Chinese are recreating American neighborhoods?

[Neo]

Orange County, China - The US is not only outsourcing much of its manufacturing jobs to China, it is also recreating some of its most well-known places such as Orange County, CA. It doesn't stop at Orange county however. All over Beijing China, American popularities are popping up everywhere. Everything from a recreation of Central Park to Palm Springs. The names aren't unique either as they take on their counterparts, the real location of such properties, in the US.

Homes in these developments are not Chinese in nature but have the same architectural design as they would had they been built in say Palm Springs or Los Angeles. Currently there is only one company offering such developments in China but no doubt more will follow as the Chinese culture is eager to be even more woven into the fabric of the US.

Pictures:

http://www.orangecounty.com.cn/news/detail.htm

To read what the New York Times has to say about these developments, follow the link below. Free login to NYTimes.com is required to view the article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/03/internat...sia/03CHIN.html

[dimebag1980]

I don't know what to think of this.

However, as it is said, imitation is the highest form of flattery.

[damus]

Heh... I read the topic wrong. Around where I live, Chinese are kinda recreating Chinese neighborhoods. A lot of immigrants come in and get jobs working at local casinos, and other Chinese guys with good money come down and buy houses, then rent them out. It is pretty common for 20-30 Chinese people to live in a single family house, many of them with only one bathroom. They sleep based upon what shifts they work at the casinos, and (gasp) walk, ride bicycles, or take the bus to work. Apart from a few asian grocery stores here and there, none of these immigrants have really made a difference in the community yet. I would love to see an authentic chinese restaurant opened up somewhere.

[Jerseyman4]

Levittown is at it again

[dimebag1980]

Heh... I read the topic wrong. Around where I live, Chinese are kinda recreating Chinese neighborhoods. A lot of immigrants come in and get jobs working at local casinos, and other Chinese guys with good money come down and buy houses, then rent them out. It is pretty common for 20-30 Chinese people to live in a single family house, many of them with only one bathroom. They sleep based upon what shifts they work at the casinos, and (gasp) walk, ride bicycles, or take the bus to work. Apart from a few asian grocery stores here and there, none of these immigrants have really made a difference in the community yet. I would love to see an authentic chinese restaurant opened up somewhere.

Sounds a lot like the Mexicans around here... 20-30 living in a single-family house.

[blueblackcat]

Just shows yet again how the rest of the world copies the very worst parts our culture at face value with no thought to the circumstances, higher goals, or true feelings of Americans. In Orange County, I saw a mentally ill homeless man walk up behind another man and stab him in the back... on a crowded beach. What's so good about OC? Some of the fakest people I've ever met in my life live in Cali. They must know they're really not what the rest of the world expects them to be.

[CtownMikey]

haha they wish..

[dpbaker]

Around here some neighborhoods, and seemingly entire areas are being populated by Chinese; not poor ones packing many into a single home, but ones with a lot of cash, I'm guessing from Taiwan and Hong Kong. A small town near where I live (Cupertino, CA - home of Apple Computer) has a shopping area that is exclusively Chinese now, dozens of shops and a large market. Kanji stands out, English does not on the signage. Most other shopping areas at least several Chinese shops in them. Chinese banks, Charles Schwab offices with kanji signs, BofA ATMS in English, Spanish, and Chinese. Some pretty serious influence, not many good Chinese restaurants though...

[GRDadof3]

Based on just that picture shown, it doesn't look that bad. The density (for a single-family home neighborhood) looks pretty good (probably 60' lots). It could be a lot worse with 2 - 3 acre lots. It would really depend on where these subs were located in relation to city centers, neighborhood amenities, etc.. Not everyone wants to, or can, live in high-density flats or stacked product. If they are building these on undeveloped rural land 50 miles from the city, yeesh! Why not just move to the USA.

There are throngs of Asians moving to Grand Rapids, and a mini "Asia-Town" has cropped up on a major thoroughfare, Division Avenue South of 28th Street, with some great restaurants and stores.

