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This really worries me as an American. We're losing the entire culture of hands on production. Fry's and Maker Faire is great, but it's a drop in the bucket c

This really worries me as an American. We're losing the entire culture of hands on production. Fry's and Maker Faire is great, but it's a drop in the bucket compared to this sort of thriving community. I think the US needs its own Free Trade Zone. Let's put it on the US / Mexico border, allow anyone to take up work there. Promise 0% taxes for a decade and put up no trade barriers at all. Maybe that would bring some of this production back home.

rtpg 14y ago
In all fairness this place is one district of one city in China. If you go to Akihabara in Tokyo you get somewhat the same thing : small stalls that sell exactly one type of product. You find your people who sell lightbulbs, or a guy who sells only capacitors. But my point is that while that district has a bunch of that stuff, you really don't find that anywhere else (at least not in Tokyo). This is probably a similar deal.
- tellarin 14y ago
  I think you're missing the scale of this here. Being to both I can tell you that Akihabara might have specialized shops, but nothing to the level of Huaqiangbei. Neither in terms of component diversity nor in the number of shops around. And the article also mentions the direct access to actual people from the companies/factories. This alone is what makes it absolutely unique, in my view.
  - rtpg 14y ago
    The scale is definitely different, but my main point is that its very likely a local phenomenon. People might read this and assume stuff like this is everywhere in China. Although it might be like that.
    - JDShu 14y ago
      I think you are right. Shenzhen is located in one of the wealthiest provinces in china, is less than an hour's train ride from Hong Kong, and is designated a special economic zone. That probably gives it several advantages over other Chinese cities.
    - tellarin 14y ago
      I agree that it's not everywhere in China that's like that. At least in Beijing and Shanghai you can find malls full of electronic shops. But nowhere near that scale anyway. Also, there doesn't seem to be much of a maker scene here anyway from what I can see. Just a few spread individuals.
- mattgrice 14y ago
  Maybe Akihabara was once like this but it is not anymore. The shops there are clearly boutiques selling to hobbyists, filled with things like expensive vintage vacuum tubes for esoteric audio projects and not the sort of things you would want if you actually wanted to manufacture something.
- jheitzeb 14y ago
  I've lived in Tokyo and I am the author of this article. I have to say that the scale is completely incomparable here. Not only this, there are over 100 cities in China with a population of over 1m. There are 9 in the USA.
  - akiba 14y ago
    Oh, you live in Tokyo? We should meet up sometime. I'm a big fan of both akihabara and shenzhen. Both have pluses and minuses.
  - samstave 14y ago
    Do you have more pictures? Also pricing info? The thing I found lacking when I read this article was where you said "...for a fraction of the price." Can you give me some understandable examples of what you could purchase for what prices?
- damon_c 14y ago
  We used to have an area like Akihabara in NYC, from the 1920s until the '60s. It was called "Radio Row". It was displaced by eminent domain to build the World Trade center. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Row http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Row
jbooth 14y ago
All that'll happen then is a lot of corporate headquarters move there from delaware.
- w1ntermute 14y ago
  Well, things are getting a little crowded at 1209 North Orange.
  - gcb0 14y ago
    had to search that. http://franhendy.com/2012/07/03/my-address-is-1209-north-orange-street-delaware-usa/ http://franhendy.com/2012/07/03/my-address-is-1209-north-ora... "Google, Apple, Coco-Cola, Bank of America, Ford, General Electric, JP Morgan Chase, Wal-Mart, American Airlines and at least 285,000 others will tell you that this is their legal address."
rayiner 14y ago
Or we need to make China play fair. Implement similar environmental regulations, worker safety regulations, etc.
- yen223 14y ago
  The good news is that China is starting to make headway in that respect. They now have tighter environmental laws, better working hours, and better hourly wages. The bad news is that companies are now looking towards exploiting other countries like Bangladesh or Vietnam.
  - wisty 14y ago
    The good news is, Bangladesh or Vietnam will now start to get rich enough for basic health and education. The other good news is, that shouldn't result in a lot of US jobs being lost, as the consumer market is now bigger (with Chinese consumers starting to add to demand) and the supply of cheap labor won't increase by 300 million in 10 years (like it did when China opened up).
    - pavs 14y ago
      I am in bangladesh and I am often sad to see people bring bangladesh garments industry as a example of exploiting poor people. While I am sure there are some exploitation going on, bangladesh is much much better off with the existence of the garments sector and poorly paid workers, considering the alternative. Bangladesh garments sectors amount to 80% of their export business. It employs mostly poor village women who was house wife before, or house maids or beggars or seasonal work; all of which paid even less money than the garments industry does. Which is why, there are less people available for house maids, or seasonal farming work. Garments workers who goes on strike for higher wage are the minority, because they somehow figured out the game that if they make enough noise and if the media picks it up the garments owner will be forced to raise the wage; even when they are well above the minimum wage for garments set up the government. Seriously no one is forcing anyone to work at lower wage. - There is a minimum wage set for garments workers, which might not be up to western standard, but people in bangladesh do quite good with it. - There is no lack of garments work available in BD, if they don't like the wage or the working condition they can always go work somewhere else. - While there exists poor working environments in the some garments, overwhelming most of them (from my personal experience) has pretty good standards with safe environment.
unoti 14y ago
