# Is this Chinese satellite city the future of suburban sprawl?



## poshbakerloo (Jan 16, 2007)

Well I'm just generally not a fan over hugely dense cities. Too many people in a small place ends in trouble what ever way you look at it. And with a country like China where there is so much empty land, I don't see why they need to look at super dense developments.


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## the spliff fairy (Oct 21, 2002)

Less than 15% of China is arable - 84% is mountain, high plateau, steppe, desert and tundra, including some of the few places in the world where glaciers meet deserts, and the remains of the prehistoric Tethys ocean are confined to a few vast salt lakes. Western China is known among geologists as the 'Third Pole', its population density is 13 per sq km in the semi desert of Xinjiang, 2 per sq km in the high plateaux of Tibet. A hundred miles north of Beijing and density will fall to 20 per sq km in Inner Mongolia.

Thus over 1 billion people are crammed into the eastern areas, including all the farming to sustain them. It has an absolute optimum level of land use for permanent crops that it cannot go under, something that has stalked the civilisation with periodic famine in the past and that it's reluctant to give up now, even with better crops, for the risk of having to import its food in the future (which its beginning to have to do). The falling water table and droughts have put alot of pressure on land use.

Part of the reason why the postwar communists put in the one child policy was that if they hadn't they'd be facing famine and economic ruin again. In the Communist years people were rationed on 2/3 the calorific intake of the Qing Dynasty - 4 eggs, 150g of sugar and 250g of pork a month to avoid the spectre of famine - height and weight went down considerably with the new generations. Mao's experiments in increasing the yield such as the Great Leap Forward lead to catastrophes where 30-40 million starved or died from disease. It's that fine an edge. Today China is operating on more than twice the yield out of the land than the norm everywhere else in the world.

Its one thing building cities in deserts as the US has done diverting and damming all its major rivers - its another thing sustaining them into our carbon future, which would be unlikely and exorbitantly expensive (Lake Mead that supplies Las Vegas is now 60% empty just as demand multiplies - not only will the city soon run out of water and have to import it, but power too as the Hoover dam becomes obsolete). This is a similar problem facing growing cities like Urumqi and Hohhot.


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## goschio (Dec 2, 2002)

There is nothing new about satellite cities. They have been extensively built in Europe back in the 60s and 70s. Most of them are failures. Fact is, most people want to either live in real low density suburbs or in a true organic grown urban environment.


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## the spliff fairy (Oct 21, 2002)

^not a satellite city. All China's megalopoli are ringed with hundreds of satellite cities. The idea here that's different is that it's self serving, and sustainable. If it were a run-of-the-mill satellite the offices, skyscrapers, factories and most of the shops would be a few miles away in Chengdu, the farms would be a few miles away in the countryside. And it wouldn't all be housed in a 1.5 km-across 'village' footprint.

And true, most people _want_ to live in low density suburbs but most people can't, we'd need two Earth's by then just to put that into action, let alone sustain it. Consider ourselves lucky, our generation is living a Western lifestyle that's multiple times past worst case scenario in terms of sustainability.

Case in point - If China had housed half its new build residentials in the traditional brick, the country would have run out of earth and sand supplies by now.


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## chornedsnorkack (Mar 13, 2009)

the spliff fairy said:


> And true, most people _want_ to live in low density suburbs but most people can't, we'd need two Earth's by then just to put that into action, let alone sustain it.


Plenty of space to put that into action - but not where it is wanted or sustainable. Remember, almost most Chinese still live in low density housing - of their villages. They can stay there - the matter is, many of them don´t _want_ to. They want to move near the centres of big cities.

The problem is that low density suburbs around city centres are too expensive for them - and so are high density apartments in the city centres. So the affordable options are either low density villages in the countryside - where they now are, but they want something else - or apartment blocks in suburbs.

For comparison:
Tokyo Capital - 2 188 square km, 13,19 million people
Kanagawa Prefecture - 2 416 square km, 9,03 million people
Chiba Prefecture - 5 156 square km, 6,20 million people
Saitama Prefecture - 3 797 square km, 7,19 million people

total of One Capital, Three Prefectures - 13 557 square km, 35,61 million people

Shanghai Municipality - 6 340 square km, 23,02 million people
Suzhou Prefecture-level City - 8 488 square km, 10,47 million people
Wuxi Prefecture-level City - 4 788 square km, 6,37 million people

total of One Municipality, Two Prefecture-level Cities - 19 616 square km, 39,86 million people

Shenzhen Subprovincial City - 2 050 square km, 10,36 million people
Dongguan Prefecture-level City - 2 465 square km, 8,22 million people
Guangzhou Subprovincial City - 7 434 square km, 12,70 million people
Foshan Prefecture-level City - 3 814 square km, 7,19 million people

total of Two Subprovincial, Two Prefecture-level Cities - 15 763 square km, 38,47 million people.

