Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

China's ghost towns: Satellite pictures show empty skyscraper cities
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2005231/Chinas-ghost-towns-New-satellite-pictures-massive-skyscraper-cities-STILL-completely-empty.html#ixzz1PfaQpP7e ^ | 6/18/11

Posted on 06/18/2011 3:51:49 PM PDT by SanFranDan

FULL TITLE: 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.

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.

'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.

(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: china; chinaghosttowns; collapse; default; globalism; propaganda
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 121-128 next last
To: Red_Devil 232

Note my post above.


41 posted on 06/18/2011 5:11:25 PM PDT by Quix (Times are a changin' INSURE you have believed in your heart & confessed Jesus as Lord Come NtheFlesh)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 32 | View Replies]

To: OldNewYork

National Socialism == patriotic fascism == crony capitalism


42 posted on 06/18/2011 5:15:46 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man (I'd like to tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 34 | View Replies]

To: OldNewYork
Sudden recovery or not, what China is doing is still centralized planning and will fail for the million other reasons that lead to the failure of centralized plans.

Any situation the Chinese might encounter in the future, they will be better served by contemporaneous builders investing their own money in projects suited for what those future occupants might need, than by trying to populate dusty old dilapidated buildings planned by eggheads in Beijing years before.

43 posted on 06/18/2011 5:17:37 PM PDT by mwilli20 (BO. Making communists proud all over the world.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: SanFranDan

And now they want to build a new city in Idaho?


44 posted on 06/18/2011 5:18:51 PM PDT by Let's Roll (Save the world's best healthcare - REPEAL, DEFUND Obamacare!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: mwilli20

China’s system will not fail until we stop propping it up with “free trade”.

Let’s stop.


45 posted on 06/18/2011 5:19:48 PM PDT by Cringing Negativism Network (BUY AMERICAN. The job you save will be your son's, or your daughter's)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 43 | View Replies]

To: Secret Agent Man

“National Socialism == patriotic fascism == crony capitalism”

National Socialism == Patriotic Fascism =/= Crony Capitalism

... unless your understanding of crony capitalism is different than mine. I see it as the abuse of the free market system with nepotism, bribery, and subversion of the system, whereas the other two ARE the system. I’d agree that the results for people in those three systems would be about the same though.


46 posted on 06/18/2011 5:20:10 PM PDT by OldNewYork
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 42 | View Replies]

To: mwilli20; King_Corey

I’d agree with your assessment. The video King_Corey presented above in post no. 26 is instructive and states what you’re saying well. It’s worth a look.

Here’s the direct link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPILhiTJv7E


47 posted on 06/18/2011 5:23:48 PM PDT by OldNewYork
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 43 | View Replies]

To: OldNewYork

Yours is a distinction without a difference. The end results are pretty much the same.


48 posted on 06/18/2011 5:26:07 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man (I'd like to tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 46 | View Replies]

To: Secret Agent Man

“The end results are pretty much the same.”

Did I not make that clear in my response?

“Yours is a distinction without a difference.”

The difference in the distinction that I made is that crony capitalism can be fixed by bringing it back to heel, by enforcing the laws that keep the free market system free and fair. Since the other two are the system in place; those systems have to be replaced by another system in order to remedy their problems. It’s a big difference, a big distinction, as big as a world war or revolution.


49 posted on 06/18/2011 5:31:40 PM PDT by OldNewYork
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 48 | View Replies]

To: Quix

Normally I read your posts with a tinge of skepticism, but that one is intriguing. Given the often impenetrable Chinese way of thinking I may be inclined to label this one “plausible.”


50 posted on 06/18/2011 5:35:01 PM PDT by Pan_Yan
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 38 | View Replies]

To: SanFranDan
I work in commercial real estate, and we had a consultant who traveled in China tell us about this back in 2006.

He said they were building lots of commercial office space in cities, to make things look more impressive when they host the Olympics.

But most of the buildings were "see through" space, which is a real estate term for vacant space that has never been used - no walls, nothing - you can see all the way through it.

He also said the buildings looked good on the outside, but inside they were poorly designed - badly placed elevators, halls, and other problems that made the buildings less than ideal or functional - not that it mattered because they were mostly empty anyway.

51 posted on 06/18/2011 5:43:02 PM PDT by Mannaggia l'America
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SanFranDan
all built on spec...
52 posted on 06/18/2011 5:45:14 PM PDT by Chode (American Hedonist - *DTOM* -ww- NO Pity for the LAZY)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Quix

The United States is being set up for the greatest military and economic “hit” in history.


53 posted on 06/18/2011 5:56:07 PM PDT by unkus
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 38 | View Replies]

To: OldNewYork

China lacks the population and jobs to fill the apartments and commercial buildings they are construction. It is a real estate and infrastructure bubble that will end badly.


54 posted on 06/18/2011 6:03:43 PM PDT by Rockingham
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: Rockingham

That seems to be the consensus, but you should watch the video linked above. They have the population, for instance. It does look likely to be a bubble which will end badly for many Chinese, but we’ll see.


55 posted on 06/18/2011 6:09:00 PM PDT by OldNewYork
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 54 | View Replies]

To: SanFranDan

The Chinese leaders fulfilling Agenda 21. This morning I saw an item on the Chinese and Russian presidents demanding a new world order through the U.N.


56 posted on 06/18/2011 6:42:58 PM PDT by ViLaLuz (2 Chronicles 7:14)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Larry Lucido

True enough. If the central govt. in China wiggles its little finger and says— “every couple should now have 4 children” the empty spaces will be filled. Question is, can they feed them, much less house them.

Such are the numbers of chinese extant now of childbearing age, even in the no children era. Scary. But the point about overbuilt and their economic bubble also being burst is striking.


57 posted on 06/18/2011 6:44:00 PM PDT by John S Mosby (Sic Semper Tyrannis)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: SanFranDan

Nobody can afford to rent or buy and the investors are about to get killed with devaluation.


58 posted on 06/18/2011 6:54:44 PM PDT by Razzz42
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SanFranDan

We saw the “China collapse,” “ghost city” news several years ago, and we all know that China’s been living in the Stone Age all along instead of increasing manufacturing and trading its products to other countries for natural resources (e.g., oil). Prepare. Have fun. Enjoy the slide.


59 posted on 06/18/2011 6:59:28 PM PDT by familyop ("Don't worry, they'll row for a month before they figure out I'm fakin' it." --Deacon, "Waterworld")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: KoRn

Funny, until you think about the current socialist in the WH, who wants to drive a “command and control” market by keynesian stimulus and govt. projects and who refers to marxist “full employment” vs labor lost to machinery and efficiency (his idiotic ATM comments)in his mindset.

The chinese can have “full employment” too— by command. Everybody is working, for next to nothing, and on projects that drive up their GDP in their “books” to look good on paper. These are Potemkin villages, where there is nothing there.
Your point is well taken— we had REAL growth and real demand for US made goods= quality goods. So, who shipped the manufacturing overseas in the name of “globalization”. The ones who did this have no sovereign loyalty- no national identity, devoid of character but in love with power. That IS scary.


60 posted on 06/18/2011 7:03:53 PM PDT by John S Mosby (Sic Semper Tyrannis)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 121-128 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson