German television made a very interesting documentary about the city a few months back: https://youtu.be/p49QRxO_n2c
Chongqing, the Largest City – In Pictures
21–30 of 224 posts
Re: Chongqing, the Largest City – In Pictures
#22Chongqing seems incredible on pictures and YouTube videos. No doubt it's a comfortable place to live for many people, and surely it isn't perfect, especially when it comes to things like air pollution. What amazes me is China's capacity to do development on a large scale, something that's completely missing in Europe. If we had efficient large-scale construction solved, we could really put a dent in the cost of livin…
The thing is, we used to do this. Walk around London or Florence or Rome and you will see era-adjusted sights that are equally impressive. For that matter, go check out Blenheim Palace. It’s a reasonable question to ask: What happened? But the answer is prosaic. These sights all come from times of _incredible_ inequality. Which you don’t see in these pictures but is vastly more relevant to the day to day lives of most citizens.
Show me a place that looks like that where no-one goes hungry, has to worry about medical bills and doesn’t live in fear of the rich and powerful and then I’ll be impressed.
Re: Chongqing, the Largest City – In Pictures
#23Seems to depend a bit on how you define "city proper". Wikipedia has two lists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_cities#List https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megacity#List_of_megacities which disagree with this (and each other) on which city is largest.
Jacksonville, FL also claims to be the largest city in the contiguous US... by area. It's not a small or bad city, but not even in the top 10 in most other metrics.
Re: Chongqing, the Largest City – In Pictures
#24Chongqing seems incredible on pictures and YouTube videos. No doubt it's a comfortable place to live for many people, and surely it isn't perfect, especially when it comes to things like air pollution. What amazes me is China's capacity to do development on a large scale, something that's completely missing in Europe. If we had efficient large-scale construction solved, we could really put a dent in the cost of livin…
Europe and America have no industrial strategy to speak of and powerful lobbies dedicated to perpetuating the war on affordable housing.
I doubt this is something that can or will be reversed gradually. The consolidation of oligarchic power has been building up over many decades and only shows signs of acceleration.
In order for the power structures responsible for this to be overturned something pretty cataclysmic will need to happen - losing a large scale war, economic collapse, etc. (e.g. like in post WW2 Japan where America dismantled and disenfranchised the Japanese oligarchy).
Re: Chongqing, the Largest City – In Pictures
#25Chongqing seems incredible on pictures and YouTube videos. No doubt it's a comfortable place to live for many people, and surely it isn't perfect, especially when it comes to things like air pollution. What amazes me is China's capacity to do development on a large scale, something that's completely missing in Europe. If we had efficient large-scale construction solved, we could really put a dent in the cost of livin…
The thing is, we used to do this. Walk around London or Florence or Rome and you will see era-adjusted sights that are equally impressive. For that matter, go check out Blenheim Palace. It’s a reasonable question to ask: What happened? But the answer is prosaic. These sights all come from times of _incredible_ inequality. Which you don’t see in these pictures but is vastly more relevant to the day to day lives of mos…
I mean, people go hungry today in plenty of places that fail to build (the U.K. for example) and they went hungry or lived in fear of the powerful in plenty of places before they were able to build at impressive scales.
I’m not sure if it’s what you are thinking of, but I don’t think the massive expansion of cities in the Industrial Revolution was caused by incredible inequality (unless you count inequality between urban and rural areas?).
I guess you could be thinking of ‘monuments’ built by the rich and saying they are due to inequality but I would think the analogue to Chongqing would be the constructing of the ‘megacities’ of the past, which is mostly about building lots of residential, industrial, and office space rather than palaces.
Re: Chongqing, the Largest City – In Pictures
#26Chongqing seems incredible on pictures and YouTube videos. No doubt it's a comfortable place to live for many people, and surely it isn't perfect, especially when it comes to things like air pollution. What amazes me is China's capacity to do development on a large scale, something that's completely missing in Europe. If we had efficient large-scale construction solved, we could really put a dent in the cost of livin…
The cost of housing in the large Chinese megacities is comparable to, if not higher than, that in Western countries. Therefore, they are not constructing housing at a fast enough pace to meet their population’s needs. However, they do build at a rate that is 2-4 times faster than that of Western countries.
What does ‘comparable’ mean? Is it about ratios between incomes and costs? Or cost of the same apartment in two places? Or something else?
Re: Chongqing, the Largest City – In Pictures
#27The city is also famous for its hot and humid climate. Locals have to eat lots of spicy foods to make their life a little bit easier. You won't last more than a week there.
Re: Chongqing, the Largest City – In Pictures
#28Chongqing seems incredible on pictures and YouTube videos. No doubt it's a comfortable place to live for many people, and surely it isn't perfect, especially when it comes to things like air pollution. What amazes me is China's capacity to do development on a large scale, something that's completely missing in Europe. If we had efficient large-scale construction solved, we could really put a dent in the cost of livin…
The thing is, we used to do this. Walk around London or Florence or Rome and you will see era-adjusted sights that are equally impressive. For that matter, go check out Blenheim Palace. It’s a reasonable question to ask: What happened? But the answer is prosaic. These sights all come from times of _incredible_ inequality. Which you don’t see in these pictures but is vastly more relevant to the day to day lives of mos…
I think it’s a misread to attribute large-scale construction mainly to inequality. While inequality funded grand projects historically, today it’s effective planning, strong state capacity, and streamlined execution that make the real difference.
China’s development is impressive because it prioritizes coordination and scale, whereas Europe struggles more with political and organizational fragmentation and lack of initiative.
Re: Chongqing, the Largest City – In Pictures
#29> The largest city in the world is as big as Austria, but few people have ever heard of it Pet peeve but this article is confusing Chongqing's entire land area with the city of Chongqing and associated urban areas (only 6% of Chongqing's total land area). The issue is 直辖市 is translated as "direct-administered city" but should be treated as a "Direct-administered municipality" or "Direct-administered state". Much of C…
This. Chongqing is not a "city" in the English sense of the word. Even in China, they jokingly call it a 省 (province).
Re: Chongqing, the Largest City – In Pictures
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
The cost of housing in the large Chinese megacities is comparable to, if not higher than, that in Western countries. Therefore, they are not constructing housing at a fast enough pace to meet their population’s needs. However, they do build at a rate that is 2-4 times faster than that of Western countries.
What does ‘comparable’ mean? Is it about ratios between incomes and costs? Or cost of the same apartment in two places? Or something else?
Cost/income is a good ratio. The megacities (Shanghai, Shenzhen etc.) probably have a ratio similar to New York.
Just from top of my head as I left Shanghai 10 years ago, a typical condo in Shanghai could cost over 5 million yuan (urban but definitely not core city), while a salary of 300k pre-tax is considered as a good salary.
On the other side, housing is affordable for locals -- locals usually got very generous compensation from the demolition of their original home.