Interesting China Thoughts

Here are some fascinating highlights from McKinsey entitled, “Preparing for China’s
Urban Billion.”

- By 2025, China will have 221 cities with more than one million
inhabitants – compared with 35 in Europe today.

- China’ urban population will expand from 572 million in 2005 to 926
million in 2025. Over 350 million people will move from rural areas
to the cities – more than the population of the United States.

- By 2025, China could have 15 super-cities with average populations
of 25 million people. 41 percent of China’s higher income middle
class will live in Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Wuhan, Chongqing,
Chengdu, Guangzhou and Shenzhen.

- China will build almost 40 billion square meters of floor space
over the next 20 years, requiring construction of 50,000 new
skyscrapers – the equivalent of ten New York Cities.

- Up to 170 cities could meet planning criteria for mass-transit
systems by 2025, more than twice the current number in Europe. This
could promise to be the greatest boom in mass-transit construction in
history.

- China’s urban economy will generate 90 percent of its GDP by 2025.
Urban China will become a dominant global market with its aggregate
consumption almost twice, and disposable income over two times, those
of Germany.

Thought you may get a kick out of this!

Kinda funny construction going on around the Construction Bank!

Take a look at this...

This is a great Blog site to see a lot of the construction going on here in Beijing.

http://beijing08082008.blogspot.com/

The Last Push

As you all know, I have said I live really close to the Olympic Village area. The amount of work going on recently is absolutely amazing. Everyday I just shake my head. Beijing has earmarked a lot of land for the Olympics. Here is a photo of the Olympic Green area. Some people say it is twice the size of Central Park in New York City.


As I ride by on the bus to work... I ride from the upper left hand corner and go to the upper right hand corner. I'll try to catch more action by photo or video and blog it. It is amazing how they are planting trees, bushes, grass, resurfacing all streets and sidewalks, adding subways stations, painting old buildings, knocking down those that look really bad.... and it goes on and on. It is a site to see... especially being an American living over here. There are roads that would take three years to build in the US and they are going to be ready by the Olympic time. It's amazing! Wish you could be here to see it.