In an apartment building, which level would you prefer?

[AndyDufresne]

'A Universe Beneath Our Feet': Life In Beijing's Underground

In Beijing, even the tiniest apartment can cost a fortune — after all, with more than 21 million residents, space is limited and demand is high.

But it is possible to find more affordable housing. You'll just have to join an estimated 1 million of the city's residents, and look underground.

Below the city's bustling streets, bomb shelters and storage basements are turned into illegal — but affordable — apartments.

...

...apartments go one to three stories below ground. Residents have communal bathrooms and shared kitchens. The tiny, windowless rooms have just enough space to fit a bed.

With an average rent of $70 per month ... this is an affordable option for city-dwellers.

--Andy

[_sabotage_]

Hong Kong used to have cage dwellers, but thankfully China has taken over from the British and now they get low income housing.

[Dukasaur]

Second floor in an apartment building is the best. You're close enough to ground level that you can converse with people on the street, but you still have an elevated position above them in case the conversation takes an unfriendly turn.

Any higher and you quickly lose the ability to interact; any lower and you become progressively more vulnerable.

[mrswdk]

Those basement rooms are for migrant workers. Like, total bottom-of-the-ladder labor. There are some in the basement of my building - one, maybe two concrete rooms per rental, with nothing in them. These ones have one or two sidewalk-level windows for light, but I've heard of people staying in basement rooms that don't even have windows. I'd guess there's a communal wash area, but as I've never been down and checked for all I know they don't wash at all.

The higher up the better. That's where the cool views are. I stayed in a 47th floor apartment while I was down south and the view was epic. Beats looking out across the street into someone else's sitting room.

[mrswdk]

You're close enough to ground level that you can converse with people on the street

lol. So what sort of things do you usually holler out of your 2nd floor window?

[WILLIAMS5232]

i only ever stayed in 2 & 3 story apt complexes. i found that in the three story ones, i could leech of my neihbors heating and cooling expenses by getting right up in the middle of the building on the second floor. rarely used my heat. of course i do live in the south, but we do still get pretty frigid snaps here and there.

[Dukasaur]

You're close enough to ground level that you can converse with people on the street

lol. So what sort of things do you usually holler out of your 2nd floor window?

It depends on the building and the neighbourhood. In smaller buildings and friendlier neighbourhoods, you talk about the stuff that you normally talk to your neighbours about -- what they're having for dinner, what specials they found at the Loblaws, what they use to treat their cat's dandruff, etc.

In rougher neighbourhoods, like when I lived in St. Jamestown (one of Toronto's shittier ghettoes) it's fun to eavesdrop on people haggling with the drug dealers and hookers. It gives you an advantage knowing what's the lowest price somebody else got...

Once there was a young gang of thugs beating the shit out of some guy and I persuaded them to stop. That was my good deed for that week....

It's been 25 years since I lived in the big city, but life is timeless. I imagine people are still hanging out of their balconies talking about recipes and stuff.

[betiko]

Here in paris 90% at least of the buildings have 5 floors.
The second floor is generally considered as the most "noble floor". If you look at buildings from the outside, the second floor often have higher ceilings and more architectural decorations. Back in the days when these buildings were created and there were no elevators, the second floor was still convenient enough in terms of stairway, but it kept you far enough from the street.
5th floor are generally small appartments designed for maids, and ground floor for concierge.
1st, 3rd and 4th middle class.

[TA1LGUNN3R]

You're close enough to ground level that you can converse with people on the street

lol. So what sort of things do you usually holler out of your 2nd floor window?

ey bby u wnt sum fuk?

[macbone]

In my building, the higher the floor, the higher the rent. There are a couple of cheaper rooms down on the 3rd floor, but the rates actually go up each floor. For good feng shui, you want to have the mountains at your back and the sea at your face, and the rooms with a sea view are naturally pricier.

Hong Kong used to have cage dwellers, but thankfully China has taken over from the British and now they get low income housing.

Sabotage, I think you're a little out of the loop.

http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/arti ... -years-ago

Plight of Hong Kong's cage-home dwellers 'worse now than 25 years ago'

More than 25 years ago, Ho Hei-wah took up advocacy work after witnessing the plight of Hong Kong's cage-home dwellers. Back then, he had never thought the problem would still be around a quarter of a century later, with no signs of improvement.

Standing in a dirty flat in Sham Shui Po where eleven cage homes were stacked on top of each other, Ho - who heads the NGO Society for Community Organisation (Soco) - said the problem was getting worse, especially for a new generation who had grown up in such conditions.

"A home is not just about a place to sleep. It affects the emotional and psychological well-being of a whole family," he said. "It's not a new topic."