Great idea! Do we get to pollute the local ecology and go totally-hands off to let the businesses exploit the workers, too? Maybe a little child labor here and there? I'm envisioning the 21st century version of The Jungle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungle. Actually in all seriousness, that could make a seriously cool sci fi/social commentary movie. Read that wikipedia article, and picture it in 2015 right on the Mexican border of the US. I realize that there is great merit in your idea. But at the same time, there are some ugly realities to consider. The good old days of the US was built on the backs of some very ugly, pretty much unrestricted capitalism complete with destroying the environment, exploiting the heck out of workers, child labor, you name it. Your point still has merit, and I'm worried about the future of the West as well.
- sespindola 14y ago
  Regretably, unless some sort of worldwide ethical commerce treaty is established in the near future, a "foxconnified" workforce will be a basic requirement in order to mass produce anything, anwywhere in the world.
  - krasin 14y ago
    I still have a hope for robots. They are behind the sci-fi schedule, but still cheaper&easier to program every year.
    - logicallee 14y ago
      I love the sense of entitlement here. "We should have lifechanging robots by now, but even though they're late I still have hope."
      - GFischer 14y ago
        I didn't see any entitlement in the grandparent post, only an expression of hope :) We ARE seeing lifechanging robots (example: Google self driving cars, there are less visible ones, but even my hospital here in Uruguay has one for surgeries). In my visit to BMW's factories, I was amazed by their robots. They just haven't reached the masses yet, there isn't a Microsoft of robots ("one robot in every house"). Note: Microsoft's original vision "a computer on every desk and in every home, running Microsoft software"
hemancuso 14y ago
I'm glad we have so many centers of intellectual production making software rather than grinding out security cameras and assembling things designed elsewhere. That being said, I do appreciate the value in production and Apple points out to me every day the value of merging hardware and software, but by in large I'm glad America still excels on the on the highest end of the foodchain.
- jonmrodriguez 14y ago
  Why do you think software is the "highest end of the foodchain"? Is finance even higher in your mind? What makes you think that most hardware made in China is designed elsewhere? To the best of my knowledge, the HUGE Chinese smartphone/tablet market is based on chips, boards, and software all designed there.
  - yen223 14y ago
    To the best of my knowledge, China doesn't do much design work locally. Most factories simply build whatever is on the blueprint which they receive from the West.
    - sunnybythesea 14y ago
      That used to be Japan | Korea | Taiwan...and look now
    - Volpe 14y ago
      > To the best of my knowledge I think you you need to improve your knowledge then. Or provide a citation.
      - yen223 14y ago
        I've got a sample size of one. I work in a factory, and almost all our designs (including tooling and processes) come from the head office in America.
chrismealy 14y ago
China got to where it is in tech with the very opposite of free trade. It's industrial policy that gets you to this level, not free trade.
- joonix 14y ago
  Yes. Just try importing your product into the Chinese market. Or getting your Chinese money out of the country without Hong Kong's help.
- vidarh 14y ago
  Just like most other countries then. Consider that "Made in ..." started with the British passing a law to protect domestic industry from cheap manufacturing in Germany. Except it backfired badly when German industry realised that "Made in Germany" quickly became a mark of quality. Or that developing countries are still being penalised heavily by trade barriers making entry into markets in the developed world incredibly hard in many sectors (especially agriculture, where the west is shovelling cash into their domestic agriculture via subsidies)
jetti 14y ago
"I think the US needs its own Free Trade Zone. Let's put it on the US / Mexico border, allow anyone to take up work there. Promise 0% taxes for a decade and put up no trade barriers at all. Maybe that would bring some of this production back home" Unlikely, what would likely happen is that foreign products that can be produced cheaper and normally sold cheaper with tariffs would flourish. Although I'm all for this so I would easily be able to get a Volkswagen pickup!
anklos 14y ago
Might sound harsh, but this kind of suggestion is no use at all. US was great and we know it is not that great any more at many aspects of view. US will fade out and other emerging countries will rock. This is HISTORY, any suggestion cannot stop the process of HISTORY.
- yardie 14y ago
  Ignore the shitty political situation in Washington and realize the US has the largest freshwater supply, the largest amount of arable land, and the US is sitting on billions of gallons of oil and rare earth metals. The US is not going anywhere for a very, very long time.
  - mikhailfranco 14y ago
    Freshwater is not abundant in USA. Southern California has to import water from Sierras and as far north as Oregon. Colorado River does not reach the sea. Rio Grande does not reach the sea. Plains states have negative water balance and agriculture only survives by depleting the Ogallala Aquifer. Everything west of the Mississippi-Missouri and south of the Columbia and Platte rivers is at or beyond long term sustainable water consumption. Just add some global warming and see what happens. Read 'Cadillac Desert'. Now if you said Canada has the largest freshwater supply, I might have agreed.
    - yardie 14y ago
      Go to the grocery store and buy a gallon of water. Imagine that water is what you have to drink, clean yourself, wash your clothes and dishes with. So yes, compared to most of the planet we have it in abundance. Now the problem we do have is a water management problem. Most of the fresh water is used for agricultural and industrial purposes. We use a lot of water for dumb reasons and then dump it into the ocean.
stargape 14y ago
But still, the stuff that people are making here looks like the stuff of late night infomercials and there's nothing advanced about any of the components mentioned in the article. It's fun and cool, but not enough to move the human race forward.
gadders 14y ago
Not many people grow their own food anymore or build their own houses. It's called progress. Move up the foodchain and invent the things these components go in.
decktech 14y ago
The air here is terrible. The environment seems polluted almost beyond redemption. I'm not sure it's worth it.
rsync 14y ago
A Shenzhen style economic zone / free trade zone / etc. could very easily be built in Tijuana. Everything there lines up to create just what is in Shenzhen. The Lamborghini dealership that is open for business at midnight might be a ways off, however...[1] [1] ... and you know those Hastens horsehair beds that cost USD 60k ? Their showroom was open for business at 10:30 PM on a weeknight...crazy.

