China Knocks Down Mountains For Expansion

[CapTon 592]

http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/chinas-mountain-flattening-pro/30433533

 

Wow...

[unnamed 174]

Only in China, lol. Also, the picture of the city does not look environmentally friendly. Especially the water.  

[Duke87 1,070]

This article needs before and after pics. It lacks them. I am disappoint.

[Wiimeiser 434]

And so Time Zones +5 through to +11 were rendered as habitable as Venus by 2222...

[Easy Bakes 253]

So thier going to  knock down mountains to build more empty cities?

[jmsepe 2,038]

The article states that US does it in mining so China just made a revision, a bigger revision. What concerns me is the effect this will have on the community of the animals and plants living in the area and yes, the issue with the stability of the land. China might soon build underwater cities too once they flatten all the mountains. 

[Terring 6,473]

Now that's a great way to deal with population problems, by causing air and water pollution, erosion, landslides and flooding, as well as destroying farmlands and habitats for wild animals and plants. Way to go!

Seriously now, why not constructing a few earthscrapers?

 

 

They don't ruin the environment and they can be constructed even under existing cities, so you actually expand your cities underway. You have the money and the manpower to build them China!

[LexusInfernus 908]

That is to bad. I've always liked cities that are build into their surroundings, not ones that just demolish the surroundings to create more of the same. 

[Sabretooth78 808]

Well, if they're going to do it, let's hope they're more responsible in doing so than Big Coal in the US, especially in the "coalfields" region of WV and KY.  It's probably the greatest man-made environmental disaster plaguing this country today and you scarcely hear a word about it.  Take a look at the area in Google Earth, and that's only scratching the surface.  Of course the sites are all so conveniently located so as not to be visible from any major highways.

 

Somehow I doubt China is going to do any better ([their] big government = [our] big business) but there's always hope.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

When you have over a billion people to house and feed, sometimes desperate measures result.

[Duke87 1,070]

Seriously now, why not constructing a few earthscrapers?

 

When you start digging into the ground you lose this little thing called sunlight, which is kinda important. I daresay living or working 20 stories above the ground is much more appealing to most people than living or working 20 stories below it.

 

Not only that, but digging is expensive. It is more cost-effective to build up than down. Especially in areas with bedrock near the surface.

[hym 358]

Not only that, but digging is expensive. It is more cost-effective to build up than down. Especially in areas with bedrock near the surface.

 

Soils that have water content can be difficult to work with also.  The reason virtually no one builds basements in Houston isn't because city building code forbids them.  It's because the city building code requires that you pour a foundation for the basement, then pour the basement, then pour another foundation for the above ground structure.  It's much cheaper to pour a stronger foundation that can handle another story on the building than going through all of the work to get a basement.

 

Another fun one is when they are driving wood piles hundreds of feet into the ground.  Got to watch this once as part of the ground work for a new steam methane reformer that was being constructed for the refinery where I was working.  Don't know how long each pile was or how many they buried, but if laid down end to end, the piles would have stretched on for miles.

[hamsterTK 93]

So that's what happened to Mount Houston. There's a street with that name, so where is the mountain? 

 

On a more serious note I think calling these hills mountains is an exaggeration. What's really interesting is the extent of the project. Most people don't know that Downtown Los Angeles used to be a hill that was largely flattened.

[Sleeping Politician 32]

When you have over a billion people to house and feed, sometimes desperate measures result.

I don't see India doing anything stupid and harmful with it's natural features and it has a population of around 1.2 billion

 

Or a densely populated country like Monaco doing that.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

India doesn't have a totalitarian government, nor Monaco for that matter.  India is a constitutional republic and Monaco a monarchy.  Besides, in India, the problem is or soon will be water.  Seems that the ice packs in the mountains that feed the Ganges are shrinking,  What if there was no more water in the Ganges river?

[Ocram's Razr 963]

The thing you don't realize is that most of these new developments are mostly unoccupied because they are unaffordable for the impoverished Chinese people they are supposed to house. Also, many of these new ghost mega cities were built on productive farmland. The rapid expansion does little to help the populace; it merely gives an image of growth and expansion during the global recession.

--Ocram

[Larks2242 251]

Wow, what an engineering challenge this must be.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Probably using thousands of coolies with shovels.

[Easy Bakes 253]

The thing you don't realize is that most of these new developments are mostly unoccupied because they are unaffordable for the impoverished Chinese people they are supposed to house. Also, many of these new ghost mega cities were built on productive farmland. The rapid expansion does little to help the populace; it merely gives an image of growth and expansion during the global recession.

--Ocram

this way has to blow up on them soon economically.

destroying working  farmland  to build high rise cities no one will occupy.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

They have a bad case of crabs -- bureaucrabs.  In the long run, China has always survived such sets of fools.

[Sleeping Politician 32]

The thing you don't realize is that most of these new developments are mostly unoccupied because they are unaffordable for the impoverished Chinese people they are supposed to house. Also, many of these new ghost mega cities were built on productive farmland. The rapid expansion does little to help the populace; it merely gives an image of growth and expansion during the global recession.

--Ocram

 

Eventually the Gov't making productive land into mega ghost cities bigger that Shanghai will indebt them, lets watch and see...

[SteveMSim 275]

Well, if they're going to do it, let's hope they're more responsible in doing so than Big Coal in the US, especially in the "coalfields" region of WV and KY.  It's probably the greatest man-made environmental disaster plaguing this country today and you scarcely hear a word about it.  Take a look at the area in Google Earth, and that's only scratching the surface.  Of course the sites are all so conveniently located so as not to be visible from any major highways.

 

Somehow I doubt China is going to do any better ([their] big government = [our] big business) but there's always hope.

 

Bingham Canyon Mine in Utah, whose tailings can be seen from Salt Lake City, is one of the largest human excavations on Earth and has devoured an entire mountain.  Fortunately, open pit strip mining did not exist in the 19th Century; otherwise the Colorado landscape would have been altered in a big way.  I remember seeing a mountain in an intensely mined area which is supposed to have about 20 miles (32 kilometers) of mining tunnels inside of it.