[blueblackcat]

We are talking about China, with an average population density of 1,650 per square mile, versus the USA, which has a population density of 77 per square mile.

The notion that this could be a development choice based on personal preference for the Chinese is ludicrous and it goes down to a much deeper debate about what the very goals for their society should be. And this is an example of an unreachable goal.

If you divided all the territory in the US evenly, each person would get just over 8 acres of land. Hypothetically, you could still justify suburbanism as an equitable lifestyle for everyone. In China, simply building an extra road to one of these neighborhoods means there will be less food grown for everyone else who is already impoverished. You can't really justify it even by saying it's far enough outside the city centers. The land pressures in China are so extreme, they have been trying to farm land that should have never been farmed and created catastrophic dust bowls much larger than the Olklohoma ones in our past. It is so bad that some of the dust is settling on the west coast of the United States.

There is no way you can sustain American-style suburbanism in China. We should instead take a lesson from the issues they are facing there and realize how decadent, inefficient, and unecessary the sprawl we have here is.

[damus]

But dense cities are great places to spread germs. Couple that with China's meat markets and they're ripe for disease. I didn't look it up so I don't know, but if given the technology we use on our "factory" farms, wouldn't they be able to feed themselves pretty easily?

[lammius]

If China ever did go suburban the way the U.S. has ("god forbid"), think about their demand for oil and what the cost would be for us.

China, on the whole, is still going urban--VERY urban. I agree with blueblackcat. I think it is US who need to take a lesson from the Chinese, not v/v.

[damus]

If China ever did go suburban the way the U.S. has ("god forbid"), think about their demand for oil and what the cost would be for us.

China, on the whole, is still going urban--VERY urban. I agree with blueblackcat. I think it is US who need to take a lesson from the Chinese, not v/v.

To be fair, they are ruthless dictators in a capitalistic environment. They are bulldozing entire neighborhoods to build up, especially in Beijing for the Olympics. The countryside is a mess, and they won't let people emigrate to the cities from these areas. The Chinese seems to have taken a lesson from the US and applied a little capitalism to the USSR's model of central planning and control of the people. Some have argued they actually are only enriching their people so they'll remain happy and won't rise up against the Communists. China may be undergoing a never before seen transformation, but it still violates people's human rights and sees nothing wrong with buying oil from countries that even the oil hungry west deem too shady to negotiate with.

[samsonyuen]

That's really interesting. Where is the Central Park project, and is it the same size?

[Mikejesmike]

We are talking about China, with an average population density of 1,650 per square mile, versus the USA, which has a population density of 77 per square mile.

You're way off.

If China had the density you stated it would have-5,941,529,550 people

United States would have-272,382,726 people

China has 365 per sq. mile

USA has 84.4 per sq. mile

Unless you're talking about the more populated part of eastern China, then of course you'd have to include the more populated part of the United States-all states east of the Mississippi. I don't know what China's figures would be,but I do know all states East of the Mississippi would have a density of over 200 per sq. mile and a population about the same as Brazil.

[blueblackcat]

You're way off.

If China had the density you stated it would have-5,941,529,550 people

United States would have-272,382,726 people

China has 365 per sq. mile

USA has 84.4 per sq. mile

Unless you're talking about the more populated part of eastern China, then of course you'd have to include the more populated part of the United States-all states east of the Mississippi. I don't know what China's figures would be,but I do know all states East of the Mississippi would have a density of over 200 per sq. mile and a population about the same as Brazil.

Yes you're right. I checked again and it turns out I mistakenly read the figures for Taiwan because it was listed as "Republic of China (Taiwan)". I should have caught that. But as far as year, I used July 2005 projections. That gives USA 77 and China 352, so we can let that stand for 2005. I would use 2005 since that's more pertinent to what has happened over the last year up until the present.

I really like that 200 figure you gave for density east of the Mississippi. I will be using it to point out to suburbanites how the eastern half of the US already imports a lot of its food from western half... something most Americans understand, I think... and tell them to just imagine how hard life would get if both the eastern and western halves had population densities of 352. And then I will tell them to imagine 50% of this spread out in suburban sprawl. I think maybe some people will start to get it that buying a Prius just isn't good enough.

