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I think we will see more ghost towns being built to prop up the GDP

by gsky 3y ago

Steltek 3y ago
I dunno how leaning into their bursting real estate bubble is going to help GDP.
brookst 3y ago
What would the logic be? If it’s just government pouring money into the economy it would work just as well to spend it on space or science or education or whatever. Who benefits from building empty houses as a capital sink?
- mads 3y ago
  The problem here is that you have provincial level leaders with a 7th grade education who are dictated to up their GDP to a certain number. They know that building something will do the trick and at the same time prop up their personal unofficial finances via bribes and whatnot. So it continues...
  - whimsicalism 3y ago
    Most provincial level leaders in China are likely better educated than their Western counterparts due to strict civil service exam and promotion hierarchy of progressively larger municipal management responsibilities
    - Vt71fcAqt7 3y ago
      What is on that exam? Do you have any source for the average education attainment in provincial China?
      - whimsicalism 3y ago
        https://www.ted.com/talks/eric_x_li_a_tale_of_two_political_systems?language=en https://www.ted.com/talks/eric_x_li_a_tale_of_two_political_... This talk is definitely propaganda to a degree, but describes the Chinese administrative promotion system. https://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/clm8_lc.pdf https://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents... This study indicates that 2/3 of provincial leaders hold advanced degrees. I don’t have the comparative one for the US but I am pretty certain this is not the case for governors. No source was requested for the claim that they have 7th grade education, I’ll note.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- gsky 3y ago
  Ghost towns are like roads to nowhere. FYI China has enough houses for all
- dahart 3y ago
  I don’t know about the mansions in the article, but my (limited) understanding is that the intention is to build cities that do get used, not to leave them empty forever, and that part of the reason is to help relieve population pressures on the larger cities like Beijing and Shanghai. They just sometimes build entire cities before anyone moves in, unlike they way cities develop elsewhere, little by little as people move in.
wallaBBB 3y ago
CCP has been doing the opposite for the past year, letting the big construction companies go out of business and not bail them out and letting the housing bubble deflate, with housing becoming more affordable. That is actually the biggest reason for the bad economic numbers (at least available numbers, since the youth unemployment is being "revisited") coming lately from China. IMO don't think people should be worried if magic numbers (GDP) go down because housing is becoming affordable.
- gsky 3y ago
  CCP does whatever it takes to avoid high level unemployment which causes riots. That's why going GDP sounds bad for CCP. Do you really think CCP cares about housing affordability? Either it's a war or roads to nowhere to keep their population busy.
  - whimsicalism 3y ago
    > Do you really think CCP cares about housing affordability? Yes, absolutely so
  - pphysch 3y ago
    Keeping people "busy" (distracted) in 2023 is really easy. Just give them a smartphone and unlimited Internet access. So I'm not sure your theory holds up.
    - gsky 3y ago
      How are they gonna feed their families and what would they do if they can't?
    - OfSanguineFire 3y ago
      I don’t know about that. Social media in the West has encouraged behaviors (greater outness of LGBT, advocacy for minorities, new subcultures like furries) that the CCP feels, at least in the Chinese context, would pose a risk to social stability and harmony. China expends huge effort on keeping its citizens’ internet activity tightly censored and surveilled. Its authorities might even have preferred that the Chinese population did not have smartphones with unlimited internet and were instead kept more atomized, but the cat is already out of the bag and the internet is too important to the economy.
dahart 3y ago
My father came back from a visit to China maybe a decade ago with hundreds of pictures of ghost cities full of empty skyscrapers. Turns out there’s a Wikipedia article about the phenomenon, and it says that they are filling up with people over time and getting used as intended. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Under-occupied_developments_in_China#2018_onwards https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Under-occupied_developments_in... In the US it seems like most builds don’t get started until after it’s acutely needed. Makes sense given the way development investment works here. I know the situation is much more complicated in China than just where the money comes from, but maybe it’s a little bit of a good thing to build housing supply in advance of the demand? It seems like China’s economy supports doing that in a way that the US’s doesn’t.