This year's Hong Kong ArtWalk, to be held on March 12, features eight shocking photos of cubicles and cage homes titled Living at Limit. The photos, by Hong Kong photographer Benny Lai, will accompany an installation recreating a cage home at The Space gallery on Hollywood Road.

ArtWalk is an annual fundraising event in which over 60 galleries in Central open their doors to the public. Proceeds from ticket sales are donated to Soco.

Tang Man-wai has lived in cage homes for 30 years. He had never even applied for public housing until a few months ago, when doctors found mould in his lungs and warned him that living in a cage home was hazardous to his health. Tang, 64, now needs an oxygen mask to breathe.

"Living alone is boring," Tang said, adding that he felt bad about asking the government for so much, as he was already on welfare. "But now, a lot of the other people have left. If they offer me public housing now, I'd go immediately."

The public housing waiting list for single people like Tang can easily stretch to more than a decade. Such a long wait was a major deterrent to applying, he said.

Soco knows of at least 1,000 cage homes, subdivided flats and cubicle units, close to 70 per cent of which have been recently constructed, said Soco's Sze Lai-shan. Far more are thought to exist. There are no official figures, but it is thought that at least 200,000 of Hong Kong's poorest people are living in such conditions, she said.

The government made poverty alleviation a focus in this year and last year's policy address, including giving out one-off living subsidies. But construction of public housing has been slower than promised and the government has been unwilling to take actions such as introducing rent control to solve the issue, Ho said.

"[In terms of] poverty alleviation, nothing will work if you don't deal with the housing situation," Ho said. "And so far, what the government has done is vastly inadequate. The situation will get worse in the coming four to five years."

Here's Tang's house:

The income gap in Hong Kong is among the world's worst.

[_sabotage_]

"Tang Man-wai has lived in cage homes for 30 years. He had never even applied for public housing until a few months ago, when doctors found mould in his lungs and warned him that living in a cage home was hazardous to his health. Tang, 64, now needs an oxygen mask to breathe.

"Living alone is boring," Tang said, adding that he felt bad about asking the government for so much, as he was already on welfare. "But now, a lot of the other people have left. If they offer me public housing now, I'd go immediately."

The public housing waiting list for single people like Tang can easily stretch to more than a decade. Such a long wait was a major deterrent to applying, he said."

I'm a bit out of the loop, it's true. The last time I visited a low income housing estate was a while ago.

I just find the OP quite discriminatory. He doesn't mention the indigenous people who were forced from their traditional sustainable practices in Asia, Africa, and South America by "charity" groups who closed off the land to the locals and made expensive nature walks for wealthy foreigners out of them. He didn't mention that these people have zero "modern" skills and are living in much worse conditions than a basement apartment. He didn't mention that each and every Chinese person has land available to them from the towns they migrated from.

He didn't mention that my sister-in-law was making as much money in a much cheaper city, but decided she wanted to sparkle in the big town in a shitty apartment. He didn't mention that my other sister-in-law lives in the same town that I have a 3 bedroom apartment in, in a nice estate with very expensive furnishings and that she chose to rent it out instead of living in it when we gave her the option.

He doesn't mention that Detroit is bankrupt. Doesn't mention that people are arrested for feeding the homeless in Florida. Doesn't mention that the largest homeless colony in the US was evacuated by a police raid just prior to the full onset of winter. And doesn't mention that a lot of the homeless in the US might actually want the option of living in a basement, but people like him wouldn't agree.

I'm afraid of heights. So each place we had was on lower floors. Fourth floor is always cheapest on buildings which have a fourth floor. 1414 is also cheap. It sounds like, sure die sure die. Most modern apartments in China have the lowest available apartments 50 feet up, so kind of hard to chat with the folks on the street.

[mrswdk]

He didn't mention that each and every Chinese person has land available to them from the towns they migrated from.

And what use is that to them when their hometown is a piece of shit backwater?

[AndyDufresne]

He didn't mention that each and every Chinese person has land available to them from the towns they migrated from.

And what use is that to them when their hometown is a piece of shit backwater?

Well, the obvious answer is to dig to the otherside of the world to claim better valued land. Unfortunately, it looks like the South Pacific, Chile, Bolivia, Argentina, and the South Atlantic appear on the otherside of China. http://www.freemaptools.com/tunnel-to-o ... -earth.htm


--Andy

[_sabotage_]

A piece of shit back water is not bad when you are from there. It's not bad if you're tired of the city. It's not bad for too long if you are in between jobs. For my mother-in-law it's the only place she fits in and knows what's up. It provides a family base and support system.

