China and other related problems, perhaps. No one can really tell.

Victor_M

CucaFace wrote: »

Id imagine if the bubble burst those developers would just go under and that would be about it really. You wouldn’t see anything like what happened here, happen there.

The reason they are now basically the most successful economy in the world, and the west is in a bit of a mess financially is because they do not believe in using credit as a way of paying for things. They save up and then use their own money.

Which is why a huge amount of what is owed in the world is owed to China.

I guess worst case scenario would be China having to call in these debts which could cause huge trouble for certain countries, especially the USA who are in major debt to China. That could cause a major problem in the world markets, so I doubt china would go down that route either.

They are not building cities from savings - there is huge borrowing going on in China, probably not at near the level of personal borrowing that went on here, but if you think these metropolises are being built from savings you are mistaken.

The Chinese govt are forcing banks to reduce the rate of lending as the market is massively overheated, the big difference over there is a total lack of transparency, so they govt can alter statistics to make it seem like everything is ok.

I was there 3 years ago and couldn't believe a) the amount of empty apartment blocks & b)the prices, they were €100K - €200K per small shoebox so it not like they are cheap either.

I personally think its a larger crazier version of what we went through, granted they have a massive export market and low cost labour market, but if inflation ever gets out of control in China they will erode the very reason that they are such a popular economy in the first place.