Quote:
Originally Posted by giallo
10023, it's pretty obviously you've never been here, and know very little of life in a Chinese mega-city, but I'll bite.
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I haven't been to Shanghai, unfortunately. I've been to Hong Kong and Shenzhen (for work), but only briefly.
Regardless, I'm well aware that the richer Chinese cities look much more hospitable at street level (and I've seen your photos from your window before). And I know that affluent Chinese don't live in suburbs, that driving is expensive and heavily regulated, etc.
But one can't assume that things will always be the way they are now. There was a time when few Americans drove and suburban development was minimal, too. I was just saying that IF the preferences of the average Chinese do change over time, along with the country's politics and regulatory environment and all the rest, and China follows the West in becoming more suburbanized, then the effects of the kind of depopulation that this precipitated in the US are going to be tenfold in China given the scale and speed with which its cities are being built.
You can try to tell me that this is impossible, that people in China will
always favor the convenience and excitement of the central city, but I don't buy it. Americans and Europeans can get more excitement and convenience living in the center of New York, London or Paris as well, but most don't. The desire for personal space and breathing room is fundamental to humanity, and there will be a point when the average Chinese middle class family with a couple of kids (I can't believe that the one child policy will survive forever) can get a much more comfortable space away from the middle of Shanghai. And as the political system and economy liberalize, planning and zoning will too, and they might also work in offices located on cheaper real estate away from the center (making the convenience argument largely moot).
Don't assume that, because China is at the same point in its economic and urban development that the US was in the 1920s, the pattern of development will always be fundamentally different.