Build It And They Will Come

More musings...

I cannot put into words how much construction is ongoing in this country. It is said that
the national bird is the crane, the construction crane! You look out over the skyline in
any city in any direction and you literally cannot count how many cranes are on top of
how many buildings. The Chinese don't build out, they build up! In the cities the routine
seems to be to relocate people living in old houses or apartments or anything low rise
and replace what was there with a 30 story (at least) apartment building. And not just
one building but a cluster of four or eight or a dozen or even more.

When you buy an apartment in China you are buying a cement box. There is no
privately owned land in China; it belongs to everyone so you are actually buying a lease
on your apartment. It comes with nothing. No flooring, no wall covering or paint, no
appliances, heavens to Betsy, no plumbing!!!! You have to furnish everything from the
toilet to the doors and windows. Lemme tell ya, they've got some HUGE IKEA stores
over here!!!

Besides apartments and office buildings, there are new bridges and highways being
built absolutely everywhere. And I'm not talking little foot bridges and two lane roads.
I'm talking Golden Gate Bridge sized expanses over rivers and valleys and multi lane
interstates. But here's the irony: in the cities there is constant gridlock on the streets that
are way too small for the volume of cars but outside the city where there are huge new
highways? Barely a car or truck. Ditto for these giant bridges.

Cruising up the Yangzi we saw hundreds of small freighters and almost all were hauling
sand or gravel for all this building. I don't think you could count the number of dump
trucks and bulldozers at work along the river.

The young people in the country continue to move to the cities. In China the farms
are very small, usually two acres per person. The farmers work very hard with rather
primitive methods (haven't seen a tractor yet) and barely make ends meet. A farmer is
viewed as a peasant by the general populace. It's quite impossible for them to improve
their lot. Thus the migration to the cities and all those roads, bridges and apartment
buildings.

1.4 billion people! They've gotta live somewhere...how about a sweet four bedroom in
Kennesaw?