[Mikejesmike]

Even if the estimate was from 2005 you have to be careful that the estimate didn't include water area. A lot of sources fail to mention this.

I checked up on the area east of the Mississippi (not including Louisiana and Minnesota) and according to 2005 census estimates there are now 174,593,121 people which translates to 205 per sq mile. Up from 167,481,171 in 2000 and 197 per sq mile.

There's more people living in this area than every other nation but-

China

India

Indonesia

Brazil-186,405,000

That's more than 1/2 the population living on 1/4 of the land.

[Phizzy]

China:

Area: 3,600,947 square miles (land)

Population: 1,313,973,713 (2006 estimate)

Population density: 365 per square mile (less than the population densities of the states of New Jersey, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland, New York, and Delaware)

United States:

Area: 3,537,438 square miles (land)

Population: 298,444,215 (2006 estimate)

Population: 84 per square mile

[blueblackcat]

China:

(less than the population densities of the states of New Jersey, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland, New York, and Delaware)

That's irrelevant, though. Might as well say China has a lower population density than a Wawa in Podunk, NJ.

[damus]

How dense is the heavily populated eastern seaboard over in China.

[Mikejesmike]

How dense is the heavily populated eastern seaboard over in China.

At least 1,000 per sq mile.

[Mikejesmike]

I did some research and I was wrong,but it really depends on which ones you leave out to go over 1,000.

guangdong-110,000,000-68,649

fujian-35,110,000-46,332

zhejiang-47,200,000-39,305

shanghai-17,420,000-2,394

jiangsu-74,330,000-39,614

shandong-91,800,000-59,074

heibei-68,090,0000-73,359

beijing-14,930,000-6,486

tianjin-10,240,000-4,363

liaoning-42,170,000-56,255

jilin-27,090,000-72,701

heilongjiang-38,170,000-181,802

shanxi-33,350,000-60,232

henan-97,170,000-64,459

anhui-64,610,000-53,668

jiangxi-42,840,000-64,325

hunan-66,980,000-81,081

hubei-60,160,000-72,356

shaanxi-37,050,000-79,151

Population-978,710,000

Area-1,125,606

Per square mile-869

About 4.23 times denser than the United States east of the Mississippi.

Here's a political map so you can see the area.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c...inistrative.png

[colin]

When I lived in Shanghai in high school, we lived in an older version of one of these places, but there were many others going up that were much nicer. Ours was three-stories with an unfenced yard, small garage, hardwood floors throughout and something like six bedrooms (my father's company at the time paid the rent). There was also a more townhome style building nearby and a 12-story apartment tower with a small store at the bottom. The construction on the house was also awful, although the frame itself probably could have withstood a 7.0 earthquake.

The name escapes me now, but there was one ([edit]Shanghai Links[/edit]) on the east side of the river (Pu Dong) very close to the ocean where the houses were all American style, built with imported materials and built by Australians (who apparently, while there, would get drunk each night and terrorize the locals). I knew several people who lived out there, and the biggest complaint was the distance you had to travel to get into the city (at least 25 miles). I also didn't like that it was perpetually very windy and there was no actual beach on the ocean.

The developers tried very hard to lure people to move there as well. They once threw a free party where those who lived there invited others to come in. My band at the time was also invited to play for whatever reason. The older residents left after about 30 minutes, but the rest of us who didn't live there hung around until about 3am and finished off their alcohol. Good times.

They are absolutely the most desirable places to live in for Chinese though. However, they tend to cost about the same as a house in California, although prices may have changed since China's real estate bust. Very nice for the priviledged few who can afford it.

These places are really pretty awful though. They're all behind big gates and walls, completely isolated from the surrounding community. You feel like an elitist while living there, although that may be what the Chinese are after in this situation.

[PghUSA]

Hey the Steelers got dibs on what flag the sports bars will fly . . . can you imagine having a 1 billion person fan base added to your team, heck the Cowboys adopted all of Mexico back in the 60's and 70's.