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Yeah, I don't buy this either. China builds thousands of kilometers of new high speed rail every year.


Are they doing so by offering the existing landowners a fair market value for their properties?


To a surprising extent, yes.

I know the popular Western image of infrastructure development in China is jackbooted thugs forcing farmers off their land, and there's some of that as well, but most people are reasonably happy with the compensation they get. The Shanghai-Hangzhou maglev project (below) is also an instructive case study of an ambitious rail project that was cancelled largely thanks to (sadly unwarranted) public concern.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai%E2%80%93Hangzhou_magl...




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