What a soulless nightmare
(twitter.com)
You know what's worse. China doesn't have private property rights at all. Only 20 year land lease. So what you do is that you buy one of these houses, and pay about as much as you'd pay for a house in the US. This on a $300/yr wage, which means it's a lifelong loan.
Then the developer sign the lease for the land, clear it up and start to build these blocks, fitting as many apartments as possible on the tiny plot of land. This can take up to 5 years to complete. Then, assuming everything went well and you weren't scammed, which is often the case, you can finally move in, at which point it's just bare bone concrete. Now you have to spend more money to build your home, install plumbing, AC, walls and floors then bring in your furniture.
Finally, after the 20 year lease expires everyone has to move out and the whole neighborhood is demolished, assuming it's still standing because most buildings are rushed and tend to collapse long before the 20 year lease expires. This is often refereed to as tofu dreg concrete. If they ever bother to fix anything, all problems are solved with concrete without reinforcement.
Then the developer sign the lease for the land, clear it up and start to build these blocks, fitting as many apartments as possible on the tiny plot of land. This can take up to 5 years to complete. Then, assuming everything went well and you weren't scammed, which is often the case, you can finally move in, at which point it's just bare bone concrete. Now you have to spend more money to build your home, install plumbing, AC, walls and floors then bring in your furniture.
Finally, after the 20 year lease expires everyone has to move out and the whole neighborhood is demolished, assuming it's still standing because most buildings are rushed and tend to collapse long before the 20 year lease expires. This is often refereed to as tofu dreg concrete. If they ever bother to fix anything, all problems are solved with concrete without reinforcement.
I've read and watched videos about the Chinese culture associated with living like this: the biggest shock I had was learning how the residents don't even try to improve anything.
It's normal for the lights in the stairways and halls to need replacing, but nobody lifts a finger to fix any problems, even a $1 light-bulb, because they just don't care.
They don't want for anything better.
They're like animals.
A lot of these developments is also bare bone and empty, used solely as investment apartments which people buy only to sell at a higher value, which is kind of insane you might think as the more time passes on the less time on the lease. Who would buy a $500k apartment which they can only live in for 5 years until it has to be demolished.