Comment on Public transit in Chengdu, China versus Toronto, Canada
SirEDCaLot@lemmy.today 3 weeks ago
All jokes aside, things like this are why China is beating us. I am absolutely not a fan of the Chinese government, but the simple fact is they get shit done.
No just any shit, shit that helps everyday people living in their country.
I’m just thinking of the major cities in my U.S. state where the public transit map, before and after, looks like Chengdu in 2010. So as unfortunate as the circumstances are in Toronto, they can be even worse.
I cant find statistics on total occupancy rates, but I never saw a high speed train in China that wasnt mostly full, and they mosty sell out days beforehand, so Im pretty sure that’s just someone making shit up. As far as domestic debt due to infrastructure spending, apply your model to Japan.
I think people forget that many of the highways in The West™ were created as part of glorified jobs programs too.
These projects run like utter shit now in places where work is tendered out to corporations now of course, because they’re being driven by private bodies whose sole motivation is profit, not the creation of useful infrastructure. In my own country HS2 is a beautiful example of this.
Do you have any clues why privatization was so much more destructive in the UK than Japan? The JNR breakup increased ticket prices, decreased service, and made the system overall much more inefficient (Nagoya has subway, rail, elevated rail, bus, elevated bus, ferry, gondola, run by 16 different companies), but regulation and infinite loans stemmed the bleeding.
I think that person’s logic goes like, “government run” = “artificially propped up” = “doesn’t count as real growth”.
It’s the final form of capitalist indoctrination to only be able to reason about other systems through its lens.
It’s almost as if infrastructure is there to facilitate growth and economy and not to turn a profit.
Do the same math for roads: How many percent of the roads in your country (or any other country) turn a profit?
Do the same with water works, sewage and so on. All these things have benefits far greater than immediate profit.
You need roads so that people can get to work and to places where they can spend money and so that goods can be shipped. And all of these things generate taxes and economic benefit, which in turn finance, among other things, road building.
It would be entirely stupid to think that every piece of infrastructure needs to finance itself and turn a profit, while completely forgetting the actual purpose and benefit of the infrastructure.
Overproduction of commodities is certainly a problem for capitalists. But the workers get to enjoy a lower cost of living. Like I would much prefer we built ghost cities (Chengdu was derided as a ghost city at one point) than have a decades long housing crisis with no signs of improving unless we deport millions of people.
Did you know that most of China’s debt is held domestically?
Yeah, sure. China has a debt to GDP of 88.6%. That’s not great. Luckily we don’t have that problem in western capitalist countries, right?
LOL thanks for your unfunded BS CIA.
Much of the growth in China is entirely artificial and is basically a glorified jobs program. China builds tons of cities throughout the country to generate construction contracts and keep people employed.
I’d infinitely much rather have meaningful job programs that actually increase the real amount of wealth in the nation (such as public transport and housing) than whatever crisis the west has by building too little housing for people for the last few decades simply to make the cost of the existing real estate go up further so landlords can ask higher rents. What a nightmare, what a disaster. How could anybody shill for this?
One of the reasons they can build their future so quickly is because they were left in a unique position after WW2 to effectively destroy their past.
And they have slave labor. Oops, I guess that’s something that shouldn’t be said in a post pandering China
I’ve been to urumqi, theres no slave labor, its normal industrial farms. Unless youre suggesting the guys driving the combine harvesters or running the factories are secretly enslaved.
not a downvote either. guess you didn’t say the magic word.
Uyghurs
The US hates China, hates muslims but pretend to care about those poor Chinese muslims.
I wonder why?
If you’re USian - you have vastly more domestic slaves (I think you call them prisoners in for-profit prisons) than Uyghur population. Maybe you should do something about it.
If you’re not USian, no rebuttal.
The only country I know taht has slave labor is the US and their barbaric Gulf states friend.
But the poor Uyghurs!!! BS propaganda
all the big countries have slave labour by any other name, they all fucking suck
It’s not like workers having to do 2 or 3 jobs in the US just to allow their family to survive are really “free workers”. At least slaves in China seem to benefit the country. In the US, the slaves just benefit big corporations and their shareholders.
Don’t compare struggling to make rent to the prisoners picking cotton by hand in Lousiana.
