China's empty cities

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May 14, 2002
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#1
I don't know if this has been posted before.. I did a search but I don't completely trust that though.
this was news to me though.

I was wondering if any of you heard about this before?

China's ghost towns: New satellite pictures show massive skyscraper cities which are STILL completely empty



As sprawling housing developments and skyscrapers in one of the world's most populous countries, these tower blocks and recently-built neighbourhoods should be busy and swarming with people.

But on closer inspection these stunning pictures show elaborate public buildings and open spaces which are left completely empty.

The most recent pictures of unused housing emerged as China announced plans to build 20 cities a year for the next 20 years.


Soulless cities: Despite being unable to find buyers for the hundreds of millions of new homes, China plans to build 20 cities a year for the next 20 years


Property to let: Rows of neat, newly-built houses like these in Jiangsu are becoming more common in China


Desolate: These skyscraper in Chenggong, where there are already 100,00 new homes, should be bustling with life but are instead empty


And despite pictures last year showing some of the reported 64 million empty homes, Chinese authorities have since erected masses more buildings.

Gillem Tulloch, an aanlyst for Forensic Asia Limited, described one of the areas in Chenggong, as a 'forest of skyscrapers'.

When asked what has happened in the past six months since the ghost cities were built, he said: 'China built more of them.

'China consumes more steel, iron ore and cement per capita than any industrial nation in history.


Unused: Another vacant development in Jiangsu contains well over 100 new properties


Plenty of room spare: Experts have said some of the developments are like a 'forest of skyscrapers'

'It's all going to railways that will never make money, roads that no one drives on and cities that no one lives in.

'It's like walking into a forest of skyscrapers, but they're all empty.'

Chinese government think tank have warned that the country's real estate bubble is getting worse, with property prices in major cities overvalued by as much as 70 per cent.

Tulloch said that apartments in Chenggong, a fishing village near Hong Kong, were selling for up to $80,000.


Many of the developments like this one in Ordos, China, have swathes of newly-created public space completely unused by anyone


Zhengzhou New District residential towers: Soaring property prices in China and high levels of investment has fuelled the construction of up several new cities. Experts fear a subsequent property crash could damage the global economy


Property bubble: Zhengzhou New District features vast public buildings that have never been used

He added: 'People there were joking that no one in Denaya could afford to live there. If these apartments sell at all, it is to speculators.'

Of the 35 major cities surveyed last year, property prices in eleven including Beijing and Shanghai were between 30 and 50 per cent above their market value, the China Daily said, citing the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Prices in Fuzhou, capital of the southeastern province of Fujian, had the worst property bubble with average house prices more than 70 per cent higher than their market value, according to the survey conducted in September.

The average price in the 35 cities surveyed was nearly 30 per cent above the market value, the report said.


[video=youtube_share;rPILhiTJv7E]http://youtu.be/rPILhiTJv7E[/video]

[video=youtube_share;0h7V3Twb-Qk]http://youtu.be/0h7V3Twb-Qk[/video]
 
Mar 8, 2006
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www.thephylumonline.com
#2
I know I've seen housing "purges" (my adjective) on youtube where they were blasting audio over densely populated areas basically saying, "If you don't find a new house soon, we aren't going to pay your heating or electricity bill...you will freeze and possibly be punished...btw, it's a great time to buy property in ______________." It's a man reading the statement, followed by a woman reading the same statement verbatim, then repeated about 10 times.

Perhaps they are just way over prepared for future growth, development, and/or urbanization? If they can manage the property without it getting in a state of disrepair, it could be a great hedge against a whole host of possible calamities, economic or otherwise. Definitely weird though.
 

Mike Manson

Still Livin'
Apr 16, 2005
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#4
It's crazy. In the city I live in the average price per square meter is US$ 3,500!!! Now it is changing. People stopped buying houses, because of the prices and new laws that you can only buy up to two houses/apartments. The bubble is different in China, because people have to pay 30 - 50% up front when buying a house.

Another thing is, that there are not many possibilities of investing your money. So people just kept buying real estate. Most of the rich people have several houses and a selection of luxury cars (which cost here 2-3 times as much as in western countries). And many of them just leave their houses empty.

I know many people who bought some apartments 5-10 years ago and went from poor to rich.

My neighbor who exports shotguns, scopes, etc. to the US, just build an apartment/offices/shopping district with his pocket money and has so far only sold three apartments. He told me that the banks do not help the people to finance these apartments like they used to anymore.
 

Mike Manson

Still Livin'
Apr 16, 2005
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#10
Posted this on a Chinese Website and an English guy said it's old. He bought an apartment in one of those places shown in the pics about 5 years ago. Now it's filling up...
 
May 14, 2002
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#11
Some articles where quitte old yes. But some of them were from 2011.

That's why I wasn't sure if anyone knew about this already.

They are filling up now... means what? Most of it is filled up, they just starting to fill now?
Will they ever completely fill it up? Are they still continue to build empty buildings?

I don't know.. seems all pretty fucking crazy to me, though..
 

Mike Manson

Still Livin'
Apr 16, 2005
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#13
We are witnessing the biggest migration in human history. This might not happen ever again. The urbanisation of china - the rush from the country side to the cities.

About 50% of china's population is still in the country side, and many more still want to rush to the cities. 1-2% of the population per year is roughly 13-26 million people per year. more people than the population of most countries. Where are all these people going to live?

On top of that, many of the older cities need their CBD to be transformed. Old 1-6 storey buildings need to be destroyed, the 1-2 lane streets widened, and all those people need to be moved to the newer districts with those tall apartments you see in the pictures.

But china being china, they take 5-10 years to fill up as decorating (zhuan xiu) a place can take 1-3 years. then people slowly moving in. plus, even if your unit is ready, it doesn't mean everyone wants to move in yet if all your neighbours are still drilling 8am in the morning. Sometimes these places have been sold already to property speculators because leaving your money in the bank doesnt give you much interest.

In the end, sure, there are just some unsold properties sitting around, being failures. But once you take out and account for all the scenarios I mentioned above, then there probably aren't that many "by chinese standards".
 
May 14, 2002
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#14
"by Chinese standards" so it will take an extra ten years on top of how long it would usually take for an unusual project like this.

And what I'm wondering is how could these people from the country side possibly ever pay for a new apartment like these in the cities?

And how did this start out? As a capitalist investment in real estate, there wasn't any real estate left and they started building new projects, luring in new residents as they already started building.

Or they started building because the demand for new houses was so big, they started building new cities from scratch?
 

Mike Manson

Still Livin'
Apr 16, 2005
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#15
Well, it's difficult to generalize. Normally, in order to get married, you have to buy a house. So the family of the husband normally helps to finance it, because in many cases they will also live with their son.

Most people moved to the big cities from other provinces. Their IDs cannot be changed to the city they live and work in, till they buy a house there. Without the local ID the children are also not allowed to go to the public kindergarten or school.

So people either buy a house in their hometown and have their parents live there with their kids, while they are in another province for work, or they buy a house where they live and work in order to get the local ID.

Either way, you have to buy a house. The banks helped the people to finance their houses but it got stricter and stricter in recent years due to speculators etc.!