Quote:
Originally Posted by Vexal
I'm just talking about Tier 1 cities in China. My point is, there is much room for improvement, as I frequently am a bit put off by what I see when I am in downtown Austin. I often facetime with my friends who live in China while I walk around the city and they walk around their city, and I am embarrassed for them to see the streets of our downtown. Compared to what they show me of Shenzhen, or Hangzhou, or Shanghai, America, and Austin, just looks dirty. Many people think that Asian cities countries are less developed than America, but most of our cities probably look like undeveloped countries to them.
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Yes, I lived in Shenzhen, and I have been to the cities you mentioned above and other tier 1 cities in China. As I said, there are certainly nice, upscale sections of those cities - much as I believe you do see in our downtown or in other wealthy Austin neighborhoods. But overall those cities are dirtier than things are here. There are open sewers. Apartment blocks stained by polluted air. Broken sidewalks. People hawk spit up in the streets. People litter. Much of the construction, especially built in earlier decades, was built cheaply and quickly and is crumbling now. And new construction often isn't cordoned off like it is here, and it spills into the street.
I'm not saying Chinese cities are shit holes - but characterizing them as cleaner than Austin is just wrong.
This is the view from my apartment - the apartment blocks you can see are no more than 20 years old but already they are stained and dirty
https://imgur.com/FcejpHp
This is another building I took a picture of:
https://imgur.com/sjYpa3W
China does have far better infrastructure than we do -- trains, bridges, roads etc -- and I agree that, in many ways, China feels like living in the future. At the same time though, it feels like living in some kind of cyberpunk urban dystopia.