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0 pointsseanmcdirmid4y ago0 comments

You can go visit Kangbashi (Ordos's new distrcit) today (well, when China opens again) if you want to see a ghost city. Kangbashi will fill up as soon as coal becomes popular in China again, which is probably never.

Or even closer to Beijing in Tianjin's new financial district. Actually, the tallest building in China is an incomplete sky scraper in Tianjin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldin_Finance_117), which hasn't had any work done on it since 2015 or so (similar to North Korea's Ryugyong Hotel).

> but you really don't get close to a neutral perspective from most of the Western media.

If anything considering my 9 years living in Beijing, western media holds off on a lot of crazy things that happen in China. No one would actually believe the reality, they would think it was all made up (e.g. the incomplete sky scraper in Tianjin).

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whimsicalism4y ago· 1 in thread

I don't think an unbuilt tower is as crazy as you think it is. There are tons of unfinished projects scattered throughout the West. I actually was just next to a massive one (not in the US but in Europe) the other day.

> You can go visit Kangbashi (Ordos's new distrcit) today (well, when China opens again) if you want to see a ghost city. Kangbashi will fill up as soon as coal becomes popular in China again, which is probably never.

If you read the article I posted, Kangbashi is specifically the district under discussion - it is no longer empty, actively building new apartments due to demand.

Coal didn't become popular again, but they moved the top schools of the province into the area.

seanmcdirmidOP4y ago

> I don't think an unbuilt tower is as crazy as you think it is.

Every time I've visited Tianjin, I've seen a derelict half built sky scraper. The first time I visited was in 1999. What is up with that city?

> There are tons of unfinished projects scattered throughout the West.

In the USA? There are none, not sky scrapers. Maybe that half built Huawei facility in Wisconsin?

> I actually was just next to a massive one (not in the US but in Europe)

Great! Eastern or Western Europe?

> If you read the article I posted, Kangbashi is specifically the district under discussion - it is no longer empty, actively building new apartments due to demand.

Kangbashi was originally specced for a few million people. It has...maybe a hundred thousand now? The streets are still pretty empty compared to the rest of Urban Ordos.

> Coal didn't become popular again, but they moved the top schools of the province into the area.

They moved one top school to the area. Will it be enough? Can you make a city by relocating a few middle school and university campuses? That only gives you so much growth.

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