How does Japan handle the suburban sprawl around Tokyo, outside the 23 Special Wards? Like, how are people housed in Saitama Prefecture?

Chengdu is the most populous subprovincial city in China - bigger than Guangzhou. 12 132 square km, 14,05 million people.


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## Abinash89 (Mar 2, 2012)

Similar kind of project is underway in India.It is the need of hour for country like China and India where population density is too high.Here is the link from Indian sub-forum.
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=552518


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## El_Greco (Apr 1, 2005)

poshbakerloo said:


> When you have a huge crowd of them living in a tower block...you get Broad Water Farm.


Thats nothing to do with high-rise living or architecture, but everything to do with putting the most disadvantaged in society together in some forgotten dump. As I said most of the rioters in last years riots came from low-rise terraced streets and not tower blocks. What you need is mixed income communities.


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## Chrissib (Feb 9, 2008)

chornedsnorkack said:


> Plenty of space to put that into action - but not where it is wanted or sustainable. Remember, almost most Chinese still live in low density housing - of their villages. They can stay there - the matter is, many of them don´t _want_ to. They want to move near the centres of big cities.
> 
> The problem is that low density suburbs around city centres are too expensive for them - and so are high density apartments in the city centres. So the affordable options are either low density villages in the countryside - where they now are, but they want something else - or apartment blocks in suburbs.
> 
> ...



Most people in Japanese suburbs afaik live in detached houses. This works, because the lots are very small (usally 150-200 m² compared to 500-1000 m² in American suburbs). The house often encompasses almost the whole lot, leaving only room for a garage and a bit of greenery around the house. 

Interestingly, even though the Chinese cities consist mostly of highrises, they aren't much denser than the Japanese cities. The highrises at the city fringe in China often have lots of greenery around them. Then the main streets in the grid are wider than in Japan.

So in the end which people choose which housing type I think often depends also on the culture and how the property market works. When surfing in Google Earth I noticed that there are only very few detached houses or rowhomes in Chinese cities, whereas they are the dominant style in Japan and all over South East Asia (excluding Singapore). 

You can also achieve a high density with midrises, it doesn't necessarily have to be highrises. In fact most of the densest city districts around the globe consist mostly of mid rises and have an organic grown structure.


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## chornedsnorkack (Mar 13, 2009)

*Other Asian cities*

Seoul Special City - 605 square km, 10,58 million people
Incheon Special City - 1 029 square km, 2,71 million people
Gyeonggi Province - 10 183 square km, 11,92 million people

Two Special Cities and One Province - 11 817 square km, 25,21 million people

Taibei Special Municipality - 272 square km, 2,62 million people
Jilong Special Municipality - 133 square km, 0,39 million people
Xinbei Special Municipality - 2 053 square km, 3,89 million people

Three Special Municipalities - 2 458 square km, 6,90 million people.

Hong Kong Island - 80 square km, 1,27 million people
Kowloon - 47 square km, 2,02 million people
New Territories - 953 square km, 3,57 million people

Hong Kong total - 1080 square km, 6,86 million people

Singapore - 704 square km, 5,18 million people.

How much detached housing exists on the outskirts of Singapore and Hong Kong?


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## memph (Dec 11, 2010)

chornedsnorkack said:


> Seoul Special City - 605 square km, 10,58 million people
> Incheon Special City - 1 029 square km, 2,71 million people
> Gyeonggi Province - 10 183 square km, 11,92 million people
> 
> ...


I'm not sure what you're trying to show... Most of these regions you're combining have lots of farmland and unpopulated mountains, so that would explain the relately low densities. The parts that are built up are denser for Chinese cities (and Seoul) than Tokyo, about 2 times denser. Lot sizes in Tokyo are often even smaller than 200m2, that would be somewhat unusual. I think 50-150m2 is probably more along the lines of the typical lot in Tokyo.

Hong Kong and Singapore do have detached housing on the outskirts.

Kong Kong has places like this (not sure if there are big detached homes or small apartments): http://goo.gl/maps/fBT0g
Or much poorer places like: http://goo.gl/maps/ZtRpK
And then there's this area: http://goo.gl/maps/wCdcD

I would say Hong Kong doesn't have much though, however, Singapore has a fair bit (of course much less than in America).

