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And Now Presenting: Amazing Satellite Images Of The Ghost Cities Of China.

mikedt

mikedt

你好
VIP Member
 
60 million houses unnoccupied :eek:
thats worse than what we have here
even if its 30 million there is gonna be a huge crash... i wonder how a reccession would affect China
 
OK, I call BS on this whole article.

Do you ever even bother to fact check anything before you post?

Ordos:
There are no cars in the city, except for a few dozen parked at the glamorous government center.
Click to expand...
That's a big fat lie. Look on google maps. Search for the city. Zoom in.

There are cars on almost every street. Sure, there aren't a lot compared to cities like Beijing. Remember, though, that satellite imagery is a snapshot at a single moment in time. According to Wikipedia, Ordos has a population of 1.5 million (as of 2009).

Next up on their list is Zhengzhou:
This $19 billion development is packed with blocks of empty houses
Click to expand...
How do we know these houses are empty? Look closely. Even on the image in that article you can see many cars on the roads. Where's the proof that the houses are empty?????

Again, according to Wikipedia this city has 4.5 million people living there, which would make it about the size of Los Angeles.


Oh, and in case you don't believe that - China has many many more "big cities" than the US has:

City Metro Area Population
上海 Shanghai 17,000,000
北京 Beijing 13,200,000
广州 Guangzhou 12,000,000
深圳 Shenzhen 8,615,000
天津 Tianjin 8,200,000
重庆 Chongqing 7,500,000
香港 Hong Kong 7,055,071
东莞 Dongguan 6,950,000
南京 Nanjing 6,800,000
武汉 Wuhan 6,600,000
杭州 Hangzhou 6,300,000
沈阳 Shenyang 5,060,000

List of cities in the People's Republic of China by population - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So, that's 5 cities bigger than (or as big as) NYC by population, and 12 cities easily bigger than Los Angeles (the second largest city in the US).

And yes, Zhengzhou is on that list at 4.3 million if you click the link.



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amlothi said:
OK, I call BS on this whole article.

Do you ever even bother to fact check anything before you post?
Click to expand...

Of course I did, In case you havent noticed from my profile, I live in China.

In fact I've travelled quite a bit in China, and what do I see in every city? Thousands of vacant apartment blocks everywhere, and much unfinished abandoned construction.

Here is one example in Xiaoshan, Hangzhou that I know for a fact is a virtual ghost town.
Xiaoshan, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China - Google Maps
Built 4 years ago and made to look like Venice in Italy. Thousands of empty apartments, plus a deserted shopping mall and theme park.

Xillinhot, where I live. In the new town area, well they've built the government buildings and the roads. But there is not much else going on there. Some residential and commercial construction started a while back, but most of it now looks abandoned.

There is also the New South China Mall in Dongguan. The world's biggest shopping mall and 99% empty since it opened in 2005.

BTW I'm far more likely to believe the BBC, than the propaganda I see and hear on CCTV.


amlothi said:
How do we know these houses are empty? Look closely. Even on the image in that article you can see many cars on the roads. Where's the proof that the houses are empty?????
Click to expand...

The proof is with my own eyes. When I don't see any lights in the apartments at night. and I don't see anyone coming and going. It becomes kind of obvious that these places are empty.

China currently has a huge property bubble going on...and one day that bubble will burst big time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chenggong_County
'As of 2010, much new construction in Chenggong is still unoccupied,'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordos_City
'Ordos is known for its lavish government projects, which including the new Ordos City, a whole city of fancy buildings and abundant infrastructure that is seldom used by residents.'

"lavish government projects"... hmm I'm afraid that's all too common story in China
 
I also live in China. I also have a brain, and I use it to think critically about the information it is given.

You are correct, there are new development areas that are mostly empty. They are everywhere, even in the large cities.

However, the article is misleading at best.

There are no cars in the city, except for a few dozen parked at the glamorous government center
Click to expand...

This is clearly hyperbole. A very inaccurate exaggeration. First, you can see cars on the satellite images clearly if you zoom in and look for them. Second, satellite images of cars (from some unknown date) mean nothing about actual population living in that area.

Here's China's biggest ghost city: Zhengzhou New District
Click to expand...

As I mentioned above, the city has as many people as Los Angeles! Is that how they define "Ghost City" in China? Again, its dramatic (and inaccurate) hyperbole to call the entire city a "Ghost City".

This $19 billion development is packed with blocks of empty houses
Click to expand...

The photo that follows this quote shows an awful lot of cars. Sure, the houses could all be empty. What I want to know is, how can you tell that from a satellite photograph? If you are going to make a claim, they should have better evidence to substantiate it. The whole article is full of nonsense fluff like this. It's all hyped to be something it isn't.

No cars in the city except for approximately 100 clustered around the government headquarters
Click to expand...

Here, they show a close up of a bunch of cars around a building to prove their point. They do not show any photos of the rest of the city to show an absence of cars in other places.

So, everytime the Knicks play I'm going to take a picture outside Madison Square Garden and use that as proof that the rest of NYC is a "Ghost Town", ok? It's the same logic. There's no substance to backup the statements at all.


