

Another Ghost Town built by China in Angola - narad
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-18680217

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yaakov34
This link has some interesting satellite photos, and some discussion in
Portuguese.

[http://negociosangola.blogspot.com/2011/04/nova-cidade-do-
ki...](http://negociosangola.blogspot.com/2011/04/nova-cidade-do-kilamba-
kiaxi-finalizada.html)

I wonder why they picked such an isolated spot 30 km from the capital. Angola
has one of the lowest population densities in the world, surely land is not so
scarce there that you need to go such a distance.

EDIT: well, I'm reminded yet again of how you can't rely on journalists. I
took the 30 km figure from the BBC article here:

<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-18646243>

However, a check of Google maps shows that this town is a mile or so away from
the capital, right outside the ring road. Even from the center of Luanda, it's
not 18 miles as the crow flies. Certainly not "18 miles outside the capital".
Doesn't seem like an unreasonable location, now that I've seen it.

EDIT 2: the affordability of this by average Angolans (or any large number of
Angolans) is a different story, but my guess is that given the population
growth of Angola and the location next to the capital, this town will fill up
one way or another, tho' possibly at a loss to the government, which is
repaying the Chinese loan for this with oil revenues. Also, it seems that the
vast majority of workers who built this were Chinese - apparently Angola
didn't insist on local employment offsets.

~~~
xenonite
18 miles = 28.968192 kilometers

~~~
yaakov34
Wow, that seems like a pretty random response to the BBC saying a town right
next to the capital is "perched on an isolated spot 18 miles away from the
capital".

And by the way, what you said is not true. Please investigate the concept of
significant digits. Reading that something is "18 miles away" and taking that
to mean an exact number of millimeters is ridiculous. Given that we don't know
from which exact point we are measuring, "18 miles", "19 miles", and "about 20
miles" would all be OK here, as is "30 km". If any of these were true, that
is.

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aginn
As a Chinese american, this shows the house of cards that is Chinese state
capitalism. China builds these types of communities as a "bribe" to exploit
natural resources in the respective country.

There are plenty examples of ghost towns in China
[https://www.google.com/search?q=chinese+ghost+towns&hl=e...](https://www.google.com/search?q=chinese+ghost+towns&hl=en&safe=off&prmd=imvnsu&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=jS_zT4TEDKii2gXH9bXOCw&ved=0CFEQsAQ&biw=1280&bih=624)

I've visited some of these places on my trips back to China. The local
governments in China are typically the ones who approve and push through these
nonsensical plans.

~~~
yaakov34
The town itself doesn't seem like much of a bribe, since the funding was
provided as a loan to Angola, and is being repaid from oil revenues. Also, the
vast majority of the workers were Chinese, although it's pretty usual in such
cases to negotiate major employment for the locals.

Source: [http://negociosangola.blogspot.com/2011/04/nova-cidade-do-
ki...](http://negociosangola.blogspot.com/2011/04/nova-cidade-do-kilamba-
kiaxi-finalizada.html)

Now, whether a bribe ended up in someone's pocket to enable all this - I have
no idea.

------
CookWithMe
Does anyone know why they have these small balconies below the windows? Never
seen this before.

~~~
reginaldo
You can put plant vases on those and not have the risk of your vases falling
on someone's head. Somewhat like this: [http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/look-
flower-pots-as-window-b...](http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/look-flower-pots-
as-window-box-58834) (random image found with google image search).

~~~
lobster_johnson
Yep, although that's a picture of an actual balcony (a small one, but still),
with a proper door instead of just a window above it.

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pwpwp
This can't be a ghost town, I saw 2 pedestrians, more than on my weeklong
visit to Silicon Valley.</yada>

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ajays
I prefer to read over videos. Here's the article:
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-18646243>

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NatW
China is building major buildings in many other countries -- They're sometimes
offered as "gifts". Makes you wonder what they expect in return..