Many kids bring their parents to the city to watch their grandkids or keep them company, and for some it works out greats, for others, they spend most of their time collecting cans while living in an expensive apartment for something to do.

One of my friends in Hong Kong lives in a low income apartment. His wife is separated from her parents by a clothe, who are separated from their grandkids by a clothe, who are separated from their uncle by a clothe. 45m^2.

I know quite a few people who took about US$12,500 and and got themselves five floor buildings within a few hours drive from the border. 11 years ago, my apartment in Shenzhen cost US$40,000, right on the border. I bought it in 2008 for US$120,000 and is worth over $300,000.

For quite a few people, 21,000,000 in Beijing, property is a key resource. When Gang Xia in SZ was torn down for urban planning, the owners got about US$5,000,000 each for the same shitty back water house that folks trying to make it in the city can fall back on where they're from.

In most countries, slums are created when people are driven from their homes and there is no return. In China, the homes are still there when the opportunity in the city doesn't prove opportune. And if you happen to be from the city and are driven out by government planning, the money is usually enough to offset the inconvenience.

[mrswdk]

There are people who would rather work in Beijing and live down a manhole or in a brick shack next to a subway line than stay in their home province, which tells you everything you need to know. What good is a two-bedroom house in Sichuan if it's in a shit area with terrible services, terrible infrastructure and few to zero prospects?

These people move to cities like Beijing because life in their hometown is shit. If it wasn't for the fact hukou makes it so difficult for a lot of people to stay in the cities long-term, I doubt most of them would ever leave.

[mrswdk]

In most countries, slums are created when people are driven from their homes and there is no return. In China, the homes are still there when the opportunity in the city doesn't prove opportune.

You mean like the many people who are booted out of their homes after the local government requisitions their land with little to no compensation, and the many people living in slums in the suburbs of big cities like Beijing and Shenzhen?

[_sabotage_]

Tell that to the homeless colony that was dispersed.

Tell them they wouldn't enjoy a permanent home. A place to disperse to. I really don't get where they are expecting these folks to go to. Give them an acre each of shit to disperse to and give it to them free and clear forever and see if they think it's shit.

Tell the worst off people in the best off countries that a "shitty" country provides a worse deal and see what they say.

For the same money they spent on the raid they could pay for a consultant to teach them to build an earthship, a consultant to teach them permaculture, give them the seeds to get started. But they'd rather hire thugs and have people like Andy blinded to their deeds by saying people in Beijing live in basements.

For the same money they spent on the risk associated with the homeless, they could have enriched some American companies and provided the homeless with some useful equipment. But they did enrich some companies, security companies.

[_sabotage_]

The losers in this case weren't the owners of the 500 buildings who got US$5,000,000 for each, it was the tenants they were renting to at the low market range reflected by the shitty quality.

[mrswdk]

Are you alluding to some specific event or just babbling? If you are talking about something in particular then what is it and what point are you trying to make?

[mrswdk]

I also don't understand why you have a problem with the article in Andy's OP. It seems fairly reasonable to me. Like I said earlier, there are people like that in the basement of not just my building but in the basements of many buildings nearby as well.

[_sabotage_]

Yes, as mentioned in my post I was referring to Gang Xia. The point being the compensation in prime locations, in this case about $5,000,000 per shitty building provides enough money to secure another permanent home in the same location.

As to Andy's post:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/search.ph ... er_form_v1

He doesn't post any American issues on housing, but chooses to pick on China.

Let China pick on China and the US pick on the US or perhaps crap will just stay crap because we can point at "worse" crap elsewhere.

[AndyDufresne]

As to Andy's post:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/search.ph ... er_form_v1

He doesn't post any American issues on housing, but chooses to pick on China.

Let China pick on China and the US pick on the US or perhaps crap will just stay crap because we can point at "worse" crap elsewhere.

Do you think I posted this here for nuanced discussion about housing around the world?

Or do you think I mostly wanted to create a poll with 20 options about apartment levels, pretending each option was a level (including one with a label as "sneaky thirteenth"). I mean, I tried to make it out of ASCII art, but the poll justifies everything to left to make it not worthwhile.


--Andy

[_sabotage_]

I think that you wanted to disparage China. As you have in other threads. Out of utter ignorance and wanting to feel better by comparison.

I can see that you did not want a nuanced discussion, but to let your OP stand unqualified.

[AndyDufresne]

I think that you wanted to disparage China. As you have in other threads. Out of utter ignorance and wanting to feel better by comparison.

I can see that you did want a nuanced discussion, but to let your OP stand unqualified.

And take this, and that:



And, for good measure:




--Andy