Why (Almost) Nobody Lives in China's $161 Billion City

[joeym]

The most important lesson an architect could learn: there are only two types of buildings, those that are hat-like and those that are nonhat-like.

[SupremeLeaderKimJong-un]

They can give the city to me if they want, I can improve it

[eyad]

My in-laws live in Ordos and I have visited there several times over the past decade. As you mention in the video, the population has increased somewhat recently but Kangbashi is still very underpopulated. What usually gets left out of the Ordos spiel is that, from a global perspective (I.e. not just North American/Western European) Kangbashi is still a decent place to live. The air is clean, the roads are paved, and flowers are planted. For right now, depopulated doesn't mean decrepit, but only time will tell. Beijing (where I live) is in much worse shape than Kangbashi because it was built when China was poorer and things in China aren't built to last. As you mention, they're built to be built. You're free to doubt the merit of a planned economy compared to a market economy (I do), but I just wanted to provide the conext that's always missing from the Ordos conversation.

[kaihinton]

People in hong kong: *ah! There are no apartments available!*
Apartments in china: *ah! There are no people available!*

[deep.space.]

5:10 That has got to be the worst sponsor transition, ever.
Why would any Chinese need a password manager, when they enjoy free cloud backups of all their personal data by their government?

[Username-mgdg]

Imagine being one of the few people to have a whole city for yourself

[digistructr]

"not everything can look like a hat"

*Team Fortress 2 wants to know your location*

[pegeonpera]

Half as interesting going full clickbait ;
Title : Why nobody lives in China's $161 billion city
Actual video : Why 200, 000 people live in a city designed for a million people

[AverytheCubanAmerican]

“Skydiving in cars”
RealLifeLore: *It’s Corolla time*

[TheNinjaDC]

TLDR: By inflating a real estate market bubble larger than the Hindenburg.

And like the Hindenburg, an explosion is inevitable.

[juststeve]

The Chinese housing market gets even crazier.
For a start, Chinese people like to put their own mark on a property when they live in it, so a decorated property is actually a disadvantage as a new owner would have to strip it first. So a property bought as an investment is worth more if it isn't decorated. So these ghost towns/cities (of which there are many) contain thousands of undecorated homes.

It gets crazier... At one point the Chinese government thought people were possibly over-extending themselves with their loans for property, so they restricted the number of properties a married couple could have to the same as a single person.
Guess what happens next... Divorce rates rocket! The couples obviously still live together, they're just not married any more, so they can get twice the number of loans!

[jacksonbitzer]

“The problem with these buildings is that no one showed up to them”
As someone rides a motorcycle in front of the camera

[parazodgaming]

Chinese government looking at 1.48 million people suddenly googling their city
👁️👄👁️

[timesathousand]

"How China's Economic Planning is like the Fast and Furious Franchise"
This guy gets to make youtube videos of the essays we wish could have written in High School

[chadthundercock]

"Almost no one lives here"

"population of 200, 000"

wut.

[jesus]

i read that as "why no one lives in china"

[TheLiamster]

“50, 000 people used to live here, now it’s a ghost town” - Capt Mcmillian, 1995

[MultiSciGeek]

In a country like India with huge overpopulation and extremely shit infrastructure, cities like these would sell out in days. Literally!

[grayzytube]

Globally there seems to be a problem with countries being able to provide adequate amounts of housing. China seems to have got ahead of the game. It's probably better to have excess housing stock than not enough, and has the benefit of keeping pices low rather than ever increasing pices caused by developers and investors ensuring the shortages continue.

[nico]

"It's called a city because it's not a city"

_visible confusion_