~~~
ajays
From the article: _Kilamba was financed by a Chinese credit line - which
Angola is repaying with oil - so it has technically been paid for. But if the
houses go unsold, then the Angolan government will be left with stock on their
hands and a potentially wasted investment._

So it's not a 'gift' per se. It's more like a bribe, to fulfill the
president's promise of 1M new apartments. By pricing these at $120K each,
China can extract a _lot_ of minerals from Angola.

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smokeyj
Wonder what Paul Krugman think about this.

Edit. It's an honest question, these towns might turn out to be a good thing,
I don't know.

~~~
PakG1
Best Krugman comment on China I've ever seen, although it's inspired from
reading someone else's analysis.

[http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/11/financial-
repres...](http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/11/financial-repression-
chinese-style/)

~~~
reginaldo
The original analysis was posted and commented here on HN.
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4091199>

~~~
PakG1
Yes, but I find Krugman's insight on that much more interesting. Hempton did
an excellent job to summarize the issues. But Krugman is the one who
identified what I believe to be the more important issue after thinking about
it: the time bomb of when the savers become dissavers, and the corresponding
consequences.

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z92
The ghost towns remain empty for the first year or two. But within five years
all chinese ghost towns fill up. That's what I heard. We continue to hear
about ghost towns because as soon as old ghost towns are filling up, china
continues to build new ghost towns for future expansion.

Please correct me if wrong.

~~~
izend
There are cases of overbuilt areas but I think these stories are the West's
insecurities on display about China's success.

In the US (Nevada) and Canada, there are areas where the developers have
overbuilt, perhaps not on the scale of these Chinese development projects.

~~~
kiba
I thought it means that the Chinese are in for potentially even bigger trouble
than the west.

~~~
strebler
It's unlikely, as mortgages (and debt in general) are very unpopular in China.
It's currently not possible to even get a mortgage. Chinese ghost towns are,
for the vast majority, bought and paid for by rich speculators in cash.

Not to say speculation isn't trouble, but theirs isn't built on debt (as was
ours).

~~~
mads
I agree with you - debt is a big big no no - and having been here for some
time now, I think China functions in an very very different way than the west,
which is also why we see these conflicting reports telling us China is going
down or up and so on. I am having a hard time understanding it often myself,
but I try and sometimes, when I need to get stuff done (and I mean, just get
stuff done!), it really helps to think like a Chinese..

Let me give you a simple maybe non-related example.. I tried to get a visa for
China and it wasn't possible at all through official channels.. No matter what
I did (embassy, visa offices and whatnot), they simply wouldn't grant me a
visa which would allow me to enter and leave China as I wanted (only
single/double entry, which is no good).. In the end after some help from a
Chinese friend, I managed to get a visa because he knew somebody who knew
somebody at the local police station, who could print a visa for me..

This is how you get stuff done in China - you know somebody - I now owe my
friend a favor and as I understand it is unforgivable, if I do not pay him
back some day in some way. China is driven by guanxi
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guanxi>) ..

I am totally speculating here - just a laowai trying to figure out what the
hell is going on. Someone Chinese please enlighten me!..

~~~
frugalfirbolg
The fact that your friend can ask you for a favor in return is Guanxi, and is
certainly a characteristic of Chinese culture that provides accountability and
also is factor in whom one befriends.

The fact that a favor was required to get a visa that presumably you qualified
for (or if it was used to get one that you didn't qualify for as well) is
borderline corruption, even if no currency or goods were exchanged, since
Guanxi dictates that at very least a favor is now owed. I have friends from
China that talk about situations like this that include obtaining marriage
licenses and dealing with fees associated with second and third children.

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kiba
One thing I hate about those kind of urbanscape is their utter blandness, even
if people were to fill it up.

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agscala
The footage from the video reminds me of the empty city in the movie
Inception. It's pretty eerie seeing so much housing with no life.

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AsylumWarden
Why does the article title say "Footage shows African 'ghost town'"?

