China makes NYC look like the 3rd world

[gambit]

Off topic, but exactly that's how I feel. And maybe like 80% of urban Pakistanis.
Edit: except for the snow part.

In Vegas, I am no stranger to luxury apartment homes in tall buildings. I do not own any of them. I just have friends who are much more wealthier than I who can afford such luxury apartments. But then again, calling them 'friends' is a bit of a stretch since we do not socialize regularly.

Anyway...Cities are terrible indicators of the overall wealth and progressiveness of any country, especially when the US and China are, by geographical scope, essentially continental countries. There is an image somewhere on the Internet that superimposed the US over the Moon. That is how large are the US and China. The spread of wealth and technologies over such an expanse is much better in the US than in China, and that should be the true measure of advancement.

 

[madooxno9]

Any Given Day on my life, I would chose NYC over any city on earth or another planet.

 

[jaunty]

You can replicate the buildings or even build better and taller skyscrappers but you will not be able to replicate the character of NYC. Hands down the most exciting and enthralling city I have been to.

 

[Keel]

The crime rates of our Great Cities are much lower than NYC.
Talking about quality.

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

China's prosperity, as you say, is concentrated along a very thin strip of territory on the Pacific coast line. Go into the interior of China and it's like travelling in a time machine back to the bad old days of Chinese poverty, and subsistence agriculture.

I trust that you are a person who is persuaded with facts. Just as the US of today is not the US of 1980 the China of today is not the China of 1980.

Guiyang - capital of Guizhou province, poorest province in China, 3000 km inland:

Zhengzhou, Henan, 2000 km inland:

Those are provincial capitals, you say. Those are not representative, you say.

Yichang, Hubei - not capital, located in the middle of nowhere.

 

[bolo]

I trust that you are a person who is persuaded with facts. Just as the US of today is not the US of 1980 the China of today is not the China of 1980.

Guiyang - capital of Guizhou province, poorest province in China, 3000 km inland:

View attachment 117290

Zhengzhou, Henan, 2000 km inland:

View attachment 117291

Those are provincial capitals, you say. Those are not representative, you say.

Yichang, Hubei - not capital, located in the middle of nowhere.

View attachment 117292

Guiyang makes vietnamese cities look bad.

 

[Desertfalcon]

I trust that you are a person who is persuaded with facts. Just as the US of today is not the US of 1980 the China of today is not the China of 1980. Don't outsource your thinking to others.

I don't, and I will admit, the pictures are truly impressive and it is nice to see development inland, but as you say, facts are facts and while China has made tremendous progress economically, her per capita income is still below that of countries like, Botswana, Suriname, Costa Rica, Panama, Gabon, etc. That is not an insult. Far from it. South Korea's per capita income was less then $200 dollars just two generations ago. Today, it rivals the European Union. China will be there as well one day.

 

[F-22Raptor]

You can replicate the buildings or even build better and taller skyscrappers but you will not be able to replicate the character of NYC. Hands down the most exciting and enthralling city I have been to.

This......I spent a week touring NYC a couple years ago, and my trip was fantastic. NYC lives up to the hype.

 

[j20blackdragon]

Total residential floorspace in China is well over 49 billion m2, the largest in the world. As a comparison, the US only has around 24 billion m2 of total residential floorspace. Every year, China adds another 2 billion m2 of brand new residential floorspace, equivalent to the entire housing stock of Spain.

This chart shows China's residential real estate construction from 1999 to 2010.

In 2013, China built over 8 kilometers of new skyscrapers. Remember this chart only includes buildings 200 meters or taller.

China has built the world's largest expressway network, surpassing the US Interstate System. At the end of 2013, the total length of China's network was 104,500 km (64,900 mi), of which 8,260 km (5,130 mi) of expressways were built in that year alone. The US Interstate System is 76,788 km (47,714 mi).

Expressways of China - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

China has built the world's largest high speed rail network.

List of high-speed rail lines - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

China has built the world's longest bridges.

List of longest bridges in the world - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

China has built the world's largest electrical grid.

The World Factbook

 

[Spade]

Anybody been to Manhattan?? China or no China, it is like 3rd world country! Feels like home there... all the honking, traffic, general chaos.. man...

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

I don't, and I will admit, the pictures are truly impressive and it is nice to see development inland, but as you say, facts are facts and while China has made tremendous progress economically, her per capita income is still below that of countries like, Botswana, Suriname, Costa Rica, Panama, Gabon, etc. That is not an insult. Far from it. South Korea's per capita income was less then $200 dollars just two generations ago. Today, it rivals the European Union. China will be there as well one day.

Calculation of per capita GDP is a tricky business, where that income comes from and how it is spent is also a tricky business. Costa Rica is not a poor country by any means. Unlike Costa Rica, China's GDP is "hard GDP" from agriculture and manufacturing and backed by the world's 2nd largest scientific publishers, multiple top 5 companies in intellectual property and multiple top tier universities. Note that Chinese GDP per capita is actually *underestimated* due to different accounting conventions regarding home ownership and inflation.

SJR - International Science Ranking

http://www.wipo.int/export/sites/www/ipstats/en/docs/infographics_patents_2013.pdf

Gabon and Botswana - how much of the income is from oil, vs. how much from technology and industry, and how much of it ends up in public goods vs. how much of it ends up in the pockets of oligarchs or repatriated by foreign companies? Remember that GDP represents location, not nationality - a country could possess oil but not the technology needed to extract it, so it would invite MNCs that bring their own workers - does this develop the nation at all?

Just for an example of how GDP per capita is neither an accurate measure of hard power, or of how the average person lives:

Russia and Barbados have equal GDP per capita.
Taiwan and Equatorial Guinea have equal GDP per capita.
Brazil and Libya have equal GDP per capita.

 

[jaunty]

This......I spent a week touring NYC a couple years ago, and my trip was fantastic. NYC lives up to the hype.

It's all one ghetto, man. A giant gutter in outer space.- Rust

 

[420canada]

How desperate are you for validation when you have to quote Anthony Bourdain ?

Like it or not America is a dump. And they reason why I say that is because I have been there thousands of times and it's ugly on inner cities are nice. But outside the city is a wreck.

 

[AZADPAKISTAN2009]

Does not takes much to make that city look bad its very old infrastructure

 

[Desertfalcon]

I would still rather be there than say Toronto, (as so many posters here seem to think as well.), any day of the week. NYC is not nearly as frayed as she used to be a few decades ago, but still one heck of an exciting city to be in!