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Chongqing, the Largest City – In Pictures

theguardian.com

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Re: Chongqing, the Largest City – In Pictures

#181

Post by skippyboxedhero »

graemep wrote: post #94
xtracto wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Western societies are blinded by the narrative their governments have fed them in the last 50 years: China Bad. But us in 3rd world countries have the ability to see both Western and Eastern societies' development and compare it ij a more unbiased way. Frankly the China bet looks more successful.

I know many people in third world countries who fear China. I did when living in one (and continue to do so as a citizen of one with still close connections to it). China is a success for whom? Exploited factory workers, Tibetans and Uyghurs?

For the hundreds of millions of people who have incomes more than $1 per day now. Simple.

China produced one of the greatest economic miracles ever seen in an age when every economic authority said that miracles were impossible. This is still the legacy today where people argue, even after China has thrown up cities housing 20m people in two decades, that isn't real...because it fundamentally overturns basic aspects of the pre-China account of economic growth (which was itself largely based on lies to create support for politicians).

Never forget that economic growth is dangerous to vested interests.

Re: Chongqing, the Largest City – In Pictures

#182

Post by em-bee »

Traubenfuchs wrote: post #174
kubb wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's so bad about it other than it's obviously not the cool, centrally located district? Well connected, long time residents who have access to flats in the inner city always feel superior to the people who move to the city after them, and have to live on the outskirts, that doesn't say much.

1. it‘s a concrete dessert 2. only every second U2 goes there 3. disregarding the doubled U2 wait times, it takes 40 minutes to get to Karlsplatz, 46 to Stephansplatz, 47 to the main train station, 53 to Westbahnhof, 54 to Landstrasse -those times get much worse if you don‘t live centrally in Seestadt. And those times are AWFUL for Vienna, anything over 30 minutes is awful. 4. The „See“ is actually a joke 5. if you l…

those travel times are still better than any other city in the world that i have lived in. i am originally from vienna, so i know what you mean, but you have to admit that vienna is privileged in that regard, and the only other option to creating places like this would be to either tear down a bunch of existing buildings and replace them with 20 floor highrises, or a massive demand on existing housing, driving rents up or to generally bar anyone from moving to the city. vienna grew by half a million people in the last 2-3 decades. and that growth is likely to continue. these people need to go somewhere.

as for the concrete desert, what are you asking for? isn't the inner city all asphalt and bricks too? there are parks. but seestadt has green spaces as well. according to the map it has even more than the inner city. but it's all new and it will take some time to feel comfortable and lived in. you have to start somewhere. i mean i get you, nobody wants a concrete desert, nor a concrete dessert for that matter. though the latter might make a good projectile to show your appreciation to the cook.

also how is the "see" a joke? it's water. sure it's not the "alte donau" but from the photos it looks no worse than the donauinsel.

my cousin waited for years to get an apartment in vienna, and they finally got one in the south. from the looks of where they ended up i think seestadt would have been a nicer option.

north east of the danube is the only space where vienna can expand. there is some space to the south of vienna too, but not as much. and probably living in the south would not feel any better.

Re: Chongqing, the Largest City – In Pictures

#183

Post by seanmcdirmid »

As a city in western terms, Chongqing only has around 8 million people, and is not even in the top twenty of Chinese cities. If you include the entire municipality that is the size of Vermont, it’s largely rural with other cities inside it (so 31 million people total, 22 million urban, 8 million for Chongqing proper). Compare with Beijing which has around 10 million in its proper area (inside 5th ring) and 20 million people total.

Re: Chongqing, the Largest City – In Pictures

#184

Post by seanmcdirmid »

jimt1234 wrote: post #163

I visited Chongqing when I lived in Shanghai around 2002. People regarded it as an insignificant city back then - everyone was so fixated on Shanghai and Beijing. Anyway, Chongqing was under major construction, as was most of the country. But I remember the locals used to say that when you walked to work in the morning you needed to leave a trail of rice because the city changes so rapidly that you'll never find your…

Chongqing became an autonomous city back in 1998, so it wasn’t considered that insignificant (not to mention it was the wartime capital of China during WW2). However, as a city (vs a state-like municipality), I think Chengdu has passed it…eg chengdu has more people passing through its airports.

Re: Chongqing, the Largest City – In Pictures

#186

Post by stevenwoo »

rcpt wrote: post #128

I see countless US stories about how "family farmers defend themselves from evil development" or "Oakland residents suffer the effects of global trade booming in their city". But when I read about China's incredible growth nothing like that is ever mentioned. Why is that?

Chinese citizens actually can stand up to private developers. Not so much stuff like the Three Gorges Dam. The developers just build right around them. It pops up as a single photo with one of these homes on reddit sometimes but CNN ran a story a decade ago, there's even a name for the way the home sticks out. https://www.cnn.com/2015/05/19/asia/gallery/china-nail-house...

Re: Chongqing, the Largest City – In Pictures

#187

Post by pezezin »

rpozarickij wrote: post #44
forinti wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It depends if they stagnate or not. Japan used to be future, but it got stuck in the past.

Re: Chongqing, the Largest City – In Pictures

#188

Post by cyberpunk2066 »

hshdhdhj4444 wrote: post #68
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…

It’s missing in most European places because there’s little need for it. When there is a need, Europe does pretty well. At least relative to the U.S. For example, Europe built the completely novel floodgates for Venice. It’s been very successful as far as I’m aware when it was heavily doubted before and throughout its development. On the other hand, the U.S. won’t even contemplate building something similar to protec…

> won’t even contemplate building something similar to protect NYC

Perhaps not as ambitious as a barrier spanning the entrance to NY Harbor (comparable to Venice's system), NYC did build extensive storm surge barriers along the East River:

https://www.nyc.gov/site/escr/about/resiliency-and-flood-pro...

https://www.nyc.gov/site/ddc/about/press-releases/2021/pr-10...

Re: Chongqing, the Largest City – In Pictures

#189

Post by makeset »

bojan wrote: post #40
lormayna wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. You are just describing every western European country.

Every Western European country now. Not in the time those sights were built.

No true Scotland.

Re: Chongqing, the Largest City – In Pictures

#190

Post by deIeted »

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…

1) you don't even know what the cause of cost of living is 2) you have no idea what you are talking about
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