amazing satellite images of the ghost cities of china
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And Now Presenting: Amazing Satellite Images Of The GhostCities Of China
Chandni Rathod and Gus Lubin | Dec. 14, 2010, 4:15 PM | 1,278,385 | 191
The hottest market in the hottest economy in the world is Chinese
real estate. The big question is how vulnerable is this market to a crash.
One red flag is the vast number of vacant homes spread through China,
by some estimates up to 64 million vacant homes.
We've tracked down satellite photos of these unnerving places, based on
a report from Forensic Asia Limited. They call it a clear sign of a bubble:
"There’s city after city full of empty streets and vast government
buildings, some in the most inhospitable locations. It is the modern
equivalent of building pyramids. With 20 new cities being built every year, we hope to be able to expand our list
going forward."
Here's China's most famous ghost city: Ordos
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There are no cars in the city, except for a few dozen parked at the glamorous government center
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Ordos even has an avant-garde art museum -- totally empty
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Ordos Museum Street V iew
Image: Panoramio
Here's China's biggest ghost city: Zhengzhou New District
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This $19 billion development is packed with blocks of empty houses
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Like Ordos, Zhengzhou New District has glamorous public buildings
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Image: Google Maps
Zhengzhou New District residential towers -- EMPTY
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Empty roads in Zhengzhou.
Image: Panoramio
Here's a rendering of Zhengdong New District Wetland Park (people added with Photoshop)
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Image: Panoramio
This city was built in the middle of a desert: Erenhot, Xilin Gol, Inner Mongolia
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Half of Erenhot is empty. The other half is unfinished
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Is that a hotel in Erenhot?
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Image: Google Maps
See that orange area to the north-east of the Xinyang?
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It's a giant new development, which doesn't even have a name yet.
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No cars in the city except for approximately 100 clustered around the government headquarters
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The ghost city of Dantu has been mostly empty for over a decade
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In most neighborhoods of Dantu, there are no cars, no signs of life
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Image: Google Maps
The mostly empty city of Bayannao’er, which boasts a beautiful town hall and WorldBank-sponsored water reclamation building
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Now here's Kangbashi, a new city with capacity for 300,000 -- that houses 30,000
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Finally, here's a giant new campus for Yunnan University, which was built to accommodate 2.3
million students. It has 11,000 enrolled.
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One of many shocking aspects of the biggest growth spurt ever
15 More Facts About China That Will Blow Your Mind>
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ghgv on Dec 15, 6:36 PM said:
@tard: this is in case of a nuclear attack that the survivors have a place to reproduce
6 3
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Jason Farmer on Dec 16, 1:19 PM said:
@tard: "tard", your name seems very appropriate!
9 5
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Dargoola on Dec 14, 4:24 PM said:
Don't you get it by now? They built these places for you!!
That's where millions of Americans are going as the economy heads further South.
You'll be selling your albatross in Florida so you can buy fresh, appreciating property with full amenities thanks to cheaper labor.
Please to enjoy!
Comment flagged as offensive.
73 9
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Gary Anderson (URL) on Dec 14, 5:57 PM said:
@Dargoola: They will have a Bracero program with red white and blue cards instead of green cards.
13 4
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slapshod on Dec 14, 8:18 PM said:
@Gary Anderson: It could wind up that way. Or an indentured servitude program. More likely they'll just use excess labor from
other Asian countries because it's way cheaper than importing Americans. Also, if history is any guide, the Japanese are still a bit
bigoted towards Gaijin immigrants. They give preference to other Asians even for filling skilled/semi-skilled positions.
But before that, China still has more than the entire population of the US from their own countryside to fill unskilled labor jobs and they'll take care of their
own first. There is a huge oversupply of unskilled labor everywhere. Even here in the US. It's our cost of doing business that makes us uncompetitive, not
a lack of available manpower. The days of needing mass immigration to build economies are over. The industries are just moving to where the cost of
doing business is cheapest, rather than the labor moving to where the industries are. It's cheaper to move buildings and middle management than
transport and re-house and assimilate millions or billions of individual workers. Corporate headquarters will end up in resort nations with good security
and schools.
The only exception are people whose education/skills/existing wealth put them way to the right of the bell curve in driving development. The
two-percenters who really are something special in the global marketplace.
24 5
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Scott in Atlanta on Dec 17, 9:55 AM said:
@icetrout: "Slave-labor is the cheapest labor there is" No, surely it is not when productivity is taken into account. Salaried
employees, working under incentives, are the most productive in the world, and the cheapest per unit of output. That is the main
reason why slavery failed - it could not survive in an industrial era.
18 13
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