rtpg 14y ago

In all fairness this place is one district of one city in China. If you go to Akihabara in Tokyo you get somewhat the same thing : small stalls that sell exactly one type of product. You find your people who sell lightbulbs, or a guy who sells only capacitors. But my point is that while that district has a bunch of that stuff, you really don't find that anywhere else (at least not in Tokyo). This is probably a similar deal.

tellarin 14y ago
I think you're missing the scale of this here. Being to both I can tell you that Akihabara might have specialized shops, but nothing to the level of Huaqiangbei. Neither in terms of component diversity nor in the number of shops around. And the article also mentions the direct access to actual people from the companies/factories. This alone is what makes it absolutely unique, in my view.
- rtpg 14y ago
  The scale is definitely different, but my main point is that its very likely a local phenomenon. People might read this and assume stuff like this is everywhere in China. Although it might be like that.
  - JDShu 14y ago
    I think you are right. Shenzhen is located in one of the wealthiest provinces in china, is less than an hour's train ride from Hong Kong, and is designated a special economic zone. That probably gives it several advantages over other Chinese cities.
  - tellarin 14y ago
    I agree that it's not everywhere in China that's like that. At least in Beijing and Shanghai you can find malls full of electronic shops. But nowhere near that scale anyway. Also, there doesn't seem to be much of a maker scene here anyway from what I can see. Just a few spread individuals.
mattgrice 14y ago
Maybe Akihabara was once like this but it is not anymore. The shops there are clearly boutiques selling to hobbyists, filled with things like expensive vintage vacuum tubes for esoteric audio projects and not the sort of things you would want if you actually wanted to manufacture something.
jheitzeb 14y ago
I've lived in Tokyo and I am the author of this article. I have to say that the scale is completely incomparable here. Not only this, there are over 100 cities in China with a population of over 1m. There are 9 in the USA.
- akiba 14y ago
  Oh, you live in Tokyo? We should meet up sometime. I'm a big fan of both akihabara and shenzhen. Both have pluses and minuses.
- samstave 14y ago
  Do you have more pictures? Also pricing info? The thing I found lacking when I read this article was where you said "...for a fraction of the price." Can you give me some understandable examples of what you could purchase for what prices?
damon_c 14y ago
We used to have an area like Akihabara in NYC, from the 1920s until the '60s. It was called "Radio Row". It was displaced by eminent domain to build the World Trade center. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Row http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Row

jbooth 14y ago

All that'll happen then is a lot of corporate headquarters move there from delaware.

