China's Real Estate Boom is Much More Shocking than Ours

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Monday October 17, 2005 · 9:48 PM PDT

2005/10/17 · 21:48

As we worry about real estate boom in the US, a much greater wave than we can ever imagine has enveloped China and it speaks to the power of what is happening there. If you wonder why Treasury Secretary Snow came back rather sheepishly from his latest trip to make China, our banker, adjust its currency you will now know why. The scale of what is happening is beyond our imagining.

David Barboza offers a truly shocking multimedia presentation titled, "China's Real Estate Boom", within today's NY Times online article ,"China Builds Its Dreams, and Some Fear a Bubble". Here are few samples from his article to temp you and help you graphically understand what is happening there.

1.    In 1985 Shanghai had one skyscraper in the city. Today they have 4,000 or about two times the number in our largest metropolis, NYC.
2.    Shanghai has 1 billion square feet under construction which compares to New York City's present combined built office space totalling 350 million square feet.
3.    There are miniature city projects now under construction of up to 130 million square feet which compares with our largest mall, the Mall of America and its 3.5 million square feet
4.    By 2010 China expects to urbanize another 75 million more people. That is within 5 years!

Shanghai Photo of Bund and Shanghai Statistics

I am only left with questions as to what this might mean to us.

1.    What affect would a real estate bust there have on the US ecomnomy?
2.    Is China's rise to power going to be much faster than we ever expected? What will the real effect on quality of life in the US truly be? Are our workers doomed to lose job and benefits way beyond what we already fear?
3.    With our tremendous budget deficit and republican culture of corruption can we hope to have a plan to succeed in the next few decades?
4.    How do we awaken our nation to the economic, political and military threat that our shopping addictions are creating?

Article Link China Builds Its Dreams, and Some Fear a Bubble

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