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 protect NYC, despite the fact that Europe has already done it and proven the concept, and that the region this would protect is orders of magnitude more economically valuable than Venice.

Similarly consider high speed rail. Italy completely revolutionized domestic travel by setting up excellent high speed rail over a few years. They did it not by government fiat but intelligent regulations paired with privatization and market rules.

While it’s not China scale, it’s more than sufficient for Italy’s scale.

At the same time the U.S. is completely incapable of creating high speed rail and to the extent it has its done so by redefining it down.

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.

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.

vienna is doing it. there is a new neighborhood built from scratch on a green field. literally. a 20 year project for 25.000 residents and 20.000 jobs. just a few decades ago it was all farmland (and an unused airfield). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seestadt_Aspern

> 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 living crisis, and reverse the overcrowding of the existing urban centers.

Because China has their singular government system (one party dictatorship, whatever you want to call it) they can make really quick decisions. In democratic countries there is a lot of hemming and hawing cause you need everyone or a majority to agree with you, in China or North Korea they just snap their fingers and the project has to start within a few weeks or months.

The more critical things that China is doing well is infrastructure. They have DC transmission networks, solar, and hydro at a scale unheard of in the rest of the world. They're depositing into a savings account right now that will pay them massive dividends for a century or more. They're making the investment that made the US a world superpower that we are no longer willing to make at scale. It's a matter of time until China is the world hegemony. I don't know what that looks like for the world, but it's certainly bad for the US. If the populist politicians currently in charge of the US were actually interested in the public good they would be pouring money into works projects the likes of which haven't been seen in almost a century here in the US.

The Netherlands grew by 1 million people between 2015 and 2025, roughly 6,5% increase in population.

And (almost) everyone has a house.

Except we don't build flats and suburban one-house-fits-all massive construction projects. We mostly do smallscale development times a 1000, in stead of one big one.

We think it results in better cities.

Though, it is true we should build even more.

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.

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).

> No doubt it's a comfortable place to live for many people,

It does not look very comfortable to me. Lots of huge residential tower blocks, one that has a metro line running THROUGH it, a bookshop with shelves that are not reachable.

All those in a curated set of pictures!

Because the western world (and rest of the world following western world) has one rule (the only rule): make the super rich richer, everything else is just marketing to accomplish that.

Home prices are completely out of reach for most people in UK, Canada, New Zealand, Australia (coming soon to a country near you!). You're overpaying to live like a 1920's postman: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/tGPHcteG9dY

Create artificial scarcity (by zoning, monopolies, regulatory capture), buy assets (never have to improve any assets because there is no competition, no functional market of competitors producing better housing), extract wealth forever by maximizing rents and asset prices.

I would not consider CQ comfortable. Shanghai is 1000x more comfortable.

The lack of capacity to build in Europe is due to age-old regulations, bureaucracy and very low risk appetite. All this has affected human competence as well, similar to caged animals losing their abilities.

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.

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

> 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)?

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.

Isn't the same regularly done? If you're talking e.g. about NYC, Tokyo, London or other large cities, there is usually the distinction between "Greater <city name>" or "metropolitan area" and the actual city boundaries.

This. Chongqing is not a "city" in the English sense of the word. Even in China, they jokingly call it a 省 (province).

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

I loved it when I saw it, it had easily more charm and diversity than Beijing or Shanghai

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.

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.

The first list appears to come from one U.N. report where they're using completely different standards for different cities - some are using population estimates for the municipality, others population estimates of just the urban core, and others still using population estimates for the entire region.

As far as I can tell, Tokyo is at the top of the list because because they seem to be using the estimates for the entire region. Other estimates for Tokyo's population - even on Wikipedia - are less than half the number listed there.

"Chongqing, which is the largest city proper in the world by population, comprises a huge administrative area of 82,403 km2, around the size of Austria. However, more than 70% of its 30-million population are agricultural workers living in a rural setting."

You should definitely go. I haven't been to Chongqing myself, but I spent a month in Beijing, two weeks in Shanghai, and a week in Baotou, and each place offered a completely different experience.

My personal favorite was Beijing. Honestly, it felt like stepping into another world, with a vibe unlike anywhere else I have been, even compared to Shanghai or other East Asian cities like Tokyo. The people were incredibly warm and friendly, the street food was outstanding, the environment felt almost otherworldly, and the historical sites were phenomenal. Getting lost in the hutongs felt like its own adventure, the punk culture was alive and thriving, and the art district was the best I have experienced (even coming from New York City). If you skate, it's a paradise with spots everywhere you turn. Public transportation and taxis were also super affordable, clean, and efficient.