w1ntermute 14y ago
Well, things are getting a little crowded at 1209 North Orange.
- gcb0 14y ago
  had to search that. http://franhendy.com/2012/07/03/my-address-is-1209-north-orange-street-delaware-usa/ http://franhendy.com/2012/07/03/my-address-is-1209-north-ora... "Google, Apple, Coco-Cola, Bank of America, Ford, General Electric, JP Morgan Chase, Wal-Mart, American Airlines and at least 285,000 others will tell you that this is their legal address."

rayiner 14y ago

Or we need to make China play fair. Implement similar environmental regulations, worker safety regulations, etc.

yen223 14y ago
The good news is that China is starting to make headway in that respect. They now have tighter environmental laws, better working hours, and better hourly wages. The bad news is that companies are now looking towards exploiting other countries like Bangladesh or Vietnam.
- wisty 14y ago
  The good news is, Bangladesh or Vietnam will now start to get rich enough for basic health and education. The other good news is, that shouldn't result in a lot of US jobs being lost, as the consumer market is now bigger (with Chinese consumers starting to add to demand) and the supply of cheap labor won't increase by 300 million in 10 years (like it did when China opened up).
  - pavs 14y ago
    I am in bangladesh and I am often sad to see people bring bangladesh garments industry as a example of exploiting poor people. While I am sure there are some exploitation going on, bangladesh is much much better off with the existence of the garments sector and poorly paid workers, considering the alternative. Bangladesh garments sectors amount to 80% of their export business. It employs mostly poor village women who was house wife before, or house maids or beggars or seasonal work; all of which paid even less money than the garments industry does. Which is why, there are less people available for house maids, or seasonal farming work. Garments workers who goes on strike for higher wage are the minority, because they somehow figured out the game that if they make enough noise and if the media picks it up the garments owner will be forced to raise the wage; even when they are well above the minimum wage for garments set up the government. Seriously no one is forcing anyone to work at lower wage. - There is a minimum wage set for garments workers, which might not be up to western standard, but people in bangladesh do quite good with it. - There is no lack of garments work available in BD, if they don't like the wage or the working condition they can always go work somewhere else. - While there exists poor working environments in the some garments, overwhelming most of them (from my personal experience) has pretty good standards with safe environment.

unoti 14y ago

Great idea! Do we get to pollute the local ecology and go totally-hands off to let the businesses exploit the workers, too? Maybe a little child labor here and there? I'm envisioning the 21st century version of The Jungle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungle. Actually in all seriousness, that could make a seriously cool sci fi/social commentary movie. Read that wikipedia article, and picture it in 2015 right on the Mexican border of the US. I realize that there is great merit in your idea. But at the same time, there are some ugly realities to consider. The good old days of the US was built on the backs of some very ugly, pretty much unrestricted capitalism complete with destroying the environment, exploiting the heck out of workers, child labor, you name it. Your point still has merit, and I'm worried about the future of the West as well.

sespindola 14y ago
Regretably, unless some sort of worldwide ethical commerce treaty is established in the near future, a "foxconnified" workforce will be a basic requirement in order to mass produce anything, anwywhere in the world.
- krasin 14y ago
  I still have a hope for robots. They are behind the sci-fi schedule, but still cheaper&easier to program every year.
  - logicallee 14y ago
    I love the sense of entitlement here. "We should have lifechanging robots by now, but even though they're late I still have hope."
    - GFischer 14y ago
      I didn't see any entitlement in the grandparent post, only an expression of hope :) We ARE seeing lifechanging robots (example: Google self driving cars, there are less visible ones, but even my hospital here in Uruguay has one for surgeries). In my visit to BMW's factories, I was amazed by their robots. They just haven't reached the masses yet, there isn't a Microsoft of robots ("one robot in every house"). Note: Microsoft's original vision "a computer on every desk and in every home, running Microsoft software"

hemancuso 14y ago

I'm glad we have so many centers of intellectual production making software rather than grinding out security cameras and assembling things designed elsewhere. That being said, I do appreciate the value in production and Apple points out to me every day the value of merging hardware and software, but by in large I'm glad America still excels on the on the highest end of the foodchain.

