Creative destruction
The frenzied pace of home demolition may slow
REPEAT visitors to China are impressed by two things. The skyscrapers, shopping centres and other landmarks of development that were not there before—and the many buildings there before that are not there any longer. Characterful neighbourhoods are torn down, quiet backstreets are lost forever and familiar roads are superseded by motorways. China’s growing prosperity does not course through its society, it sweeps over it, obliterating evidence of an earlier, poorer era.
China keeps detailed statistics on the stuff it adds to the skyline. Last year it finished building 1.1 billion square metres of housing, equivalent to more than 10m homes, according to Rosealea Yao and Thomas Gatley of GK Dragonomics, a research firm. But China does not publish figures on what it subtracts from the skyline. The Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development has not released a figure for housing demolitions for nearly ten years.
This article appeared in the China section of the print edition under the headline "Creative destruction"
From the November 30th 2013 edition
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