It's an incredible city.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/CityPorn/comments/8kqwnf/chongqing_...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_cities#List https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megacity#List_of_megacities
which disagree with this (and each other) on which city is largest.
As far as I can tell, Tokyo is at the top of the list because because they seem to be using the estimates for the entire region. Other estimates for Tokyo's population - even on Wikipedia - are less than half the number listed there.
What amazes me is China's capacity to do development on a large scale, something that's completely missing in Europe. If we had efficient large-scale construction solved, we could really put a dent in the cost of living crisis, and reverse the overcrowding of the existing urban centers.
Just from top of my head as I left Shanghai 10 years ago, a typical condo in Shanghai could cost over 5 million yuan (urban but definitely not core city), while a salary of 300k pre-tax is considered as a good salary.
On the other side, housing is affordable for locals -- locals usually got very generous compensation from the demolition of their original home.
This would exclude ex-pats.
Show me a place that looks like that where no-one goes hungry, has to worry about medical bills and doesn’t live in fear of the rich and powerful and then I’ll be impressed.
I’m not sure if it’s what you are thinking of, but I don’t think the massive expansion of cities in the Industrial Revolution was caused by incredible inequality (unless you count inequality between urban and rural areas?).
I guess you could be thinking of ‘monuments’ built by the rich and saying they are due to inequality but I would think the analogue to Chongqing would be the constructing of the ‘megacities’ of the past, which is mostly about building lots of residential, industrial, and office space rather than palaces.
China’s development is impressive because it prioritizes coordination and scale, whereas Europe struggles more with political and organizational fragmentation and lack of initiative.
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chongqing > The municipality covers a large geographical area roughly the size of Austria,[14] which includes several disjunct urban areas in addition to Chongqing proper.
I think you’re still speaking about Chongqing. China builds these and closes the wage gap.
Lower socio economic Chinese definitely still fear the rich and worry about being homeless and not getting medical treatment.
The GINI coefficient is higher in the USA than it is in China.
China in recent years has reduced inequality while the US has done absolutely nothing to curb discontent, the same discontent that has led to the election of a fascist leader.
Don’t believe me, look up the data.
After many years of increasing inequality
> the US has done absolutely nothing to curb discontent, the same discontent that has led to the election of a fascist leader.
I cannot imagine possible definition of "fascist" that would include the US and exclude China. China has far more fascist features than any other major country - personality cult, courts compliant with the government, erasure of minority cultures - and actual genocide.
...the problem is that some people are concerned only with how things are done, this is feudal government, this is pre-industrial economic growth, who does things, how they do it, make sure nothing new is every tried because that is dangerous and might lead to the elite losing control. China (and much of East Asia) succeeded because they are concerned only with outcomes, and this is all that people care about anyway. Unfortunately, the West is now controlled by people who see change as dangerous, and nothing is more dangerous than a country leapfrogging them in development because it proves that their leadership is bankrupt and incompetent.
But us in 3rd world countries have the ability to see both Western and Eastern societies' development and compare it ij a more unbiased way.
Frankly the China bet looks more successful.
China is a success for whom? Exploited factory workers, Tibetans and Uyghurs?
The things the West can do to compete are to work harder on education, become an attractive destination for immigration, foster productive innovation, and focus on key industries and supply chains. Right now the US in particular is doing the opposite, and it's damaging America's standing and ability to compete with China.
China should be incentive to work harder. During the Cold War we used the threat of the Soviets being better than us to do some of the best engineering and science we've ever done. If our response to China is to call them names and hope that their growth stalls, then I think I can predict a different outcome for the West in the coming century.
China has been able to (for a time) sustain this kind of rapid industrialization because of globalization, a model of hyper-inflation and by taking advantage of wage inequality (i.e. paying their workers less) in order to dump goods into other countries’ markets. Take away globalization and China starves in the dark, because the part of their population that is largest, most productive and knows how to even feed itself (China is a heavy net importer of food, especially pork) is also very old. And when those people are too old to work, China is going to rely on the rest of the world to sustain its (rapidly declining) population.
There are a lot of other Asian countries in a similar situation, but China is unique in how bleak the future could be for hundreds of millions of people.
A year ago I would have said “who knows when the scale will tip?” With what’s going on lately it seems that it may have already happened. Whether you agree with the economic policy of this administration or not, the ramifications are astounding. The US is positioned to come out of this the best, at the expense of the rest of the world. This is why China is all of a sudden calling the US bullies. They would never admit weakness, but they are suddenly feeling the heat. If the US took it a step further and decided to stop securing the seas in that part of the world, all hell would break loose.
For instance, do you think Japan and China would just “play nice” with no incentive to? I’m not so sure, and China has no access to the ocean without going through Japan.