Even the Chinese cities have a bit, either in the lower density urban villages, or in a few US style suburbs. However, I don't think China will reach the point where US style suburbs become available to a significant portion of its population. The best most Chinese can expect is bigger and nicer apartments, so you can't really compare to Western countries where highrise complexes on the outskirts are left to the poor.


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## Iluminat (Jan 16, 2008)

poshbakerloo said:


> Ok, so you bring the price down, a lot of undesirable people move in, crime goes up and the place is a dump. Given the choice people would rather raise their family in a suburban home with a garden rather than an apartment. Affordable high rise living never work, it causes too much social unrest.


That happened only in western Europe I have no problems in my commieblock district in fact it's getting only better in the last 20 years of capitalism :yes:


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## BE0GRAD (May 29, 2010)

Cities should dencify ,not suburbify. That's the way of efficiency and progress.


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## poshbakerloo (Jan 16, 2007)

El_Greco said:


> What you need is mixed income communities.


I agree, but as soon as you do that, you then need to start providing different types of housing. Different incomes and different people won't all want to live together in big apartment building.


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## ukiyo (Aug 5, 2008)

For Tokyo you can use this site...but keep in mind it is dated (even though more people have moved into Tokyo, there's also been many many more condo towers with more space and it only counts houses)...though this is the size of house and *not* plot: http://www.demographia.com/db-japanmethousing.htm


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## The Cake On BBQ (May 10, 2010)

poshbakerloo said:


> A 4 bedroom, 3 bathroom apartment with large roof terrace and several reception rooms in a city centre location normally costs millions.


Not in every country, specially those where people prefer to live in apartments. In Turkey for example, a 4 bedroom + 2 bathrooms apartment with wide balconies and windows cost less than $400k, and that's maximum price btw. Not everyone can afford a penthouse like how everyone can't afford a mansion. 

And why the **** would you need a 4 bedroom house anyway? Unless you have 2 kids?

And if you are into gardening and growing your herbs and vegs, you can do that in your balcony as well. Or you can buy a small garden outside the city.


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## The Cake On BBQ (May 10, 2010)

Regarding the project, can't say I'm a fan of it. It's too dense. And I'm against such over-planned projects to begin with. Artificial and has a commie-block feeling to it. It lacks human-scale. Cities and suburbs need to be organic.

It's pretty much just a dense version of good old american suburbia. Everything is planned, robotic and boring.


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## oliver999 (Aug 4, 2006)

in my city(a small city east of china), a villa costs 1million-3 million usd ,only very rich people can offord it.it's weired the villar sold more quickly than apartment.
an 130 square meters apartment costs 0.2million usd, that's affordable for middle class.


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## Rascar (Mar 13, 2012)

> And why the **** would you need a 4 bedroom house anyway? Unless you have 2 kids?


I think with cultures that put a high premium on privacy the problem of noise from shared walls/above below is what bothers people about apartments.
This was more tolerable 50 years ago when most people grew up with their neighbours in one community, but when apartment blocks have such a transistory population it is harder to tell the kid in the apartment above who you have never met before to stfu.

I guess high quality modern buildings with good soundproofing can partially overcome this.


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## Sweet Zombie Jesus (Sep 11, 2008)

The Cake On BBQ said:


> Regarding the project, can't say I'm a fan of it. It's too dense. And I'm against such over-planned projects to begin with. Artificial and has a commie-block feeling to it. It lacks human-scale. Cities and suburbs need to be organic.
> 
> It's pretty much just a dense version of good old american suburbia. Everything is planned, robotic and boring.


What this man said. It can be as dense, eco-friendly, or shiny as it wants to be, the problem is it's a planned 'diagram' imposed on the landscape and hooked up to the rest of the city. To assume that all you need is density and plenty of greenspace is a horrendous oversimplification. City development needs to be about organic development, 'programmed' with environmental and building regulations to keep it in check. Central planning forces then swoop in when needed for large scale infrastructure. We've been doing this 'The City as a Diagram' bullshit for decades now and it doesn't surprise me that it's still going despite it being proven not to work. Government gets to look like it's actually doing something useful, developers make their cash, architects make their shiny statement then **** off. It works for certain people.


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## the spliff fairy (Oct 21, 2002)

poshbakerloo said:


> I agree, but as soon as you do that, you then need to start providing different types of housing. Different incomes and different people won't all want to live together in big apartment building.


Its weird, the new apartment complexes that go up in China are indistinguishable from each other in terms of class, in the quasi-socialist tradition, from the outside at least. Indoors its a different matter entirely.

