China has built 1,575 buildings with a height in excess of 100-meters (hereafter ‘skyscrapers’) since the year 2000. This makes the country (by far) the leader in terms of construction, and therefore a great place to analyze the benefits of these types of development.
Jin Wang (et al.) of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology has produced a-first-of-it’s-kind study using a variety of databases which he/they hope will, a) inform planners and, b) guide other developing countries looking to emulate China’s urban development model.
The researchers discovered as follows:
- Many skyscrapers have been built in smaller cities and often further from Central Business Districts than residential equivalents. This pattern is the opposite of development in the U.S.
- As they delicately put it: “This suggests that factors outside of the competitive market framework could be at play.” This has affected not only the number of skyscrapers built but also many of their locations
- The research shows that government subsidies have been a big motivator and that this factor is most pronounced in smaller locales with more ambitious local officials
- In contrast to non-subsidized projects, subsidized ones provide little spill-over benefits on a 5~10-year view. Poor location, weak developers and an absence of supporting infrastructure being mostly to blame.
They conclude the analysis with the following zinger: “..the fact that such policies [Building tall buildings] work somewhere does not guarantee that they work everywhere.”
Perhaps the same could be said about a few other economic policies?
You can review the work in full via the following link Building Tall, Falling Short.
Happy Sunday.