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The environmental cost of China's addiction to cement
(www.bbc.com)
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this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2024
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If it only was JUST the use of concrete...
In China, real-estate and owning a home is a big show or success in life and therefore highly desirable.
Over the years the construction sector ran rampant, building homes faster then they could be sold by banks to bidders. A lot of these homes are so shoddy, they are starting to fall appart while people are living inaide them (google "tofu-buildings" and see for yourself, its horrific).
With high ammounts of corruption and in-party dealings, China continued to overbuild, using up massive ammounts of concrete on buildings with the lifespan of an average laptop. If they would build highly efficient buildings to house the massive population with high quality and affordable rooms, that would probably justity the high us of concrete and material.
But they are not...
And here we are now, locked in a perpetual cycle of building and breaking stuff, because a lot of finances and political positions are entwined with constructionnand lland-dealings.
The CCP could intervene, they are the fake-communist authoritarian rulers after all and their word is law. Im just not sure they want to. Or know how.
What you’re saying just isn’t true though. China isn’t overbuilding by any meaningful metric. Their urbanization rate is really low compared to developed nations like the US. They have a huge population so their total rate of construction while urbanizing is unique. However the actual process of urbanization isn’t unique at all.
If you look at historical data the US followed a very similar trend with rapid urbanization ramping up until around the 1960s. That rapid development included a mix of shoddy and quality construction. Additional urbanization was more difficult to achieve and growth slowed. That’s basically what you’re seeing in China now too.
Nonsense. The US didn't build entire fake cities that are totally empty, because they solely exist as investment scams and are not suitable for people to live in.
Aren't those ghost cities now mostly filled with people?
In most cases yes. However there is a range to that success. Some developments have been in such high demand that they’re now expanding. Others are still struggling.
They are not. Everything indicates that they remain uninhabited. Ghost cities are usually built in regions with cheap lease prices for land, which are cheap for a reason: Poor infrastructure, few jobs and opportunities.
The US definitely had its fair share of housing developments that were basically real estate investment scams. Most of the endless suburban sprawl in California was developed that way. One of my favorite examples is California City. It’s still mostly empty and is located in the middle of the desert. Also if you ever watched the show Arrested Development, it was making fun of the people who ran these kinds of real estate scams.
What’s happening in China isn’t all that different. It’s just happening on a much larger scale given the population size and the kind of urban density China is targeting. That’s what I think is shocking to anyone not looking at numbers. Instead of empty blocks of houses you might get empty apartment buildings instead.
If it's not that different (if) is not less stupid and wasteful.