These twin towers on the Pudong waterfront are the most expensive apartments in China:










luxury interiors









which isn't exactly a world away from middle class ones




















or low income ones:




































This is in contrast with the previous builds from the 1950s-1990s where you could definitely tell what income these residentials belonged to:











Although saying that - give it a few years and youll soon know which are the low income ones - the ones in warm areas without otherwise ubiquitous in-built aircon, and that start installing units outside their windows.










Also throw in the love affair with caging windows and hanging washing up


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## the spliff fairy (Oct 21, 2002)

Also city planners have to mix the income of new developments. High, middle and low:


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## The Cake On BBQ (May 10, 2010)

Rascar said:


> I think with cultures that put a high premium on privacy the problem of noise from shared walls/above below is what bothers people about apartments.
> This was more tolerable 50 years ago when most people grew up with their neighbours in one community, but when apartment blocks have such a transistory population it is harder to tell the kid in the apartment above who you have never met before to stfu.
> 
> I guess high quality modern buildings with good soundproofing can partially overcome this.


That's why I'm oppose of too much density. I think middle class apartments should be maximum 10 floors and 2 or 3 flats each floor.

Soundproofing is still pretty expensive for middle class.


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## memph (Dec 11, 2010)

Has anyone else noticed the huge detour the subway extension is supposed to make to serve this development? Will the authorities really spend all that extra money?


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## The Cake On BBQ (May 10, 2010)

Sweet Zombie Jesus said:


> What this man said. It can be as dense, eco-friendly, or shiny as it wants to be, the problem is it's a planned 'diagram' imposed on the landscape and hooked up to the rest of the city. To assume that all you need is density and plenty of greenspace is a horrendous oversimplification. City development needs to be about organic development, 'programmed' with environmental and building regulations to keep it in check. Central planning forces then swoop in when needed for large scale infrastructure. We've been doing this 'The City as a Diagram' bullshit for decades now and it doesn't surprise me that it's still going despite it being proven not to work. Government gets to look like it's actually doing something useful, developers make their cash, architects make their shiny statement then **** off. It works for certain people.


I'm against any form of program/plan imposed by governments, planners, architects or companies as long as it's undemanded. Just let people be and they'll find a way eventually. I don't really care if a city is catastrophic as long as it's clean. 

That's why today the most vibrant and interesting places in western cities are built pre-war.


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## ranny fash (Apr 24, 2005)

poshbakerloo said:


> I agree, but as soon as you do that, you then need to start providing different types of housing. Different incomes and different people won't all want to live together in big apartment building.


That's daft mate. I know plenty of people who would happily live in close proximity from all sorts of backgrounds and income levels. That's how I've grown up and I find it really irritating when people suggest it shouldn't work. What a load of bull.


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## El_Greco (Apr 1, 2005)

The Cake On BBQ said:


> That's why I'm oppose of too much density. I think middle class apartments should be maximum 10 floors and 2 or 3 flats each floor.
> 
> Soundproofing is still pretty expensive for middle class.


Why do I get the idea that many of these anti-density and anti-apartment people never actually lived or even been anywhere near an apartment block? Why else would they come up with such laughable statements that those living in a high-rise always face a cacophony of sounds? You never hear your neighbours unless they throw a party, but then its much the same if youre living in a detached house in the suburbs.


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## The Cake On BBQ (May 10, 2010)

El_Greco said:


> Why do I get the idea that many of these anti-density and anti-apartment people never actually lived or even been anywhere near an apartment block? Why else would they come up with such laughable statements that those living in a high-rise always face a cacophony of sounds? You never hear your neighbours unless they throw a party, but then its much the same if youre living in a detached house in the suburbs.


First of all, how did you get the idea of I'm anti-density/apartment? Secondly, I have lived in apartments for a great deal of my life and I still do live in an apartment in a dense district. Not a highrise, but I've also lived in a highrise as well. I never said that people live in highrises face noise pollution, but you throw a party and next thing you know you have your old neighours next door calling the cops/security for complaining.

I don't really mind a little noise anyway or even have my party ruined by some old farts. What bothers me is that if I don't know what kind of people I'm sharing my apartment with I just won't feel safe. You are not supposed to be friends with your neighbours, but it's always good to know they aren't psychoes which matters a lot if you live in a big city of a country that has generally mentally unstable people like Turkey.


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## El_Greco (Apr 1, 2005)

I wasnt talking about you specifically. And the things you mention arent unique to apartment blocks.


