On r/collapse and pissed of another rambling neoliberal ghoul by saying China cares more about it's people since it has a higher rate of home ownership among the youth and that they focus on avoiding the traps of American market speculation. In response I got this babbling paragraph of nothing burgers lmao.
"Do you have even a tiny clue as to how housing works in that market? Do you understand that the average apartment price per square foot in major cities can be over a thousand USD? Or $5-600 a square foot in Third Tier cities. Or that average income to mortgage ratios are over 100% in most cities in the country, and exceed 400% in tier one cities? Do you understand that there are many, many ghost cities containing fake housing for hundreds of thousands of occupants, in building where apartments sell for $300K USD and up? These building are often just empty shells that can never be occupied, since they don't have elevators or even stair towers. Do you understand that it's not unusual to have the government issue demolition orders for new construction mid-rise towers, as they are built so astoundingly poorly that they are in danger of collapsing, and some actually do collapse? Do you have a clue that the average urban professional clears $1100 USD/month and can't buy a place to live, under $4-500K USD within several hours of commute time to their job? Do you understand that the entire Chinese residential market is a fucking scam, that there are 65 MILLION unoccupied units, frequently purchased by extended families that have pooled every fucking dime that several generations have, to pay a down payment on an apartment, hours away? An "investment" that will never have any real value, and never be the safe haven for their money they were led to believe it is? Do you understand that the last six months have been a downward spiral in the residential market, with hundreds of billions of dollars lost, sales falling off a cliff and "values" declining at 10% year over year.
No, reality is, you don't have a tiny clue about any of this. Educate yourself and stop believing the propaganda, no matter who is pushing the lies and what country they are shilling for."
I always love the irony of that line that is spouted by every twitter and :reddit-logo: ghoul
In all seriousness, Chinese “ghost cities” can be largely attributed to a Keynesian response to the global business cycle in order to keep people employed and productive while making use of excess domestic supply of raw materials like concrete and steel. The fact that the western world didn’t do similarly is why everything is even worse now than it was then. The Chinese built stuff, the west bailed out lending institutions, who did share buybacks and bad debt retirement instead of encouraging real production increases.
But that’s material analysis, which doesn’t account for “China bad” or “authoritarianism” so it’s hard to say what’s really going on.