Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Chongqing, the Largest City – In Pictures

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 224 posts

Re: Chongqing, the Largest City – In Pictures

#41

Post by yusaydat »

whatever1 wrote: post #20
kubb wrote: post #15

Chongqing 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.

The prices depend on the city, apartments in Chongqing cost around $1,000 USD per m², about 1/5th of the prices in cities like Beijing and Shanghai.

Re: Chongqing, the Largest City – In Pictures

#42

Post by aprilthird2021 »

kubb wrote: post #15

Chongqing 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…

> What amazes me is China's capacity to do development on a large scale, something that's completely missing in Europe.

In the US, especially with renewed appetite for "America First" and bringing back good paying jobs for American laborers, there should be a lot more building of infrastructure and housing units around our country... Why can China do this and we can't even when the government has won a mandate from people to empower domestic labor (for everyone who says China can only do this because of wealth inequality)?

Re: Chongqing, the Largest City – In Pictures

#43

Post by nickkell »

nosianu wrote: post #13
kappasan wrote: post #8

Haven't been to Chongqing in a while, but the vertical nature of the city is fascinating [1]. It's like they layered multiple cities on top of each other! Curious how that affects social interactions in daily life. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/CityPorn/comments/8kqwnf/chongqing_...

Vertical, as in those incredible never-ending stairs: https://youtu.be/257PMPqPgXE

No need for a gym membership if you climb those stairs often enough!

Re: Chongqing, the Largest City – In Pictures

#44

Post by rpozarickij »

forinti wrote: post #16
echelon wrote: post #3

These photos don't do Chongqing justice. Google it and marvel at the beauty. It's an incredible city.

If you take the list of largest cities in China and google them from largest down, you'll find an incredible number of cities that just look like they're in the future.

Sometimes I wonder what future Chinese cities will look like in a few decades from now, given that the current ones already look so futuristic.

Re: Chongqing, the Largest City – In Pictures

#45

Post by yusaydat »

kubb wrote: post #15

Chongqing 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…

Lots of low-quality construction work though. Anecdotally, I used to live in a 30-story building in one of the special economic zones. My building had horrendously large cracks in the concrete, and even though I knew rationally that it wouldn't come down, it didn't feel safe, especially during typhoons, etc.

Re: Chongqing, the Largest City – In Pictures

#46

Post by master_crab »

feverzsj wrote: post #27

The 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.

So it’s just Chinese Houston? Got it. I’ll pass. Done it once. I don’t have enough shirts in the world for that humidity.

Re: Chongqing, the Largest City – In Pictures

#47

Post by LetMeLogin »

kubb wrote: post #15

Chongqing 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…

I was there about 12 years ago, and in all honesty, I wasn't impressed.

The air pollution was absolutely horrific, for whole I was there I wasn't able to see the sun at all due to air or lack of it.

"Green" trees were just... grey, covered with all the dust.

And good luck if you want to grab a taxi and you have long hair :)

The food was great, though.

Re: Chongqing, the Largest City – In Pictures

#48

Post by csomar »

rwmj wrote: post #9

Seems 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.

They should replace this with a density metric. If a city is big enough, it becomes just "cities" next to each other. The difference is in central density and time from the extremities to the center. In this case, Chongqing, HongKong and Paris are denser than say Los Angeles; even though the Los Angeles metro area has a comparable/higher number of people.

Re: Chongqing, the Largest City – In Pictures

#49

Post by mathverse »

I am totally uninterested in China mainly due to them being so hostile to foreigners. Yes cities are impressive, technology and culture as well. But you are not welcome. At all.

You are sometimes not even tolerated.

And because of that your time in that country will be always limited. If China was to become like BKK or other SEA countries ....

That's another story.

Re: Chongqing, the Largest City – In Pictures

#50

Post by yorwba »

kubb wrote: post #28
moomin wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 in…

The strong state capacity collects the resources of large areas and concentrates them into large-scale construction projects in a handful of places. China has a small number of megacities with large, wealthy, modern urban cores and a very large population that lives somewhere else. There are about a hundred cities with more than a million inhabitants but only 47 have urban rail transit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_rail_transit_in_China That's inequality.
Post reply on HN