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## The Cake On BBQ (May 10, 2010)

Oh ok. I know they aren't unique to apartments, it just matters more when you live in one


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## ranny fash (Apr 24, 2005)

well i'm glad that debate was settled in a civilised way


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## DarkLite (Dec 31, 2004)

You people do realize that this is completely anti-natural and that instead of the enrichment and densification of an already built up environment you are just going to get another boring small city with super high density?

A city with 80,000 people is boring anywhere in the world, whether it is composed of homes or tall, shiny buildings. That's not even taking into account that projects like these have absolutely no atmosphere or ambiance at all. People love to hate Dubai for building soulless residential blocks but turn a blind eye on these developments when they are actually more dull for being so far away from activity. At least in suburbia there is some room to breathe.

Not to mention it's going to totally screw up any panoramic view, and skewing landscapes as if skyscrapers were something to plop around anywhere one wishes. Obviously there has to be some hierarchy for the placement of these buildings so it won't look so tacky and out of place. Talk about forgetting basic principles of urban design.


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## the spliff fairy (Oct 21, 2002)

I think putting so many pedestrianised people together makes for a very vibrant streetlife - and life in general. That should buck the trend of 'soullessness' of new builds if anything.

Dubai doesn't get the soullessness moniker just for its highrises, but for its lack of outside life - its very carcentric and full of shopping malls. Likewise new areas of cities get that moniker because they tend to be either solely residential (lacking in shops and entertainment) or business (lacking in plurality such as residentials and amenities etc). This hopefully will have everything in one place - but yeah, a lack of historicism may be hard to counter, no matter the vibrancy.


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## poshbakerloo (Jan 16, 2007)

ranny fash said:


> That's daft mate. I know plenty of people who would happily live in close proximity from all sorts of backgrounds and income levels. That's how I've grown up and I find it really irritating when people suggest it shouldn't work. What a load of bull.


If I spent a lot of money on some high class penthouse, the last thing I would want is some 'common' chavy family next door.


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## poshbakerloo (Jan 16, 2007)

El_Greco said:


> Why do I get the idea that many of these anti-density and anti-apartment people never actually lived or even been anywhere near an apartment block? Why else would they come up with such laughable statements that those living in a high-rise always face a cacophony of sounds? You never hear your neighbours unless they throw a party, but then its much the same if youre living in a detached house in the suburbs.


I have lived in 2 apartments, 1 in London and 1 in Moscow, both were nice but the reason why we left them for a 4 bedroom detached home was because my parents didn't want to raise a family in one. The inner city none private schools were also rough.


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## El_Greco (Apr 1, 2005)

poshbakerloo said:


> If I spent a lot of money on some high class penthouse, the last thing I would want is some 'common' chavy family next door.


Yeah you wouldnt want to bump into some commoner in the stairwell! :| 

Time and again mixed income communities have been proven to be safe and peaceful places to live and which are a fantastic (and the only?) way to create some kind of equality in society. Yet some are still prejudiced against those with less money than them. Does that make them less-human or automatically turn them into criminals? What exactly is so bad about them?



poshbakerloo said:


> I have lived in 2 apartments, 1 in London and 1 in Moscow, both were nice but the reason why we left them for a 4 bedroom detached home was because my parents didn't want to raise a family in one. The inner city none private schools were also rough.


So? What was this supposed to prove? Millions of people raise families in inner cities no problems.


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## the spliff fairy (Oct 21, 2002)

All residential developments over 40 units in London must have 30-50% given over to affordable properties, even if its luxury condos. This I think is very healthy - the more you divide people up the more fractured society gets in very way, and the higher the accordant crime as the have-nots mug the haves, and the haves defraud the have-nots. It makes people not trust each other, and a climate/ culture of low level fear.


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## Suburbanist (Dec 25, 2009)

^^ The problem is that is well intended policy has a nasty unintended consequence: it jacks up prices of the "non-affordable" units, thus pricing out those who are not rich, but merely middle class, out of that specific market, letting only those with with income able to afford units in a given area since market prices are pushed up to make up for the losses due to affordability provisions.


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## Slartibartfas (Aug 15, 2006)

Suburbanist said:


> ^^ The problem is that is well intended policy has a nasty unintended consequence: it jacks up prices of the "non-affordable" units, thus pricing out those who are not rich, but merely middle class, out of that specific market, letting only those with with income able to afford units in a given area since market prices are pushed up to make up for the losses due to affordability provisions.


If that were true, private market apartments in Vienna would have to be unaffordable for non-rich people as well. They are not. So either, Vienna is an oxymoron or your argument is deeply flawed.


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## Ultra84 (Jun 11, 2008)

New renders:


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## El_Greco (Apr 1, 2005)

Fantastic just how a city supposed to be!


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