China still has an enormous population, and if they convert their society from production to domestic consumption and ride the value-add wave, they'll follow the American growth equation. And with more people to bolster that economy, to boot. You can already see this in their dominance of electronics, drones, EVs, and green tech. They're doing advanced, bleeding edge work in all of the industries that matter.
BYD, DJI, Eufy/Anker (vs iRobot), Lenovo, Alibaba, ... China is a formidable powerhouse in advanced products and value-add. These companies absolutely rival the best of what America and the West have to offer. And if your argument is one of demographics, these companies are staffed with young educated workers from a huge and healthy pipeline of STEM grads.
I think of all the predictions about the future of China - from the incredibly bearish ones like Zeihan's "death of China", to the bullish ones that declare this the "Chinese century" - I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle.
I don't see how China doesn't become a larger version of Japan or Germany or the US. Despite some demographic and economic headwinds, they've got an incredible head start.
If America aims to compete and remain in the top, it needs to stop doing things that look like Brexit that lead to degrowth and isolation. China isn't magically going to get weaker and provide free opportunity to the United States. On the contrary, it's fantastic peer-level competition that the US should use as motivation to work harder.
China is an incredible growth and innovation story, and a bar that all countries should hold themselves to. It's no time to slouch. Competition fosters the best innovation anyway.
You are just describing every western European country.
I live in Toronto where we have our share of homelessness and those 3 cities put Toronto to shame with the amount of poverty and homelessness we saw.
Europe is beautiful and does many things better than North America and Asia but hunger and poverty are area's where its just as bad if not worse.
I could go on, but there are plenty of flaws in western Europe
it's funny how nobody noticed in time that the side effects of these many experiments destroyed more beauty & opportunities, especially in urban convolution and social convection than they have revealed in data about human nature and civilized networks ... "we happened to become a community and build around the growing desires of our children and our own" is something you only hear on garden plots, even though on the country side everywhere, people are now third and fourth generation heirs.
Meanwhile, in the US, small towns across the country are greying and dying out as wealth and opportunity are increasingly concentrated in urban areas.
I doubt this is something that can or will be reversed gradually. The consolidation of oligarchic power has been building up over many decades and only shows signs of acceleration.
In order for the power structures responsible for this to be overturned something pretty cataclysmic will need to happen - losing a large scale war, economic collapse, etc. (e.g. like in post WW2 Japan where America dismantled and disenfranchised the Japanese oligarchy).
Granted, we were fine with that with the first cold war, maybe we'll find the appetite again.
But granted maybe most of them have less than half of a brain once they need to sacrifice the pies.
Because China has their singular government system (one party dictatorship, whatever you want to call it) they can make really quick decisions. In democratic countries there is a lot of hemming and hawing cause you need everyone or a majority to agree with you, in China or North Korea they just snap their fingers and the project has to start within a few weeks or months.
In the US, especially with renewed appetite for "America First" and bringing back good paying jobs for American laborers, there should be a lot more building of infrastructure and housing units around our country... Why can China do this and we can't even when the government has won a mandate from people to empower domestic labor (for everyone who says China can only do this because of wealth inequality)?
The air pollution was absolutely horrific, for whole I was there I wasn't able to see the sun at all due to air or lack of it.
"Green" trees were just... grey, covered with all the dust.
And good luck if you want to grab a taxi and you have long hair :)
The food was great, though.
Please explain
And don’t forget the bigger picture. Businesses are jobs. When a country makes it so hostile for business that most can’t even operate there, that’s wages and tax revenue lost.
The above is how Poland ends up with average apartments 8x the average wage.
I don’t even want to get into the issues with prioritizing cars above people. That’s a whole other topic outside of this.
When there is a need, Europe does pretty well. At least relative to the U.S.
For example, Europe built the completely novel floodgates for Venice. It’s been very successful as far as I’m aware when it was heavily doubted before and throughout its development.
On the other hand, the U.S. won’t even contemplate building something similar to protect NYC, despite the fact that Europe has already done it and proven the concept, and that the region this would protect is orders of magnitude more economically valuable than Venice.
Similarly consider high speed rail. Italy completely revolutionized domestic travel by setting up excellent high speed rail over a few years. They did it not by government fiat but intelligent regulations paired with privatization and market rules.
While it’s not China scale, it’s more than sufficient for Italy’s scale.
At the same time the U.S. is completely incapable of creating high speed rail and to the extent it has its done so by redefining it down.
Thailand, the UK, and Tanzania have similar populations, that does not mean they are useful comparisons. What about Sri Lanka and Australia, or Syria and Taiwan?
