Chinese city builds bridge around house after owner refuses to move

originally posted by: musicismagic

originally posted by: AaarghZombies

originally posted by: gortex
a reply to: xizhimen

At least over there your property is your property and if you don't want to sell you don't havr too sell , over here the government would just slap a Compulsory Purchase order on it and the owner would be out on their ear.

Not sure I'd be keen on living in the middle of a road though.

Unfortunately, this is very far from the truth.

A lot of land in China is owned by local village comittees, and is signed over to people on a lease arrangement.

The village comittee can take the land away from people and sell it on. Often for a large profit. Officially there is a compensation scheme, but the money offered to people is often derisory.

Corrupt officials have long been known to seize people's land, sell if got a huge sum of mone, and then keep most of the compensations. I 'm not sure what the situation is like now, but a few years back there were regular riots by farmers protesting against land seizures.

Back then there was feirce competition between regional towns and cities to try to attract new business, and one of the ways that they would do this would be to build these elaboreate entrances to impress visitors. Think, a small town with a 6 lane highway leading up to it, a roundabout that would suit a freeway, and these huge floral displays.

Local officials would usully build these on farm land, and would bribe people to seize it. Quite a few people protested and were wither arrested or simply killed.

That's the Chinese way of life I know.

Unfortunately that was my expeirence as well. I spent many years in a more rural part of China, and was forever seeing the local cities competing with each other with bigger and grander infrastructure projects. We had a 4 lane highway that went to nowhere that cut right through the land of dozens of farmers, and there was a BOC half way down it that never opened properly in all of the years that I lived there but which was about 6 stories high and fronted with marble columns. It looked like it belonged in Shanghai, not a hick town.

We three shopping malls. On one only the ground floor was full. The other two floors were empty apart form a single business. The other two malls never attracted any big companies and they ended up renting out these expensive glass fronted stores to what were essentially market stalls.

The tallest building in the city was an empty tower block that looked fantastic from the outside, but it was rumored to have been built so badly that nobody could afford to bribe the safety inspector to sign off on it, because no amount of money could pursuade them to approve it.

I don't know how much was reported in the west as we had limited access to foreign media back then, but there would regularly be riots by farmers who had been tricked out of their land, or just plain thrown off of it. Some of them started lawyering up, so Beijing started locking up their lawyers.

There was this one lawyer who was blind, or deaf, or something, I forget his name, who was cnstantly being arrested to stop him from meeting up with disposessed farmers.

Farmers were supposed to be able to petition the government directly simply by turning up at a particular building in the capitol and presenting a petition by hand, but so many people did it that the govenrment set up hit squads to phiyically stop them from doing it.

originally posted by: UpThenDown
We had the same thing happen in the North of England on way to Leeds

Famous farm in middle of M62 to become more sustainable

Stott Hall farm made national headlines in the 1960s when the M62 was built and has been a focal point ever since.

Inside the house built in middle of M62 motorway as owners explain why it's there

The British are well known for using comp-purchasing laws to evict people with little compensation. I remember hearing about the businesses that were evicted to build the new London Olypmpic stadium, or the high speed rail line to the Channel Tunel.

They deliberately take the value of someone's land after a project, not before it. So if you lived in a million dollar farm they won't pay you a million dollars, they will say that your land is now worthless because it's got a road or a train line goign through it, and pay you the lower value.

originally posted by: SortingHat
a reply to: AaarghZombies

What's with all these sudden new 'debunking' accounts? It makes it feel like a MSM search engine sometimes.

Obvious influencer sleeper accounts are obvious AF, all things newsworthy considered recently.

originally posted by: Nyiah

originally posted by: SortingHat
a reply to: AaarghZombies

What's with all these sudden new 'debunking' accounts? It makes it feel like a MSM search engine sometimes.

Obvious influencer sleeper accounts are obvious AF, all things newsworthy considered recently.

Some of those links were a decade old. They're not new news stories.

originally posted by: AaarghZombies

originally posted by: xizhimen
a reply to: AaarghZombies
It's a very common matter in China, that's why we have multiple slangs related to this phenomenon, more info can be found on google if you are interested. Even in Beijing, Many planned development projects were greatly stalled by some "nail houses".


www.google.com... 9TA2Ov4AhV2R2wGHSLoBSwQ4dUDCA4&uact=5&oq=nail+house+in+china&gs_lcp=Cgdnd3Mtd2l6EAMyBQgAEIAEMgYIABAeEBYyBggAEB4QFjIGCAAQHhAWMgYIABAeEBYyBggAEB4QFjoHCC MQ6gIQJzoECCMQJzoECC4QQzoQCC4QsQMQgwEQxwEQ0QMQQzoICAAQsQMQgwE6CgguEMcBENEDEEM6DQguEMcBENEDENQCEEM6BAgAEEM6CgguELEDEIMBEEM6DQguEMcBEKMCENQCEEM6DQguELED EIMBENQCEEM6BwgAELEDEEM6BwguELEDEEM6BwgAEMkDEEM6BQgAEJIDOggIABCABBCxAzoLCAAQgAQQsQMQgwE6CwguEIAEEMcBEKMCOgsILhCABBDHARCvAToHCC4QgAQQCjoICAAQgAQQyQM6Cg gAEIAEEIcCEBQ6CwgAEB4QDxDJAxAWOggIABAeEA8QFjoJCAAQHhDJAxAWSgQIQRgASgQIRhgAUABY5D9ggUFoBHAAeAOAAb4IiAGHI5IBCjAuMTguMi43LTGYAQCgAQGwAQrAAQE&sclient=gws- wiz

我们？

你是北京人？

What’s with the foreign chitchat?

a reply to: AaarghZombies

How long ago was that? I remembered I saw some protestors from other provinces in Beijing, but not for land grabbing but for labor disputes.

originally posted by: gortex
a reply to: xizhimen

At least over there your property is your property and if you don't want to sell you don't havr too sell , over here the government would just slap a Compulsory Purchase order on it and the owner would be out on their ear.

Not sure I'd be keen on living in the middle of a road though.

Happens in china just as easy. It is when there is a lot of attention drawn to it when they refrain from doing just that.