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Baidu Data Research Reveals China's Ghost Cities (thestack.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Chinese web services giant, Baidu, has embarked on a new study in which it uses location information from users' mobile devices, as well as mapping and building data, to identify areas with high volumes of construction with relatively low population densities — known as 'ghost cities.' The researchers, in the published findings Ghost Cities: Analysis Based on Positioning Data in China, were able to discount areas which experienced high levels of tourism which skew the figures in peak seasons. The Baidu Big Data team discovered 50 ghost cities, although only 20 of these were revealed in the report to avoid potential harm to the real estate market in these areas.
Living in a ghost city gives me fast enough internet to get first post.
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How about relocating Syrian refugees into these unused housing units?
Is anyone else surprised that Baidu was willing and able to conduct and publish this study without intervention from the Chinese government?
> although only 20 of these were revealed in the report to avoid potential harm to the real estate market in these areas.
Wow. This is a new low for capitalism. Can't reveal facts because someone might lose money if they ever came to light ! /sarcasm And here I thought only the USA had the best government money can buy.
Lead researcher, Guanghua Chi hopes that the study will help the Chinese government...
And the Chinese government hopes Guanghua Chi's organs enjoy long, prosperous lives in their new [wealthy, Australian] bodies...
Why would it be any different for the refugees? It's kinda like when they relocated all those dirt poor black share croppers to the projects in the 70s and then Reagan pulled the funding sending them into a perpetual spiral of poverty. Did I say 'kinda'?
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The primary way for Chinese people to legally invest money is to buy property, so many of these units go to property speculators trying to earn a return. Also, China plans far in advance, and the people have been moving from the country to the cities at an amazing rate there, so they are taking the long view and building housing for the boom that has been ongoing for decades. They won't always be ghost cities, but currently no one lives there.
http://blogs.reuters.com/great...
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
"only 20 of these were revealed in the report to avoid potential harm to the real estate market in these areas" To avoid harm to a market, they are willing to withhold the truth, which potentially harms everyone who is considering purchasing (or even renting) a property in that market.
China's so-called ghost cities are actually just very, very new. http://blogs.reuters.com/great... What actually seems to happen is that developers (the real estate kind, not the Steve Ballmer kind) buy land for cheap because it's far from any existing population center, but Chinese law requires them to build something rather than sitting on it. So all these developers build all this stuff, and after a few years people start moving in and the ghost cities become just plain cities.
Writhe your naked ass to the mindless groove.
This is how China operates! Only good news is reported. Bad news is not.
It looks like a redundant post, but that's what I get for allowing myself to get sidetracked by work while I'm posting on /.
Writhe your naked ass to the mindless groove.
They will probably use these cities to house ghost armies and take over the world. Bet they got the idea from "Return of the King".
You misspelled communism.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
And here I thought only the USA had the best government money can buy.
Billionaire Lawmakers Ensure the Rich Are Represented in China’s Legislature
It seems that Chinese is trying to copy USA, but "building" bigger model. They are now going to build their military structure from USA model (of course, with more soldiers), they already copied the USA highway system, but with larger road, and more lanes.
They're dispersal sites in case it looks like the cans of instant sunshine are going to start flying.
(The cities I mean, not the sodding sheds.)
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
The Chinese government is trying to run a command economy (Communism).
Building shit nobody wants or needs at grate expense is one of the more common problems with command economies, as you get the government deciding what to build and where and the people who make the decision have no incentive to care more about the demand for those buildings than who's pockets get lined in the building of them.
I think it's been mentioned before that China is moving a lot of its rural population into cities to allow them to provide government services more efficiently, as well as create a larger consumer culture. At the same time, one of the only stable stores of wealth for Chinese is real estate. As many articles lately have mentioned, the stock market is even more speculative than ours and not suitable for long term investing. The only issue now is filling all these empty spaces so the original investors can get their money out.
We'll see what they have in mind for this next phase, but China has been remarkably good at long term central planning. It's something missing in Western countries -- the full control of authoritarianism while doing anything necessary to grow the economy. It'll be interesting to see what happens.
NK ones when Kim Jong Un goes to far and they all rush the border.
Every major company in the world desires a command economy; "buy our product even if it is crap", e.g. MS.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
More like state capitalism, aka fascism.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
it's also when all the social programs got defunded. Reagan turned back the clock on what FDR had started. Bush Sr & Clinton continued that ( he never really cared about anything except being prez) and Bush Jr ramped it up into full gear so he could give the money to his cronies.
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It does beg the question why they don't stop as soon as they are out of immediate peril, like in Turkey or Greece.
Sure, if you're escaping a hellhole you want to make sure to end up someplace nice, but it does seem like there's a bit of opportunism there, taking advantage of the sense of peril to make sure you do end up someplace nice.
In China, you get the hollow shell. That's the normal approach for new construction - in a "ghost city" or in the heart of Shanghai. You pay for the flooring, paint, doors, fixtures (plumbing and electrical), even the outlet covers and the outlets themselves. You get the concrete walls, ceiling, floor, and pre-pulled electrical and plumbing - and that's it.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Thanks for the investment advice.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Which has been the typical result of every communist country (self-declared communist, at that) ever.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
It's an old tradition with examples like the San Francisco "fire" because worries about earthquakes would drive down property values - but the realestate ghouls couldn't get the label to stick.
Some people who want to sell stuff are scum the world over and would prefer to hide any fact that reduces a sale price. Put some of those people in government, especially a very autocratic one like China, and the obvious happens.
There is hope though. A crackdown on corruption has been so effective that a side effect is casinos around the world that do business with Chinese government types on holiday are hurting. The amount of money laundering was staggering, and how much is still being ripped off is a mystery but it's a lot less than it was.
Re "What is the purpose of building these "ghost cities"? Blocks or cities of vacant housing don't make sense. Why are they being built in such seemingly large numbers?"
The wages of the people building, designing a city was seen as a good spend. Better to have them enjoying a days work, offer of advanced skills, new materials and local experts.
Over time it was felt that any created city would fill up as heavy production in the area would need workers and workers like clean, new homes with other workers around them.
Add in hospitals, clubs, bars, water treatment, government workers needs, office workers, public transport - everything was designed and set out to new standards.
The "seemingly large numbers" was to help the local export economy with cheap workers, new jobs or just relocate people as traditional cities got redesigned only for the very rich.
So mostly jobs, workers needs, expanding traditional wealthy city concepts that could move poor relocated people a new cheap ready city areas. The part that was missed was "community".
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
You're totally right. Being on one of the most prominent news sites in the world is exactly like hiding it completely and not telling any one.
Someone should ban you.
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The Faux news
Kind of like how your post is being used to push your own political agenda.
Ironic that you're trying to be all high and mighty about Fox's shitty practice while at the same time doing the exact thing you're whining about.
Next you demonstrate you clearly have no fucking clue how districting works and why its like it is.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Wow.
I guess you can fix ignorant but you can't fix stupid.