August 18, 2004
THE PINK PROBLEMS OF RED GOVERNANCE:
China's property market not in the pink of health (Straits Times, 8/18/04)
China has a serious problem these days, and its colour is pink.Pink and similar hues - from rose-tinged brick to tangerine and even magenta - have been popular in the past few years with Chinese developers, who are also partial to tinted, highly reflective glass and rooftops in the shape of lotus blossoms.
The result is an extraordinary number of garish apartment buildings, office buildings, industrial parks and houses, especially here in south-eastern China.
But the big problem for China is not so much that these new buildings are hideous, though many are, but that an extraordinary number of them are empty.
A sixth of the luxury residential real estate in Shanghai is vacant, a quarter in Beijing and a third in Shenzhen. And in the next several years, the number of unoccupied buildings is expected to increase considerably.
Experts predict that the supply of office space will rise by as much as 50 per cent in the next couple of years, while forests of luxury residential buildings are being completed in Shanghai, Beijing and elsewhere.
Nobody knows who will buy up this pink profusion.
The Chinese have seen their future, it's Detroit. Posted by Orrin Judd at August 18, 2004 11:57 AM
But the big problem for China is not so much that these new buildings are hideous, though many are, but that an extraordinary number of them are empty.
Do you suppose that they might be empty because they are hideous? Or would that make too much sense?
Posted by: Mike Morley at August 18, 2004 12:14 PMMike:
They're empty because the place is run from the top down. They just keep building crap that no one wants or will ever use.
Posted by: oj at August 18, 2004 1:16 PMA very close description of, say, Houston or Denver during the Reagan years.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at August 18, 2004 1:37 PMAh, Harry's world, where the New Deal, Stalinism and Maoism are going to work out fine any day now.
Posted by: oj at August 18, 2004 1:43 PMBut Reagan ran up the deficit just to finance all those buildings, didn't he? Oh, wait a minute....
Denver/Houston boomed from 77-81, and then collapsed when price controls on energy were repealed.
Harry - timing is everything. Back yours up about 4 years.
Posted by: jim hamlen at August 18, 2004 2:15 PM
All I know is that people were walking away from Houston real estate, leaving the doors open behind them, in the midst of the Reagan prosperity.
I was working in Des Moines at the time and happened to know how much commercial real estate there was in D.M. -- 39 million square feet.
That's how much was unoccupied in Houston.
Timing is, indeed, everything. I wouldn't bet on city buildings staying empty in a country with 900 million rural folk moving to the cities.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at August 18, 2004 6:30 PMThe government won't let them move.
Posted by: oj at August 18, 2004 7:58 PMWell, the cities are getting bigger by the millions, and the citizens aren't having adult babies, so I'd say you must be wrong.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at August 18, 2004 11:29 PMhttp://www.fee.org/vnews.php?nid=5056
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