In most neighborhoods of Dantu, there are no cars, no signs of life
Click to expand...

Followed by a picture of what is clearly a construction zone. No signs of life? I'd say ongoing construction is a pretty big sign of life. If we saw this photo on Mars, scientists would be thrilled. Wouldn't they?
Oh, and there are cars in the fricken photo!!!! A complete load of crap.

Finally, here's a giant new campus for Yunnan University, which was built to accommodate 2.3 million students. It has 11,000 enrolled
Click to expand...

Ok, for this one: First the facts are wrong. There's almost 20,000 students at the campus now. Almost double what the text says. Second, what university in the world do you know that has a campus built for 2.3 million students? I couldn't find any source for that information. Look at the photo again. Does it look like it's built for 2.3 million people to live there??? Hardly...
 
From the P&CA Forum Guidelines:

Although emotions can run high when debating something that you feel strongly about, remember that you are not debating someone else's intelligence (or lack thereof), background or location, but rather the topic itself and their position on the topic. For best results try to back up your assertions with some sort of evidence, and also be prepared to have others find evidence against your assertions and shoot holes in what you have said.

Personal attacks will just get threads closed or worse, so avoid attacking the messenger and stick to attacking the message.
Click to expand...
 
Here is something I've noticed about building construction in mainland China.

Government: Always top quality, expensive materials, good workmanship, not likely to fall down.

Commercial and residential: Build it fast and build it cheap, seems to be the mantra here...and nevermind the building codes.

The apartment block I currently live in is only 2 years old, yet there are large cracks and sizeable chunks missing from the masonry(gingerbread and tofu more like). The whole building generally looks quite tatty around the edges.

A friend's apartment in Shenzhen. It's only 5 years old, yet the whole block will be demolished later this year because it's deemed to be unsafe.

cracks and door hanging off.jpg
When I was working in Hangzhou. I had serious cause for concern on the newish building I was living in. That door hanging off its hinges is for the lift machine plant room. The sign reads something like 'Dangerous machine. Keep out'...sufficed to say, I always used the stairs even though my apartment was on the 12th floor. Those cracks in the structural walls look quite disturbing as well.
 
While I agree with Mike's point its important to remember that China is still a developing country, and is poor, the emphasis is being put on development and not things like safety and health

I'm not sure what the building regulations are still so laxly applied and implemented, but probably a lot of it is to do with corruption
 
shadowninty said:
While I agree with Mike's point its important to remember that China is still a developing country, and is poor, the emphasis is being put on development and not things like safety and health

I'm not sure what the building regulations are still so laxly applied and implemented, but probably a lot of it is to do with corruption
Click to expand...

Exactly right, a lot of what goes on here has to do with corruption and the lack of enforcement of building codes and regulations. China has many laws, but enforcement is often not a priority, e.g. traffic laws and copyright laws.

Of course I'm well aware that China is a developing country. But I had to share with the forum my personal experiences and observations about what goes on here.

BTW all posts I've made in this thread, where done using my own UK purchased computer and a secure VPN, just in case.
 
China has 1.3 BILLION people, most still live in rural agricultural settings. China is also in the midst of the largest migration from rural to urban probably in the history of humanity.

Thats a huge deal. They've got millions of people every year leaving the country side and moving to cities to find jobs. It seems the large "ghost cities" are their attempt to deal with that.

If they build too much, and the people don't move as fast as expected, there will be a bit of a bubble, that could burst at some point. But its quite possible the influx of people to the cities keeps up with this construction. And for new construction to not keep up with the influx would be a bigger problem than an economic bubble.
 
cipher6 said:
And for new construction to not keep up with the influx would be a bigger problem than an economic bubble.
Click to expand...
probably for the ordinary Joe Soap in China, but not in the greater economic scale of things

Irelands property bubble burst in '08, domestic economic growth is still negative
 
amlothi said:
OK, I call BS on this whole article.

Do you ever even bother to fact check anything before you post?
Click to expand...
I don't think the hostility is necessary :/

amlothi said:
According to Wikipedia, Ordos has a population of 1.5 million (as of 2009).
...
Again, according to Wikipedia this city has 4.5 million people living there, which would make it about the size of Los Angeles.
...
Oh, and in case you don't believe that - China has many many more "big cities" than the US has:

City Metro Area Population
上海 Shanghai 17,000,000
北京 Beijing 13,200,000
广州 Guangzhou 12,000,000
深圳 Shenzhen 8,615,000
天津 Tianjin 8,200,000
重庆 Chongqing 7,500,000
香港 Hong Kong 7,055,071
东莞 Dongguan 6,950,000
南京 Nanjing 6,800,000
武汉 Wuhan 6,600,000
杭州 Hangzhou 6,300,000
沈阳 Shenyang 5,060,000

List of cities in the People's Republic of China by population - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Click to expand...

I took out some parts of the post for the sake of space. I'm not going to speculate whether or not these numbers are right or wrong, because I don't know and don't really care, but you're going to fuel an argument with a bunch of numbers off Wikipedia? Really?? You realize that I can log into Wikipedia and type whatever numbers I want in there, right?

Again, I know nothing about China, or anything regarding this topic, but I definitely think BBC News and businessinsider.com are much more reliable sources than Wikipedia...
 