The (always-credulous) Guardian seems to go based on photogenic shopping centers/bars and raw square footage:
“A flat in Chongqing costs a seventh of what it would cost in Beijing or Shanghai and is twice as big.”
Presumably your criteria might be more subtle?
Home prices are completely out of reach for most people in UK, Canada, New Zealand, Australia (coming soon to a country near you!). You're overpaying to live like a 1920's postman: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/tGPHcteG9dY
Create artificial scarcity (by zoning, monopolies, regulatory capture), buy assets (never have to improve any assets because there is no competition, no functional market of competitors producing better housing), extract wealth forever by maximizing rents and asset prices.
It's more complex than that. We need to build more housing, and there are various reasons why that isn't happening. Many of them are well-intentioned and even good (high safety standards dramatically increase the cost of new buildings).
It does not look very comfortable to me. Lots of huge residential tower blocks, one that has a metro line running THROUGH it, a bookshop with shelves that are not reachable.
All those in a curated set of pictures!
The sheer spice level of the food is a challenge though, even other Chinese think that Chongqing level spiciness is nuts.
And it’s also crazy the spice levels they’re used to. It’s the only place in China I’ve seen 微微辣 (“very very little spicy”). And it was still incredibly spicy!
Absolutely hellish.
You are sometimes not even tolerated.
And because of that your time in that country will be always limited. If China was to become like BKK or other SEA countries ....
That's another story.
I am totally interested in the USA mainly due to them being so very welcoming to foreigners and migrants
The common thread throughout these videos is how much safer it feels to be black in China vs. America, and more generally how welcoming and friendly China is to foreigners (in stark contrast to the expectations that were set for them by non-Chinese people repeating comments like the parent comment here)
That's not to say that they are completely wrong or lying. China is safer than the US in almost every way, for everyone. But racism manifests differently there. I was in the country through the entire Covid pandemic. Ask the African community in Guangzhou how they were treated.
This is the case in most western countries now, especially if you post anything related to Palestine. Besides the US, the situation in France, Germany and the UK is quite concerning these days.
As an immigrant to the US I now have to fear being abducted on the street by ICE "officers" who present no identification and conceal their identities, being arbitrarily detailed and tortured at airports[1], being held incommunicado without due process, and being shipped off to CECOT for the rest of my life.
[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/18/germany-inve...
My personal favorite was Beijing. Honestly, it felt like stepping into another world, with a vibe unlike anywhere else I have been, even compared to Shanghai or other East Asian cities like Tokyo. The people were incredibly warm and friendly, the street food was outstanding, the environment felt almost otherworldly, and the historical sites were phenomenal. Getting lost in the hutongs felt like its own adventure, the punk culture was alive and thriving, and the art district was the best I have experienced (even coming from New York City). If you skate, it's a paradise with spots everywhere you turn. Public transportation and taxis were also super affordable, clean, and efficient.
Shanghai was cool too, but it felt much more familiar. At its core, it reminded me of Manhattan, just more intense. The people there also gave off a similar vibe to New Yorkers. If you are into electronics, it's a great place to explore, although I hear Shenzhen is really the true hub for that.
Baotou felt a lot more desolate but also very peaceful. I spent most of my time there on a farm and hiking around the Gobi Desert though.
One thing to be aware of is the air quality in Beijing and Shanghai. On bad days, you would come back with black snot. I was a smoker at the time, which did not help, but even non-smokers experienced it. There always seemed to be random particles or even feathers floating in the air lol.
As someone who skates, I found the police and security surprisingly relaxed. They would usually let you skate for a while before politely asking you to move along. The only unsettling thing I witnessed was a group of officers with SMGs escorting someone out of Tsinghua University.
The saddest thing I saw was the desperate poverty on the outskirts of Beijing. There were large piles of trash, open sewage, and pollution. At one point, a concerned local pulled over and told us to turn around because of violent protests between farmers and the government up ahead. The outskirts of Shanghai showed similar poverty, though without the protests.
That said, aside from the outskirts and days of bad air quality, all three cities were incredibly clean, especially compared to New York.
This was all about 15 years ago, so I imagine a lot has changed since then.
Still, I would absolutely recommend going. If you can, spend time in places that feel unfamiliar, especially Beijing. It's an experience you will never forget.
alephnerd•7h ago
Pet peeve but this article is confusing Chongqing's entire land area with the city of Chongqing and associated urban areas (only 6% of Chongqing's total land area).
The issue is 直辖市 is translated as "direct-administered city" but should be treated as a "Direct-administered municipality" or "Direct-administered state".
Much of Chongqing (the 直辖市 not the city) was formed due to a reorganization of Sichuan in 1997.
luotuoshangdui•4h ago
olalonde•3h ago