China to flatten 700 mountains for new metropolis in the desert - Polidicks

[quote]Lanzhou new area plan to begin with 'mountain-moving project', but financial and environmental wisdom of project questioned A long, long time ago, an old Chinese peasant named Yu Gong decided to move two inconveniently located mountains away from blocking the entrance to his home. Legend has it he struggled terribly, but ultimately succeeded. Hence the Chinese idiom "Yu Gong moves the mountains." Where there's a will, there's a way. Now Chinese developers are putting old Yu to shame. In what is being billed as the largest "mountain-moving project" in Chinese history, oneof China's biggest construction firms will spend £2.2bn to flatten 700 mountains levelling the area Lanzhou, allowing developers to build a new metropolis on the outskirts of the north-western city. The Lanzhou New Area, 500 square miles (130,000 hectares) of land 50 miles from the city, which is the provincial capital of arid Gansu province, could increase the region's gross domestic product to £27bn by 2030, according to the state-run China Daily. It has already attracted almost £7bn of corporate investment. The project will be China's fifth "state-level development zone" and the first in the country's rapidly developing interior, according to state media reports. Others include Shanghai's Pudong and Tianjin's Binhai, home to a half-built, 120-building replica of Manhattan. China's state council, its highest administrative authority, approved the Lanzhou project in August. The first stage of the mountain-flattening initiative, which was reported on Tuesday by the China Economic Weekly magazine, began in late October and will eventually enable a new urban district almost 10 square miles in size northeast of downtown Lanzhou – a small, but important part of the Lanzhou Nnew area project to be built. One of the country's largest private companies: the Nanjing-based China Pacific Construction Group, headed by Yan Jiehe, is behind the initiative. The 52-year-old former teacher is portrayed in China as a sort of home-grown Donald Trump – ultra-ambitious and preternaturally gifted at navigating the country's vast network of "guanxi", or personal connections. Yan was born in the 1960s as the youngest of nine children. After a decade of working as a high-school teacher and cement plant employee, he founded his construction firm in 1995 and amassed a fortune by buying and revamping struggling state-owned enterprises. In 2006 the respected Hu Run report named Yan – then worth about £775m – as China's second-richest man. His latest plan has evoked a healthy dose of scepticism. Lanzhou, home to 3.6 million people alongside the silty Yellow River, already has major environmental concerns. Last year the World Health Organisation named it the city with the worst air pollution in China. The city's main industries include textiles, fertiliser production and metallurgy. Liu Fuyuan, a former high-level official at the country's National Development and Reform Commission, told China Economic Weekly that the project was unsuitable because Lanzhou is frequently listed as among China's most chronically water-scarce municipalities. "The most important thing is to gather people in places where there is water," he said. Others also pointed to the financial risk of building a new city in the middle of the desert. "All this investment needs to be paid back with residential land revenue, and I don't see much on returns in these kinds of cities," said Tao Ran, an economics professor at Renmin University in Beijing. "If you have a booming real estate market it might work, but it seems to me that real estate in China is very, very risky." In an email interview, a China Pacific Construction Group spokeswoman dismissed criticisms of the project as unjustified. "Lanzhou's environment is already really poor, it's all desolate mountains which are extremely short of water," said Angie Wong. "Our protective style of development will divert water to the area, achieve reforestation and make things better than before." Yan's plans could be considered "a protective style of development, and a developmental style of protection", she said, adding: "I think whether it's England or America, or any other country, no one will cease development because of resource scarcity caused by geography." A promotional video posted on the Lanzhou new area website shows a digitally-rendered cityscape of gleaming skyscrapers and leafy parks. Against a driving operatic score, the camera zooms out from a large government building to reveal features of the area's imagined urban topography: a clock tower, a new airport, an oil refinery, a light-rail system, and a stadium packed with cheering fans. The new area "will lead to an environmentally sustainable economy based on energy-saving industries" including advanced equipment manufacturing, petrochemical industries and modern agriculture, wrote Chinese Central Television on its website. The Lanzhou city government could not be reached for comment.[/quote] [url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/dec/06/china-flatten-mountain-lanzhou-new-area]SOURCE & VIDEO[/url]

Will anyone actually live there I wonder. They do simulate an artificial economy by making empty cities after all.

Send in gabe, he's pretty good at flattening shit right.

[QUOTE=ultra_bright;38738425]Send in gabe, he's pretty good at flattening shit right.[/QUOTE] He'll get two thirds into the third mountain then call it a day

[quote]The project will be China's fifth "state-level development zone" and the first in the country's rapidly developing interior, according to state media reports. Others include Shanghai's Pudong and Tianjin's Binhai, home to a half-built, 120-building replica of Manhattan. China's state council, its highest administrative authority, approved the Lanzhou project in August.[/quote] those development zones are fucking crazy... crammed with shitty buildings.

