How can so many of China's cities afford to have such impressive skylines? (life, country)

[BigCityDreamer]

The GDPs of the top 8 Chinese are lower than that of the top 8 U.S. cities. This is the case even though the Chinese cities are typically larger in population.

So, how does China afford to have so many skyscrapers in these cities?

[destinedtodave]

They can't afford NOT to have impressive skylines. For one, even in major cities like Shanghai, most of the skyscrapers are high rise apartments. The population of these cities is so dense for many reasons including lack of autos and low density suburbs, and yet each year millions of poor people come to work from rural areas adding to the density. The only way for Chinese cities to accommodate that many people is to build up.

Secondly, the government (central and municipal) invests heavily in infrastructure encouraging this kind of development.

Finally, there is no culture of NIMBYism, if an area is rezoned as an office park or high rise complex, the people living there and around the area have no recourse.

[eskercurve]

Basically it is because the central government has been loaning money to the rest of the world because they enjoyed many years of being an exporting country. You can think of it as a couple of people bartering goods. The US sells China manufacturing machines, robots, etc., and China sells the US manufactured goods, cheap goods, household consumer items, etc. But the Chinese sell the US more than the US sells China stuff. So they have to borrow the money, or make up with it in terms of more taxes.

Of course the public in the US doesn't actually want to be responsible for their own excesses (or their wars, or the idiots they elect to government, or anything really ... but that's dangerously close to me getting on that soap box).

So the only option left is to borrow money from China with interest. It's called a trade imbalance.

So all these years, China has been gathering momentum getting more manufacturing prowess, better infrastructure, better opportunities for their people (verily, over 300 million people have been lifted out of poverty in the past 20 years). And we've been repaying the debt so they have a lot of money now.

They also encourage infrastructure development to house these millions of people.

[Chava61]

Originally Posted by destinedtodave

They can't afford NOT to have impressive skylines. For one, even in major cities like Shanghai, most of the skyscrapers are high rise apartments. The population of these cities is so dense for many reasons including lack of autos and low density suburbs, and yet each year millions of poor people come to work from rural areas adding to the density. The only way for Chinese cities to accommodate that many people is to build up.

Shanghai has many skyscrapers but not all of them are apt. buildings. Quite a few them are fancy hotels and office buildings. But in other large cities in China there is a construction boom which includes apt. buildings for all the new young couples that need housing in the big cities. As mentioned quite a few of these people have come from rural areas and that adds to the density in the larger cities.

Also these skyscrapers as well as other buildings are lit up at night using multi-colors which definitely must add to their electricity bills. So one would also wonder how they afford that as well.

[ErikJohnsson]

What eskercurve said, and I'd emphasize the US spends far too much on military, healthcare (despite being largely privatized, the government stills ends up paying a lot since private companies do everything they can to make profits), and helping out its largest companies. I'm not arguing China is doing everything right, but it's obvious their government is spending far more on things that benefit their public, where as the US government is helping out those who contribute the most to the political parties and to keep the industries afloat that contribute a lot to the GDP (regardless of the benefit to the public).

[wrcousert]

Originally Posted by BigCityDreamer

The GDPs of the top 8 Chinese are lower than that of the top 8 U.S. cities. This is the case even though the Chinese cities are typically larger in population.

So, how does China afford to have so many skyscrapers in these cities?

Super cheap labor and state ownership of natural resources.

[fitz99clem]

China can be thought of as two nations when it comes to prosperity. Their is the uneducated, rural migrants that come to the big cities in search of work. It is somewhat comparable to the illegal immigrants that come to the U.S. in search of a better life. On the opposite spectrum, there are a number of highly educated Chinese that enjoy prosperity that surpasses what we see in most parts of the United States. It is not uncommon for a 30 yr old with a strong educational background to make the equivalent of $200k plus in the larger cities.

The GDP’s of the top 8 Chinese cities is still with a wealthy high amount of money and compatible for a lot of investment and development.

The GDP’s in Chinese cities is easily catching up with USA cities.

After the USA, China has the second biggest and wealthiest economy in the world based on size, although that is very bias to countries population and geographic size. So lots of smaller countries can still do better per capita and for percentage of people in those countries having high income, middle class, and low income.

For China, building high-rises is probably cheaper and with less bureaucracy hindering it compared to the USA, making it easier for all of that to be built.

China also has more demand for those buildings being created than the USA. The USA still has more available land than China relative to the population it has to sustain.

In the USA, there is still lots of people that prefer lower density and owning a house with more space.

China has a phenomenal amount of big cities and metropolises. There is no other country with as many huge cities.

This is related to the post above but I decided to put this in a separate post to show the amount of specific Chinese cities that exist.

A lot of people from outside China probably still don’t know yet how much of that China has. Those people probably think it is around 6 big cities total but there is more than that amount.

China has more than 100 cities with a population higher than one million people this website confirms: List of China's Largest Cities - Twenty Largest Cities in China

This is a list for at least 20 of those cities based partly on this website link List of cities in the People's Republic of China by population - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

1. Shanghai: 23 million people. Shanghai literally has 15 million more people than New York City!

2. Beijing: 19.5 million people.

3. Guangzhou: 12.8 million

4. Shenzhen: 10 to 11 million.

5. Chongqing: 10 to 11 million

6. Chengdu: 10 to 11 million

7. Tianjin: 10 to 11 million.

8. Hong Kong: 7 to 8 million. It is around the same population as New York City, so at least 7 Chinese cities having a higher population than that.

9. Nanking: 7 million.

10. Hangzhou: 6 to 7 million.

11. Wuhan: 6.4 million.

12. Shenyang: 5.7 million.

13. Harbin: 5.3 million

14. Xi’an: 5 million

15. Qingdao: 3.7 million: This is the same population as Los Angeles, USA’s second biggest city based on population. Around 14 Chinese cities have a higher population.

16. Dalian: 3.6 million

17. Hefei: 3.3 million

18. Kunming: 3.2 million

19. Zhengzhou: 3.1 million

20. Urumqi: 2.7 million: This is around Chicago’s population, the 3rd biggest city in the USA. China may have 19 cities in each of them with more people than Chicago!

There is also Fuzhou, Xiamen, Changsha, Wuxi, Zibo, Tangshan, and at least 10 more cities with more than 1 million people each in China.

[Trimac20]

^ Just to be clear the 23 million for Shanghai is the METRO population. NY's metro is 22 million, so they are similar in size. Most of the figures you list are also for METRO. Los Angeles has about 17 million, comparable to Beijing, Chicago has 9.5 million in it's metro, the same as Chengdu etc.