Shanghai was cool too, but it felt much more familiar. At its core, it reminded me of Manhattan, just more intense. The people there also gave off a similar vibe to New Yorkers. If you are into electronics, it's a great place to explore, although I hear Shenzhen is really the true hub for that.

Baotou felt a lot more desolate but also very peaceful. I spent most of my time there on a farm and hiking around the Gobi Desert though.

One thing to be aware of is the air quality in Beijing and Shanghai. On bad days, you would come back with black snot. I was a smoker at the time, which did not help, but even non-smokers experienced it. There always seemed to be random particles or even feathers floating in the air lol.

As someone who skates, I found the police and security surprisingly relaxed. They would usually let you skate for a while before politely asking you to move along. The only unsettling thing I witnessed was a group of officers with SMGs escorting someone out of Tsinghua University.

The saddest thing I saw was the desperate poverty on the outskirts of Beijing. There were large piles of trash, open sewage, and pollution. At one point, a concerned local pulled over and told us to turn around because of violent protests between farmers and the government up ahead. The outskirts of Shanghai showed similar poverty, though without the protests.

That said, aside from the outskirts and days of bad air quality, all three cities were incredibly clean, especially compared to New York.

This was all about 15 years ago, so I imagine a lot has changed since then.

Still, I would absolutely recommend going. If you can, spend time in places that feel unfamiliar, especially Beijing. It's an experience you will never forget.

Interesting - not available for me (in Germany!)…

I’ve been there. It’s crazy how the smell of spicy hotpot permeates every street.

And it’s also crazy the spice levels they’re used to. It’s the only place in China I’ve seen 微微辣 (“very very little spicy”). And it was still incredibly spicy!

It gets hot and there's a couple days each year it's probably best to stay inside, but it's really not that bad. I'd take Chongqing over Jakarta or Kuala Lumpur, personally (in terms of weather).

How does spicy food help with hot & humid?

Doesn't sweat stop working in hot+humid climates, since it doesn't evaporate?

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.

I had to look it up and could not find any English sources for this location but the book store chain is named after Sisyphus (my first thought was the struggle against online retailers) and has multiple stores in Chongqing, this one looks more practical and like a stylish library and store for books: https://www.dezeen.com/2019/08/04/chongqing-zhongshuge-books...

It feels like the books higher up are not actual book. But it's hard to tell from the picture.

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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.

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Multiple things at play here

For candid Chinese dissidence there are a couple of tolerated zones on wechat, like an American Embassy’s wechat page. Its not protected, people just use it that way sometimes. And you just have to learn some of the slang.

There are in person clashes sometimes. The municipal level isn’t as quick to seem every little action as an affront to the territorial unity of China, which is against the Chinese constitution.

The social safety nets are very expansive and work decent for the population. Housing, healthcare, busy work for income.

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...

The CCP has a pretty tight grip on the domestic narrative. The farmers in China have no agency to complain. US farmers, on the other hand, are a powerful constituency, especially the consolidated, corporate entities.

because it's not evil development. what i have seen that actually happens is that the farmers get enough money to build a new house. it is based on the size of the house they had in the village which lead to the curious situation that people expanded their buildings even though they knew already that their village was slated to be wiped.

then the farmers pool their money and build multistory apartment buildings not far from the area where their village was so they are not being chased away and left helpless.

The "Eling Palace complex" photo is interesting. In the midst of all the "rooftop gardens, terraces, stairways, promenades and metal screens," someone nailed up about 4 meters of razor wire on the exterior wall.

Not paradise then.

Nah, it's so much better than it was just 10 years ago.

I was actually surprised by how clear the skies are now. Good to see they're working hard to stop air pollution.

Most EU passports get 30 days visa free entry, everything is quite inexpensive, the super apps both have a translation feature now, which helps a lot since most restaurants take orders through them. It is super safe, no theft, almost no scams. Hotels and train trips on trip.com. The main challenges are to find a non smoking hotel room and to not gain too much weight.

About the same as the rest of China, meaning not very accessible, but not impossible either. There's a major airport, you need WeChat/Alipay for everything (but you can now easily set up foreign credit cards for these), approximately nobody speaks English but translation apps work and tour guides are cheap, the Great Firewall is a hassle but roaming SIMs can bypass it.

The sheer spice level of the food is a challenge though, even other Chinese think that Chongqing level spiciness is nuts.

Like any other country from my POV. I was in Chongqing last month.