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Beijing is a large city with 16,810 km² area. Building superblocks is a reasonable choice in Beijing. Local government and residents also benefit hugely from th

Beijing is a large city with 16,810 km² area. Building superblocks is a reasonable choice in Beijing. Local government and residents also benefit hugely from the land leases revenue. Transportation is not bad in Beijing, considering that public transit and bike-sharing are even more ubiquitous nowadays.

barry-cotter 7y ago
This does not jibe with my experience in Beijing. I’ve lived in Shanghai for seven years and visited Beijing for maybe two weeks but I’ve spent more time in traffic jams in Beijing. Land leases are a red herring when it comes to superblocks too. There’s no reason why local governments couldn’t make money with smaller, more walkable blocks like you see in Manhattan or in central Paris. You need internal roads within parcels of superblocks to roughly the same extent you need them between smaller blocks. The government could have leased out the same area to the same developers and have had them build smaller blocks. My personal bugbear when it comes to Chinese urban planning is the dearth of green space. Pudong was the countryside 30 years ago and now it’s built up. If you compare it to Singapore the latter comes off incomparably better. The four or eight lane highways in between blocks in Pudong are just awful, car centric, an avoidable mistake.
bobthepanda 7y ago
Land leasing is mostly just an indirect form of tax which distorts government incentives and the economy - Governments are incentivized to promote development above all else, which means that unsavory tactics like unfair compensation of rural farmers is rampant. - At the same time, governments are incentivized to prop up property prices. The housing price to income ratio is a multiple of those even in Western cities, making it unaffordable for most citizens. And the central government cannot deflate a plainly obvious property bubble threatening the economy, because then developers won't make land-lease payments and the local governments will default en masse.
avcdsuia 7y ago
> Beijing is a large city with 16,810 km² area. Building superblocks is a reasonable choice in Beijing This is the cart before the horse. Beijing didn't start out as a large city. It is municipal annexation that makes Beijing a large city, which is fairly common in China, e.g. Beijing and Xiong'an, Guangzhou and Panyu, Nansha.

barry-cotter 7y ago

This does not jibe with my experience in Beijing. I’ve lived in Shanghai for seven years and visited Beijing for maybe two weeks but I’ve spent more time in traffic jams in Beijing. Land leases are a red herring when it comes to superblocks too. There’s no reason why local governments couldn’t make money with smaller, more walkable blocks like you see in Manhattan or in central Paris. You need internal roads within parcels of superblocks to roughly the same extent you need them between smaller blocks. The government could have leased out the same area to the same developers and have had them build smaller blocks. My personal bugbear when it comes to Chinese urban planning is the dearth of green space. Pudong was the countryside 30 years ago and now it’s built up. If you compare it to Singapore the latter comes off incomparably better. The four or eight lane highways in between blocks in Pudong are just awful, car centric, an avoidable mistake.

bobthepanda 7y ago

Land leasing is mostly just an indirect form of tax which distorts government incentives and the economy - Governments are incentivized to promote development above all else, which means that unsavory tactics like unfair compensation of rural farmers is rampant. - At the same time, governments are incentivized to prop up property prices. The housing price to income ratio is a multiple of those even in Western cities, making it unaffordable for most citizens. And the central government cannot deflate a plainly obvious property bubble threatening the economy, because then developers won't make land-lease payments and the local governments will default en masse.

avcdsuia 7y ago

> Beijing is a large city with 16,810 km² area. Building superblocks is a reasonable choice in Beijing This is the cart before the horse. Beijing didn't start out as a large city. It is municipal annexation that makes Beijing a large city, which is fairly common in China, e.g. Beijing and Xiong'an, Guangzhou and Panyu, Nansha.