I think we will see more ghost towns being built to prop up the GDP

by gsky 3y ago

I think we will see more ghost towns being built to prop up the GDP

Steltek 3y ago

I dunno how leaning into their bursting real estate bubble is going to help GDP.

brookst 3y ago

What would the logic be? If it’s just government pouring money into the economy it would work just as well to spend it on space or science or education or whatever. Who benefits from building empty houses as a capital sink?

mads 3y ago
The problem here is that you have provincial level leaders with a 7th grade education who are dictated to up their GDP to a certain number. They know that building something will do the trick and at the same time prop up their personal unofficial finances via bribes and whatnot. So it continues...
- whimsicalism 3y ago
  Most provincial level leaders in China are likely better educated than their Western counterparts due to strict civil service exam and promotion hierarchy of progressively larger municipal management responsibilities
  - Vt71fcAqt7 3y ago
    What is on that exam? Do you have any source for the average education attainment in provincial China?
    - whimsicalism 3y ago
      https://www.ted.com/talks/eric_x_li_a_tale_of_two_political_systems?language=en https://www.ted.com/talks/eric_x_li_a_tale_of_two_political_... This talk is definitely propaganda to a degree, but describes the Chinese administrative promotion system. https://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents/clm8_lc.pdf https://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/uploads/documents... This study indicates that 2/3 of provincial leaders hold advanced degrees. I don’t have the comparative one for the US but I am pretty certain this is not the case for governors. No source was requested for the claim that they have 7th grade education, I’ll note.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
gsky 3y ago
Ghost towns are like roads to nowhere. FYI China has enough houses for all
dahart 3y ago
I don’t know about the mansions in the article, but my (limited) understanding is that the intention is to build cities that do get used, not to leave them empty forever, and that part of the reason is to help relieve population pressures on the larger cities like Beijing and Shanghai. They just sometimes build entire cities before anyone moves in, unlike they way cities develop elsewhere, little by little as people move in.

wallaBBB 3y ago

CCP has been doing the opposite for the past year, letting the big construction companies go out of business and not bail them out and letting the housing bubble deflate, with housing becoming more affordable. That is actually the biggest reason for the bad economic numbers (at least available numbers, since the youth unemployment is being "revisited") coming lately from China. IMO don't think people should be worried if magic numbers (GDP) go down because housing is becoming affordable.

gsky 3y ago
CCP does whatever it takes to avoid high level unemployment which causes riots. That's why going GDP sounds bad for CCP. Do you really think CCP cares about housing affordability? Either it's a war or roads to nowhere to keep their population busy.
- whimsicalism 3y ago
  > Do you really think CCP cares about housing affordability? Yes, absolutely so
- pphysch 3y ago
  Keeping people "busy" (distracted) in 2023 is really easy. Just give them a smartphone and unlimited Internet access. So I'm not sure your theory holds up.
  - gsky 3y ago
    How are they gonna feed their families and what would they do if they can't?
  - OfSanguineFire 3y ago
    I don’t know about that. Social media in the West has encouraged behaviors (greater outness of LGBT, advocacy for minorities, new subcultures like furries) that the CCP feels, at least in the Chinese context, would pose a risk to social stability and harmony. China expends huge effort on keeping its citizens’ internet activity tightly censored and surveilled. Its authorities might even have preferred that the Chinese population did not have smartphones with unlimited internet and were instead kept more atomized, but the cat is already out of the bag and the internet is too important to the economy.

dahart 3y ago

My father came back from a visit to China maybe a decade ago with hundreds of pictures of ghost cities full of empty skyscrapers. Turns out there’s a Wikipedia article about the phenomenon, and it says that they are filling up with people over time and getting used as intended. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Under-occupied_developments_in_China#2018_onwards https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Under-occupied_developments_in... In the US it seems like most builds don’t get started until after it’s acutely needed. Makes sense given the way development investment works here. I know the situation is much more complicated in China than just where the money comes from, but maybe it’s a little bit of a good thing to build housing supply in advance of the demand? It seems like China’s economy supports doing that in a way that the US’s doesn’t.