Chen pays just 1200 RMB, or $168, a month for her apartment in faux Venice in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangsu. It’s so cheap that it’s allowed Chen to retire at the tender age of 28.
With such low rent, she calculates she can live there for the rest of her life without ever having to work again.
Ban moved from a bustling commercial city on China’s east coast to a small town in China’s southwestern Yunnan province. Tucked away in a lush valley, the town is famed for fresh, clean air and healing hot springs. There, for just 800 yuan a month ($110) Ban rents an apartment with three bedrooms, one of which she converted to a yoga studio.
A one-bedroom apartment can be bought for $3,000, and $13,000 can buy a roomy four-bedroom place.
Good for Chen and Ban! They deserves better than 996.
This will be interesting impacts on China if it becomes a larger trend, though no reason to think it will become a much larger trend.
Chen used to dread the grind of her nine-to-six job, which she said “felt like marching to my own death.” Now, she wakes at 10 a.m. every day, filling her days with cooking, chilling, and long walks on the beach.
“I never believed that work is the meaning of life,” Chen said. “My ideal state of life is not to work and stay at places that I like.”
Those are some cheap condos. Seems like the cost of living gap between urban and rural is especially wide in China.
Wow $13,000 for a four bedroom? It’s almost like propaganda 🤣
It would be nice if we could build affordable housing here in the US.
The high rises in the thumbnail (where Chen lives) are described as semi-abandoned. China tried building these new cities out in the middle of nowhere, assuming people would fill them, but not enough people moved in. Seems like it would be smarter to just build higher where there is already organic demand.
Kind of a shit article. How sustainable are these? Who pays the maintenance on these buildings? Who covers sewage and hydro? Is there a tax base to worry about or does China’s command economy just cover everything automagically?
A few people paying a relative pittance in an otherwise vacant community is going to crumble in the absence of maintenance.
I suppose there will be some kind of conservancy charges. Like there are in Singapore
But how would that cover a crumbling building when only a few residents pay it?