I’m curious, tell me more about this (actual question, not being sarcastic)
China was invaded by Japan before WW2. Look up the Rape of Nanking if you want specifics. Once WW2 ended China had a civil war. The CCP managed to win and Mao Zedong ascended to power. He led the Cultural Revolution which basically eliminated the old ways of China to pave the way, over the bodies of millions of people, for modern China.
rustydomino@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
It helps that in China you can’t own land. All the land is owned by the government. You only have “use rights” and for a limited time (something like 80 years - I forget the exact number). So when it comes time to build infrastructure the government just tells you to gtfo.
rustydomino@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Look to public transit development in Taiwan as an example of how to do it right in a democratic nation. There are still loads of problems but the Taiwanese government can’t just take your land outright. Taipei especially has seen phenomenal growth in its metro development in the last 20 years.
Bloomcole@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
The government of Taiwan is the Chinese government
mlg@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Just like how Pakistan administers Jammu & Kashmir and India administers AJK & Gilgit Baltistan, both of which are across the Line of Control in the opposite country’s border lol.
Bloomcole@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
LOL
surewhynotlem@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
America is no different. Try not paying your land tax.
The only difference is that, in America, someone needs to shout “eminent domain!” first and slip you $500 for your house.
deddit@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Isn’t this post about Canada?
Alcoholicorn@mander.xyz 3 weeks ago
China has stronger property laws than the US, look up stuck nail houses. If the US ants your property, they can eminent domain your shit. In China, developers have literally had to swerve highways around property or build shopping centers around that one person who wont sell
jaschen306@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Lies. My family had a factory in Wuxi, China. 2 buildings that were dedicated to dormitories. 4 buildings dedicated to manufacturing promotional products.
We were able to lease the land for 50 years with a 50-year option at the end of the term.
Around year 5, the government decided to turn the main dirt road into a proper road. They took back 1/4 of the land. They just used our area for staging.
About a year after the road was made, they decided to expand the road. They took back now 1/2 of the original land and buildings.
Less than a year after the expansion, they turned the 4 lane road i to a highway. They took the entire land back. My family invested millions of dollars in buildings and infrastructure. We got back pennies on the dollar spent on the investment on compensation.
My family never fully recovered financially.
Alcoholicorn@mander.xyz 3 weeks ago
Huh, if the government has that power, why don’t they use it for stuck nail houses? I talked to a few people in shenzhen who made significant sums selling land to developers.
Different type of ownership due to your family purchasing the land vs inheriting it? Different provinces?
Bloomcole@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I’m sure that’s the whole story.
gurnu@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
And China has slave labor
zbyte64@awful.systems 3 weeks ago
I mean so does the United States thanks to the 13th amendment but we don’t have anywhere near the same infrastructure to show for it
clay_pidgin@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
American slave labor isn’t used for anything interesting - it’s just letting companies pay less for labor for their own benefit.
greywolf0x1@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
Proof or I don’t believe.
gurnu@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Ever heard of Uyghurs? Or do you just refuse to read the news?
ALiteralCabbage@feddit.uk 3 weeks ago
Wait until you hear about the UK! I own the freehold to my land, but technically it’s gramted by the crown, so I could in theory at any moment have my home taken from me.
Bloomcole@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Wrong, the state owns the land but you can own the house, and not just for your 70y BS period.
There are plenty of articles like of instances where homeowners don’t want to sell for infrastructure like this: twistedsifter.com/…/china-builds-highway-around-h…
I know for a fact here in EU or the US they will indeed " just tells you to gtfo"
BTW, in China a high 90% of people OWN their house and aren’t rentslaves.
So there’s that China bad man.
protist@mander.xyz 3 weeks ago
It’s hard to overstate how much safer and more ethical it is to use eminent domain and fairly compensate someone monetarily for their property than to leave their house in the middle of a highway
Bloomcole@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
That’s besides the point wether you think it’s better or not, it should be the OWNER’s decision as is the case in China.
And not what this rustydomino is pulling out of his ass.
Alcoholicorn@mander.xyz 3 weeks ago
I’m sure the developers offered “fair compensation”, you need to demand lot before fucking up the highway design is more economical.