China's Ghost Cities - Updated 09/10/22 Now tearing down ghost towns to "stimulate economy"

[FelixDeCat]

Basically the purpose of ghost cities was to have property that could be traded. They were never really intended to be occupied. They have no electricity and no water. They are just property shells to be bought and sold for speculation.

Seems like a huge waste, and now that they are falling into serious disrepair they are becoming eyesores.

The biggest problem with these ghost cities is that people and developers have taken on trillions in debt for them, and the near collapse of Evergrande shows why China cannot allow any of them to fail.

UPDATE 09/10/2022:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/china-tears-down-tower-blocks-122948254.html

China is tearing down tower blocks and pausing construction on buildings that could house 75m people as Xi Jinping’s government seeks to prop up the country’s stalling property market.

Analysts have warned Beijing has adopted a “build, pause, demolish, repeat” strategy as Chinese officials seek to restrict supply to avoid a plunge in house prices and boost economic activity through more construction.

Researchers at Fathom Consulting revealed that around 3bn square metres of housing has been put on pause or demolished in recent years, stopping properties reaching the market. It is enough to house 75m people, more than the entire population of the UK.

Indebted Chinese developers have been plunged into crisis as the struggling property market weighs heavily on the world’s second-largest economy. China has vast unoccupied “ghost cities” after huge amounts of debt-fuelled development while demolitions have increased as builders run out of money.

China is now tearing down the property shells just to rebuild them again to stimulate the economy.

Im thinking that is going to take a serious toll on resources and add to environmental damage. Total waste.

 

[Torn Mind]

What I learned when I was an economics major was that the reason was simple:

Increasing GDP

GDP's definition includes government spending. China....being in complete control of the purse...can choose however they please to spend government money.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Kinda like HOAs in the states I guess, except people "live" there, but are not really allowed to do much or fully live their lives because any signs of actual living like hobbies being performed decreases the value and nobody wants that!

Considering how packed china is, it seems crazy to waste so much land space for empty cities though. But China will do China things lol. You will live in your pod, own nothing and be happy.

 

[MrSquished]

Kinda like HOAs in the states I guess, except people "live" there, but are not really allowed to do much or fully live their lives because any signs of actual living like hobbies being performed decreases the value and nobody wants that!

Considering how packed china is, it seems crazy to waste so much land space for empty cities though. But China will do China things lol. You will live in your pod, own nothing and be happy.

WTF?

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Seem like a fun "Decrepit Beauty" tourist destination in a dozen years or so.

Love visiting abandoned places in various states of decay. Something haunting about a thing deemed useless and no longer permitted to fulfill it's purpose.

 

[Exterous]

Seem like a fun "Decrepit Beauty" tourist destination in a dozen years or so.

Love visiting abandoned places in various states of decay. Something haunting about a thing deemed useless and no longer permitted to fulfill it's purpose.

Several years back I was in downtown Des Moines over a holiday and man does that place turn into a ghost town. Left the hotel and spent a couple hours wandering their skywalks from building to building and saw literally no one - even at the 3 story food court. Nothing was decayed but I loved wandering around in that temporarily abandoned area. I've still got the pictures around here somewhere

 

[lxskllr]

Seem like a fun "Decrepit Beauty" tourist destination in a dozen years or so.

Love visiting abandoned places in various states of decay. Something haunting about a thing deemed useless and no longer permitted to fulfill it's purpose.

Yea, but it's much more interesting when the infrastructure served a real purpose before being abandoned. New construction that was never used doesn't have any ghosts.

 

[NuclearNed]

paging the Proper People

 

[herm0016]

check out forest city near Singapore as well.

 

[Torn Mind]

Kinda like HOAs in the states I guess, except people "live" there, but are not really allowed to do much or fully live their lives because any signs of actual living like hobbies being performed decreases the value and nobody wants that!

Considering how packed china is, it seems crazy to waste so much land space for empty cities though. But China will do China things lol. You will live in your pod, own nothing and be happy.