jonmrodriguez 14y ago
Why do you think software is the "highest end of the foodchain"? Is finance even higher in your mind? What makes you think that most hardware made in China is designed elsewhere? To the best of my knowledge, the HUGE Chinese smartphone/tablet market is based on chips, boards, and software all designed there.
- yen223 14y ago
  To the best of my knowledge, China doesn't do much design work locally. Most factories simply build whatever is on the blueprint which they receive from the West.
  - sunnybythesea 14y ago
    That used to be Japan | Korea | Taiwan...and look now
  - Volpe 14y ago
    > To the best of my knowledge I think you you need to improve your knowledge then. Or provide a citation.
    - yen223 14y ago
      I've got a sample size of one. I work in a factory, and almost all our designs (including tooling and processes) come from the head office in America.

chrismealy 14y ago

China got to where it is in tech with the very opposite of free trade. It's industrial policy that gets you to this level, not free trade.

joonix 14y ago
Yes. Just try importing your product into the Chinese market. Or getting your Chinese money out of the country without Hong Kong's help.
vidarh 14y ago
Just like most other countries then. Consider that "Made in ..." started with the British passing a law to protect domestic industry from cheap manufacturing in Germany. Except it backfired badly when German industry realised that "Made in Germany" quickly became a mark of quality. Or that developing countries are still being penalised heavily by trade barriers making entry into markets in the developed world incredibly hard in many sectors (especially agriculture, where the west is shovelling cash into their domestic agriculture via subsidies)

jetti 14y ago

"I think the US needs its own Free Trade Zone. Let's put it on the US / Mexico border, allow anyone to take up work there. Promise 0% taxes for a decade and put up no trade barriers at all. Maybe that would bring some of this production back home" Unlikely, what would likely happen is that foreign products that can be produced cheaper and normally sold cheaper with tariffs would flourish. Although I'm all for this so I would easily be able to get a Volkswagen pickup!

anklos 14y ago

Might sound harsh, but this kind of suggestion is no use at all. US was great and we know it is not that great any more at many aspects of view. US will fade out and other emerging countries will rock. This is HISTORY, any suggestion cannot stop the process of HISTORY.

yardie 14y ago
Ignore the shitty political situation in Washington and realize the US has the largest freshwater supply, the largest amount of arable land, and the US is sitting on billions of gallons of oil and rare earth metals. The US is not going anywhere for a very, very long time.
- mikhailfranco 14y ago
  Freshwater is not abundant in USA. Southern California has to import water from Sierras and as far north as Oregon. Colorado River does not reach the sea. Rio Grande does not reach the sea. Plains states have negative water balance and agriculture only survives by depleting the Ogallala Aquifer. Everything west of the Mississippi-Missouri and south of the Columbia and Platte rivers is at or beyond long term sustainable water consumption. Just add some global warming and see what happens. Read 'Cadillac Desert'. Now if you said Canada has the largest freshwater supply, I might have agreed.
  - yardie 14y ago
    Go to the grocery store and buy a gallon of water. Imagine that water is what you have to drink, clean yourself, wash your clothes and dishes with. So yes, compared to most of the planet we have it in abundance. Now the problem we do have is a water management problem. Most of the fresh water is used for agricultural and industrial purposes. We use a lot of water for dumb reasons and then dump it into the ocean.

stargape 14y ago

But still, the stuff that people are making here looks like the stuff of late night infomercials and there's nothing advanced about any of the components mentioned in the article. It's fun and cool, but not enough to move the human race forward.

gadders 14y ago

Not many people grow their own food anymore or build their own houses. It's called progress. Move up the foodchain and invent the things these components go in.

decktech 14y ago

The air here is terrible. The environment seems polluted almost beyond redemption. I'm not sure it's worth it.

rsync 14y ago

A Shenzhen style economic zone / free trade zone / etc. could very easily be built in Tijuana. Everything there lines up to create just what is in Shenzhen. The Lamborghini dealership that is open for business at midnight might be a ways off, however...[1] [1] ... and you know those Hastens horsehair beds that cost USD 60k ? Their showroom was open for business at 10:30 PM on a weeknight...crazy.