Manhattan is deserted... In China!

Manhattan is deserted... In China! (Yujiapu)


= https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkkFidVJRMI =

Video published on Apr 6, 2013

Read the full story at http://www.vagabondjourney.com/chinas....

This is Yujiapu in Tianjin, China, four years into its construction. When completed, it set to become the world's largest financial district. It is also built to resemble Manhattan.


As it was planned - "to resemble Manhattan"

"They called in the big guns... Tishman Speyer."

UPDATE

"Build it, and they will come" - has not worked.


VIDEO : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZvcQDjj3Qk



Ghost buildings haunt Tianjin's Manhattan - article in today's SCMP

Failure to attract tenants underscores the fallout from a record credit-fueled investment spree

==

+ No metropolitan bustle up close, just dirt-covered glass

+ Some (most?) construction is halted

+ There's a clear failure to attract tenants, since first completion: 2010

+ "investing here is not better than throwing money into water"

+ Revenues in the financing vehicle fell 68% to <1/3 what is needed to service the debt.

+ Sales of local govt bonds, are "just buying time" - restructure needed

+ Tianjin has seen its economic growth cool to "just" 10.6 percent,

the weakest since 1999.

Good video here http://origin-www.bloomberg.com/video/china-s-manhattan-plan-marred-by-ghost-buildings-Yq8Bh1qNTJiWAPL1P9dO6A.html



One thing China seems to not have realized --- a financial centre is not the same as a sports stadium...



But of course they knew this --- they are just doing their part to keep the hamster running for as long as possible.... the whole point of building all this stuff that is obviously not needed --- is to keep the global economy from crashing...




Why the urgency you ask?



As I have been saying since late 2013 (when I had an epiphany) .... it's not because the rich are greedy (this will end badly for them too) --- it's not because the central bankers are stupid (of course they know this will end badly)...



It's because the global economy does not like expensive oil... expensive oil destroys growth.... I say --- the IMF says --- the IEA says....


HIGH PRICED OIL DESTROYS GROWTH - According to the OECD Economics Department and the International Monetary Fund Research Department, a sustained $10 per barrel increase in oil prices from $25 to $35 would result in the OECD as a whole losing 0.4% of GDP in the first and second years of higher prices. http://www.iea.org/textbase/npsum/high_oil04sum.pdf


$10 bucks does THAT -- pray tell what $110 bucks does to growth --- or $147 (which happened shortly before the 2008 crash)




And now the FT apparently concurs:


The economy is a surplus energy equation, not a monetary one, and growth in output

(and in the global population) since the Industrial Revolution has resulted from the

harnessing of ever-greater quantities of energy. But the critical relationship between

energy production and the energy cost of extraction is now deteriorating so rapidly that

the economy as we have known it for more than two centuries is beginning to unravel.


http://ftalphaville.ft.com/files/2013/01/Perfect-Storm-LR.pdf




Central banks are doing absolutely anything possible to delay what is coming (including financing massive ghost towns) .... the key word is delay....

This is often the mainland China approach:


They think: Get the packaging right, and ALL will be well.

It worked for years - because enormous growth bailed out mistakes.


What is amazing about this place is:

HOW MUCH WAS BUILT, with so few tenants.

The first building was completed in 2010, and is still NOT tenanted.


Would development continue in other places for FOUR YEARS,

if there was so little success?


Buildings Alone do not a successful city make.

You also need:

+ Corporate tenants : ie companies that can make money there

+ Workers who want to live there, or nearby

+ Infrastructure: water, power... TRANSPORT !


Can Manhattan exist and thrive without a subway connecting workers to jobs?

I doubt it