[QUOTE=ultra_bright;38738425]Send in gabe, he's pretty good at flattening shit right.[/QUOTE] There goes HL3 for another year.

doesn't China have enough empty cities as it is?

How big are these mountains?

[QUOTE=IKTM;38738905]How big are these mountains?[/QUOTE] hopefully larger than molehills

[QUOTE=ultra_bright;38738425]Send in gabe, he's pretty good at flattening shit right.[/QUOTE] I'm better [thumb]http://i.imgur.com/SkeJm.jpg[/thumb]

[img]http://filesmelt.com/dl/levelterrain.png[/img]

[QUOTE=J!NX;38738407]Will anyone actually live there I wonder. They do simulate an artificial economy by making empty cities after all.[/QUOTE] Man, it could be the subject of a game in its own right; the tale of an explorer trapped in one of these "Chinese ghost cities", but he's not alone. Also, if these cities are all empty, then they should probably be let out as "colony spaces" for different countries to purchase and populate, if population growth gets too large.

"Sorry sir! I can't build there!"

"It will look real nice when its done"

Reminds me of Borderlands 2. With that big empty city in the middle of a damn desert.

Going to be interesting to see what these cities become like in say 10-20 years. Will the eventually be populated or just run down ghost towns, or even redeveloped into something else?

Flattening a mountains to create a city just sounds crazy.

While this surely sounds impressive, I'm quite curious of the environmental impacts. After all it sounds like they're fucking with nature on a wide scale.

[QUOTE=-n3o-;38739619]Going to be interesting to see what these cities become like in say 10-20 years. Will the eventually be populated or just run down ghost towns, or even redeveloped into something else?[/QUOTE] THE WORLDS LARGEST PAINTBALL ARENA. [editline]7th December 2012[/editline] WEEK LONG GAMES. TEAMS OF 1000 PEOPLE.

That's kind of sad, especially when you consider that no one is probably going to live there. China, fuck off and leave the damn mountains alone.

[QUOTE=znk666;38739620]Flattening a mountains to create a city just sounds crazy.[/QUOTE] Not if the city is going to become populated. [editline]7th December 2012[/editline] [QUOTE=Swebonny;38739708]THE WORLDS LARGEST PAINTBALL ARENA. [editline]7th December 2012[/editline] WEEK LONG GAMES. TEAMS OF 1000 PEOPLE.[/QUOTE] One day...

It saddens me that one day the Earth will probably be covered entirely by towns and cities.

in china the government is playing sim city in real life

[QUOTE=Noss;38740278]It saddens me that one day the Earth will probably be covered entirely by towns and cities.[/QUOTE] Cities are god damn beautiful. [IMG]http://xaxor.com/images/cities-at-night-photography-part2-/cities-at-night-photography-part2-4.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_SqhhJb_P3Kk/SPY37w_MOAI/AAAAAAAACdo/YS49tR1iPc8/s1600/city+at+night+6.jpg[/IMG] [URL="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e5/Chrysler_Building_Midtown_Manhattan_New_York_City_1932.jpg"]Linking this final one due to huge resolution.[/URL]

But so is nature, and we rely on it, why cant we exist with it instead of obliterating it with all the deforestation going on already

[QUOTE=Swebonny;38739708]THE WORLDS LARGEST PAINTBALL ARENA. [editline]7th December 2012[/editline] WEEK LONG GAMES. TEAMS OF 1000 PEOPLE.[/QUOTE] Humans vs. Zombies for a week would be incredible in one of those ghost cities.

[QUOTE=Zerohe;38740383]Cities are god damn beautiful.[/QUOTE] Cities can look pretty, but can never come near surpassing nature in beauty and complexity.

[QUOTE=Zerohe;38740383]Cities are god damn beautiful. [IMG]http://xaxor.com/images/cities-at-night-photography-part2-/cities-at-night-photography-part2-4.jpg[/IMG] [IMG]http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_SqhhJb_P3Kk/SPY37w_MOAI/AAAAAAAACdo/YS49tR1iPc8/s1600/city+at+night+6.jpg[/IMG] [URL="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e5/Chrysler_Building_Midtown_Manhattan_New_York_City_1932.jpg"]Linking this final one due to huge resolution.[/URL][/QUOTE] china looks great from the distance but a lot of those skyscrapers are dirty as fuck inside.

Why don't just construct a city on the mountains instead?

[QUOTE=ababs362;38740448]But so is nature, and we rely on it, why cant we exist with it instead of obliterating it with all the deforestation going on already[/QUOTE] We can just build a machine which does the job come on think