(1) James T Areddy, Shanghai's Pudong, Once Soulless, Rises Up; District's ascendancy and ongoing success as a financial center is reminder of still-strong property demand in China. Wall Street Journal, Dec 21, 2011.
Quote:
(a) "Deng Xiaping sparked the transformation of Pudong's riverfront of warehouses with a 1990 utterance: 'Shanghai is our trump card.' A decade later, Pudong was Exhibit A for critics of an urban-development model guided by state planners, a soulless district where 70% of the buildings stood empty. Visiting economist Milton Friedman called it 'a statist monument for a dead pharaoh on the level of the pyramids.'
"Today, as worries of a Chinese property crash are back in force, there is an unlikely Bright Spot: Pudong.
(b) One big question is whetehr Pudong's 'build it and they will come' approach will work as well in cities without Shanghai's advantages: a strong industrial base, widespread prosperity and favorable geography at the mouth of the Yangtze River.
(c) Sam Crispin's bullish reports on Pudong a decade ago made the property analyst a contrarian. Now, as director of China real estate at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLC, Mr Crispin says groing talk about China's unoccupied 'ghost cities' reminds him of the doubts many had about Pudong. 'A lot of the commentary frankly was quite similar to the ideas that are being bandied about for the property market today,' he says. 'The reasoning is quite similar--who's going to occupy all those buildings?'
"Mr Crispin argues that the lesson of Pudong is how badly Chinese demand was underestimated. Real0estate development, he says, tends to produce 'sensationalist' viewpoints.
(d) Twice the surface area ofManhattan has been constructed in Pudong since 1995--390 million square feet of floor space by the official tally, including more than 70 skyscapers.
"According to International real-estate agency Jones Lang LaSalle, less of Pudong's grade-A office is empty than Manhattan's--9.5% versus 10.3%.
Note:
(a) contrarian (n):
"a person who takes a contrary position or attitude; specifically : an investor who buys shares of stock when most others are selling and sells when others are buying" www.m-w.com
(b) There is noneed to read teh rest of the report.