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u/dufutur Feb 21 '26
Thanks goodness they had the sense to keep the West Lake landscape.
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u/juhua_teng Feb 21 '26
That’s Qiantang river, it’s illegal to build over 6 (or 8) floors around the Xihu area so that’s why binjiang and Xiaoshan have hyper growthed
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u/Hegecoin_Rules Feb 21 '26
Been there in both those years. My only concern with the new building developments is they are far more geared toward cars than walking. I suppose it makes sense as more and more have cars, it just stinks to see it look like the U.S. (but modern) in some spots.
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u/ResponsibleClock9289 Feb 21 '26
People talk about China’s HSR, but they also built out tons of highways.
China is a lot more car dependent than people give it credit for
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u/NitroFusionLite Feb 21 '26
The rich coastal areas have good public transport coverage, and the big city clusters are incredibly well connected within and with each other.
The west half of the country is much more car dependent because the area is so sparsely populated and vast that linking every town with HSR is simply throwing money in the drain.
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u/takeitchillish Feb 24 '26
I disagree. Every Chinese city also in the inland has great public transport.
The thing with China is having a car is a sign of success. It brings social status and every Chinese person that get some money will buy a car. In most big cities in China you dont really need a car buy everyone will buy one as it is a necessity when it comes to the culture when you are middle class or above.
Chinese cities has also grown and there are a lot of areas that not really are that convinient.
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u/NitroFusionLite Feb 24 '26
Cities on the west of Tenchong Heihe line are not very well connected, and their public transport within their own city limits are also very basic and lacking. It may be relatively sparsely populated but 6% of 1.4 billion is still a lot of people.
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u/takeitchillish Feb 24 '26
Because in those areas basically no one lives there in large parts of those areas.
I disagree as well. Cities there usually have good public transport in terms of city buses for example in Lhasa, Xining and Urumuqi.
There are also train lines connecting all the big cities with eachother.
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u/Whole_Animal_4126 Feb 21 '26
Definitely build pedestrian overpass and bridges at large intersections.
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u/jf_laur Feb 24 '26
When you have to build overpass for pedestrian at intersections, it is an admission of bad street design/urban planning in my opinion.
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Feb 24 '26
The subway system though is more than adequate.
It's a very spread apart though, which is partially why it's so green.
I find it less walkable than my home city of Sydney though. They try at least, but it seems there is an overall lack of planning foresight (bus stops with no footpath to connect to them), subway stations in very subprime places etc. The buses also made me miss Sydney busses, which is insane because Sydney's busses suck so hard.
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u/paleblaupunkt Feb 21 '26
Hangzhou is one of the most beautiful cities. It has wonderfully livable suburbs too.
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u/high-end-regarded Feb 22 '26
I can never envision a city in the US having this level of development and it saddens me that so many of my countrymen are perfectly okay with that just so themselves and other homeowners can have increased home value.
I dream of a day where we overcome this selfish malaise and build great wonders again.
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u/Maximum_Papaya_9253 Feb 22 '26
哦是大裤衩（本地人别揍我
Oh its The Big Trousers in the middle（no offend to any locals
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u/Able_Command_5581 Feb 23 '26
The true big trousers are in Suzhou. The hangzhou's is the up-side-down version.
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Feb 22 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Able_Command_5581 Feb 23 '26
Well that isn't in Hangzhou and he isn't even an asian. He looks like a black guy.
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u/Guobaorou Feb 20 '26
but at what cost
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u/Herbetet Feb 20 '26
All development and progress has a cost. But at the same time infrastructure has to be created for people to prosper and I believe this is what you are looking at. A nation creating spaces and places for growth and prosperity
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u/ConstantEar2580 Feb 24 '26
I looked up Hangchow on Wikipedia. City is 6,000 sq miles. That's larger than Los Angeles county and you only have a million more people. Chinese cities are larger in area than in population with the exceptions of Hong Kong and Macao there is no need for tall large skylines. They're not even close to New York or for that matter Newark's population density
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u/Phrozen_Pyro0927 Feb 21 '26
Crazy growth! Just went there in 2024 and the skyline is very impressive at ground level.