Chen pays just 1200 RMB, or $168, a month for her apartment in faux Venice in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangsu. It’s so cheap that it’s allowed Chen to retire at the tender age of 28.
With such low rent, she calculates she can live there for the rest of her life without ever having to work again.
Ban moved from a bustling commercial city on China’s east coast to a small town in China’s southwestern Yunnan province. Tucked away in a lush valley, the town is famed for fresh, clean air and healing hot springs. There, for just 800 yuan a month ($110) Ban rents an apartment with three bedrooms, one of which she converted to a yoga studio.
A one-bedroom apartment can be bought for $3,000, and $13,000 can buy a roomy four-bedroom place.
It would be nice if we could build affordable housing here in the US.
The high rises in the thumbnail (where Chen lives) are described as semi-abandoned. China tried building these new cities out in the middle of nowhere, assuming people would fill them, but not enough people moved in. Seems like it would be smarter to just build higher where there is already organic demand.
Well, it’s important to make the satellite photos look like a booming economy while funneling the money to capitalist billionaires wearing communist hats.
But I agree… with cheaper housing. One large problem about western capitalism is supply and demand. Housing should not be a commodity that gets choked to increase profit. Efficient building, even with single family homes, can make houses cost next to nothing. Frankly, I would like to see non-profit builders or even state sponsored builders that sell “at cost” with publicly available paper trails. Of course…… resell for profit needs to also be prohibited.