Sweet Chaos said:
Again, I know nothing about China, or anything regarding this topic, but I definitely think BBC News and businessinsider.com are much more reliable sources than Wikipedia...
Click to expand...

Wikipedia can be a good source of reference, if one takes the time to verify the sources and citations(if any).

It does say that Hangzhou has a population of 6,300,000, however I couldn't find any citations to verify this. It does sound about right though, having spent 8 months in that city. Of course there is nothing in Wikipedia about Hangzhou having 50,000-100,000 vacant houses and apartments.
 
the issue is there are greater Cities, and then the smaller sub-cities

An example in my country would be Tallaght, a new town built in the 60's just outside Dublin City
Tallaght is now bigger than several Irish cities, and due to the expansion of Dublin City it would often by added to calualations of Greater Dublin Cities population, like those wikipedia figurs ;)
 
shadowninty said:
probably for the ordinary Joe Soap in China, but not in the greater economic scale of things

Irelands property bubble burst in '08, domestic economic growth is still negative
Click to expand...

Ireland and China are nothing alike. Ireland has half the population of NYC.

And while China has an area 90 times greater than Ireland, it has a population density about 2.5 times greater than Ireland.

Believe it or not, shifting the population of Ireland from countrysides to cities every year, is a big deal. Keeping a few billion poor farmers and peasants under some sort of civil control is a tough task.

Plus, there are countless other economic factors at play, that make China a totally different situation than Ireland, and comparisons between the two very very weak.
 
shadowninty said:
I know that!
besides, Ireland had huge immigration too -.-
Click to expand...

Nothing even in the scale of China's internal migration from rural to city. I've read the amount of people moving from villages to cities in China is the largest population migration in the history of the planet.

That would cause some unique issues, like where will they all live. And it seems China is addressing that issue by ramping up housing construction. It creates jobs and new homes.
 
the issue I see is that you have say 15m people a year to fill these places, 2/3 to a home; and the pace of building is not slowing down
the Chinese government is trying to balance a property bubble and rapid economic growth without slowing the pace of development
I know they have taken action, but things are already bubbling over in some cities
 
shadowninty said:
the issue I see is that you have say 15m people a year to fill these places, 2/3 to a home; and the pace of building is not slowing down
the Chinese government is trying to balance a property bubble and rapid economic growth without slowing the pace of development
I know they have taken action, but things are already bubbling over in some cities
Click to expand...

Well, I'm not qualified to say weather its a bubble or not... what are home prices doing in China? Are home/real estate prices set by free market forces? How much government assistance does the avg Chinese dude get to buy a house? Bubbles are economic, prices go up and up until the bottom falls out and they collapse.

Lots of new construction and empty apartments, I don't think, is enough to say weather there is a bubble or not. If they have all this excess inventory, but prices are relatively stable or falling, I don't think thats signs of a bubble, but inventory trying to keep up with demand... or maybe perceived future demand.

But it does fit with what I do know... millions are in the process of moving into the cities (and it will continue for probably most the decade), and they need somewhere to live.
 
Sweet Chaos said:
Again, I know nothing about China, or anything regarding this topic
Click to expand...

Thank you for your insight.

Sweet Chaos said:
but I definitely think BBC News and businessinsider.com are much more reliable sources than Wikipedia...[/COLOR]
Click to expand...


I didn't see anywhere on BBC News or businessinsider.com where the current populations of China's largest cities are listed. So I went to a convenient place where I knew I could find that info.


It's very easy to come here and point at a post and say "I don't believe you because it's on Wikipedia". It's a much different thing if you find another reputable source which contradicts the main point of my post. (The main point being that the article linked by the OP exaggerates it's claims and omits information that possibly contradicts it's claims.)


Next you'll probably tell me that Obama isn't a US Citizen because you saw it on Fox News. (I'm saying this only to make the point that, no matter what media outlet you "trust" to provide you with the truth, there will be others who disagree.)
 
cipher6 said:
Well, I'm not qualified to say weather its a bubble or not... what are home prices doing in China? Are home/real estate prices set by free market forces? How much government assistance does the avg Chinese dude get to buy a house? Bubbles are economic, prices go up and up until the bottom falls out and they collapse.

Lots of new construction and empty apartments, I don't think, is enough to say weather there is a bubble or not. If they have all this excess inventory, but prices are relatively stable or falling, I don't think thats signs of a bubble, but inventory trying to keep up with demand... or maybe perceived future demand.

But it does fit with what I do know... millions are in the process of moving into the cities (and it will continue for probably most the decade), and they need somewhere to live.
Click to expand...

you are far from wrong, but demand will be from internal migrants and those who are upgrading, natural growth will not be there really
remember that many millions of said migrants will not be living in proper accommodation
 
shadowninty said:
you are far from wrong, but demand will be from internal migrants and those who are upgrading, natural growth will not be there really
remember that many millions of said migrants will not be living in proper accommodation
Click to expand...

I'm thinking the population shift would generate natural growth...

Previously they just farmed land. As they move to cities, get jobs, purchase food, furniture and TVs GDP should naturally increase.
 
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