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Whenever western media tries and portray China as being ridiculous I'm reminded of the 80s or 90s magazine article showing empty highways being built around Bei
by yardie 8y ago
Whenever western media tries and portray China as being ridiculous I'm reminded of the 80s or 90s magazine article showing empty highways being built around Beijing when 99% of the population didn't drive a car.
I'm way less worried about brand new empty cities. They fill up eventually. I'd be worried more about people abandoning populated cities. A problem the US is facing now.
- duxup 8y ago>They fill up eventually. Isn't that the pattern for most real estate speculation problems?
- itake 8y agoWhat cities are being abandoned in the US?
- okmokmz 8y agoDetroit comes to mind
- entropicdrifter 8y agoPeople are steadily flocking from smaller cities to major cities all over the country
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- britch 8y agoSmall/mid size cities in the midwest like Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Detroit, and Chicago (though to a lesser extent). Other "cities" are growing in the sun-belt. It's complicated because many of the up-and-coming cities are being built with cars in mind and are not very dense. They are "cities" but they are not urban.
- adventured 8y agoSaying those cities are being abandoned, is more than a stretch. Cincinnati's population has expanded since 2010. Pittsburgh and Cleveland have both had stable population numbers the last decade. The declines have been very small over that time. As with Cincinnati they did suffer drops for a couple of decades in the past. They're not being abandoned. Detroit is losing 0.004% per year at this point. There's a reasonable chance the worst is over for Detroit. Chicago is not being abandoned at all, that's particularly incorrect. Their population has been stable for 30 years, it has seen a small 70k decline (less than 3% decline over three decades doesn't get you in the lesser extent abandoned category at all).
- britch 8y agoI take your point, abandoned is too far. As I understand it: it's a bad sign if a city is not growing. If a city's population is steady, but the countries population is increasing that means people are leaving the city. It at least indicates a lack of growth which can be a marker of a weak economy. Abandoned is too far, but I think it's true that many of these cities are in some form of decline from their historical peak.
- aglavine 8y ago"it's a bad sign if a city is not growing" is something taken as true by many people, but I think it is absolutely arbitrary. Maybe the opposite is true for some cities. Other metrics as land value (San Francisco is the obvious example) and media income must be taken into account. I guess there are people out there that thinks that cities have a healthy population limit and growing beyond that can harm environment around.
- yalogin 8y agoThe keyword here is "eventually". It all depends on what that time window is. If its a couple of years or so its fine, else businesses and developers have to remain solvent till then and that could have repercussions through the economy on a large scale. That is the only concern.