HOAs are a way to implement a mostly liability-free way for a "corporation" to basically run things without checks like a public government has. If there is a new development on a new lot or a razed old lot(former shopping center, former bunch of SFHs), an HOA is coming. Should an HOA cross lines, the main usual way to fight back is a lawsuit or similar process. Thus, there is a systemic hidden costs for the residents to actually battle against rights violations, one that enriches lawyers. What HOAs count on is precisely most residents thinking in terms of costs and benefits and not filing suit. Thus, there is a sort of "hidden tax" in HOA properties. The war chest of time and money for "doing battle in law"

This is not like an HOA. It's basically government chasing a macroscopic number at all costs, that being GDP and its related GDP growth. Because outsiders make decisions based on their GDP.
The lesson is that there are rules and features in the economic system that CANNOT be washed away by mere ideals, the passion of revolution, or the established of a secular morality police picking an arbtriary "devils" like music from the West like Anne Murray and Don Mclean.

The reason the people still buy them up like a real estate version of bitcoin is that many Chinese are willing to try to make a buck.

 

[nakedfrog]

WTF?

I know, it's fascinating to see such ignorance proudly on display, right?

 

[Captante]

While I'm certain SOMEBODY got rich building these "Ghost Cities" this is one of the stupider things I've ever read about being done intentionally by any Government .... and THAT is saying something!

 

[pete6032]

ITT: people who don't know what a Homeowners Association is or does.

 

[Torn Mind]

The Only Five Paths China’s Economy Can Follow

carnegieendowment.org

 

[FelixDeCat]

ITT: people who don't know what a Homeowners Association is or does.

HOAs have nothing to do with empty shell cities and buildings with NO electricity, NO water, not even four walls and certainly NO occupants.

These "apartments", in the middle of nowhere, are just trading cards.

Thats all they are.

Nothing more, nothing less.

 

[FelixDeCat]

While I'm certain SOMEBODY got rich building these "Ghost Cities" this is one of the stupider things I've ever read about being done intentionally by any Government .... and THAT is saying something!

Considering that homeless people are making up a bigger percentage of the population more than ever now, it would be nice if they could be sent to occupy those cities.

Unfortunately, occupying any apartment, much less a ghost apartment, is considered to devalue said property in China.

Now that is cuckoo!

 

[FelixDeCat]

The Only Five Paths China’s Economy Can Follow

carnegieendowment.org

As explained in the video, the control freaks in Chinese government only allow its citizens to invest in certain assets. They are not allowed to do as they please as most of the world is allowed to. For example, crypto trading is banned and the government frequently intervenes in the stock market (see DIDI) on a whim to keep traders scared at all times.

However Real Estate is seen as the "sacred cow" and is protected and propped up by the government. And when you have a billion people with nothing to invest in because existing RE is occupied and out of reach, you build GHOST CITIES so the average person can finally trade real estate.

 

[FelixDeCat]

check out forest city near Singapore as well.

+1 Social Credit Score for telling me about this!

I had no idea it even existed:

 

[Red Squirrel]

What I don't get is if you're not allowed to live there how does it have any value? I guess it's really just treated like stocks or crypto, where on it's own it has no value, it only has value because it is set by the market. Just seems so odd to me that this system even works. I want land because of the utility value of it not because of some speculative thing. In fact I see cheap land in low population area as being much more valuable to me than expensive land in a high populated area. But guess the speculators don't see it that way.

I would never want to buy a $800,000 500 sqft lot in the middle of Toronto surrounded by buildings and traffic when I can buy a $40,000 acreage in the middle of nowhere where I can do what I want on it and it's not in a crowded city. That acreage has way more value.

 

[MrSquished]

What I don't get is if you're not allowed to live there how does it have any value? I guess it's really just treated like stocks or crypto, where on it's own it has no value, it only has value because it is set by the market. Just seems so odd to me that this system even works. I want land because of the utility value of it not because of some speculative thing. In fact I see cheap land in low population area as being much more valuable to me than expensive land in a high populated area. But guess the speculators don't see it that way.

I would never want to buy a $800,000 500 sqft lot in the middle of Toronto surrounded by buildings and traffic when I can buy a $40,000 acreage in the middle of nowhere where I can do what I want on it and it's not in a crowded city. That acreage has way more value.

Incorrect. The acreage has way more value TO YOU, but dollar wise, it's worth far less than that condo in Toronto, I mean that is not possible to argue. Many people want to enjoy the amenities of a city, and to them, your acreage has zero value because they don't want to live in isolation, and that place in Toronto does have that value to them because they get to enjoy life the way they enjoy it.

To each their own.

 

[Greenman]

What I don't get is if you're not allowed to live there how does it have any value? I guess it's really just treated like stocks or crypto, where on it's own it has no value, it only has value because it is set by the market. Just seems so odd to me that this system even works. I want land because of the utility value of it not because of some speculative thing. In fact I see cheap land in low population area as being much more valuable to me than expensive land in a high populated area. But guess the speculators don't see it that way.

I would never want to buy a $800,000 500 sqft lot in the middle of Toronto surrounded by buildings and traffic when I can buy a $40,000 acreage in the middle of nowhere where I can do what I want on it and it's not in a crowded city. That acreage has way more value.

Value is an elusive term. Value is often established by the belief that it exists, not the reality.

 

[Torn Mind]

As explained in the video, the control freaks in Chinese government only allow its citizens to invest in certain assets. They are not allowed to do as they please as most of the world is allowed to. For example, crypto trading is banned and the government frequently intervenes in the stock market (see DIDI) on a whim to keep traders scared at all times.

However Real Estate is seen as the "sacred cow" and is protected and propped up by the government. And when you have a billion people with nothing to invest in because existing RE is occupied and out of reach, you build GHOST CITIES so the average person can finally trade real estate.

Again, it's not that government wants to throw the people a bone of concrete Bitcoin. It's that the government wants to look good GDP-wise for whoever cares, like economists and other countries. Then in order to sustain this de facto scheme, they then block out investing the money into elsewhere. It's kinda like a Ponzi scheme or bubble. In which the intermediate title-holders can profit but if you wind up being the last person holding the bag, you're fucked.

It's an example of how chasing a measure's results alone can results in a disconnect between the measure and the what the measure was intended to measure. GDP is meant to measure "activity" Production of goods and services. Technically, building properties is production. So is making tools for Harbor Freight. But if the shit's useless, the the consumer does not obtain utility from the good but the "seller" gets the dough.

Mongolia is a shithole backwater far less useful than say, the American South, Midwest, or the tundrastan Squirrel bought his property in. .

 

[MrSquished]

Value is an elusive term. Value is often established by the belief that it exists, not the reality.

Huh? The value of condos or homes in desirable parts of cities is not reality? Nothing about your statement exists in reality. Holy smokes batman. We are talking about real estate, not crypto.

 

[zinfamous]

Kinda like HOAs in the states I guess, except people "live" there, but are not really allowed to do much or fully live their lives because any signs of actual living like hobbies being performed decreases the value and nobody wants that!

Considering how packed china is, it seems crazy to waste so much land space for empty cities though. But China will do China things lol. You will live in your pod, own nothing and be happy.

Is there anything about the US that you actually do know? Because everything you relate about this country is complete horseshit. Then again, you've never left your fucking hovel up there in the meth-ridden snow bank called Timmens, so it's not surprising that you don't know shit about anything outside of your tiny sphere of influence.

 

[Torn Mind]

Kinda like HOAs in the states I guess, except people "live" there, but are not really allowed to do much or fully live their lives because any signs of actual living like hobbies being performed decreases the value and nobody wants that!

Considering how packed china is, it seems crazy to waste so much land space for empty cities though. But China will do China things lol. You will live in your pod, own nothing and be happy.

I'd live in Nashville, L.A, NYC.

Not too hard to guess why. My tendencies are obvious these days.