China’s National Development and Reform Commission has implemented an outright ban on the construction of buildings taller than 500 meters, following mounting safety concerns over the quality of some tall projects. The move is seen as a formal ratification of an in-principle ban on new buildings taller than 500 meters announced last year.
The ban follows concern over quality problems and safety hazards for tall buildings in China, stemming from inadequate oversight. In May, we reported on the evacuation of the 291-meter-tall SEG Plaza in Shenzhen, following concerns over mysterious wobbling and swaying felt within the building. The South China Morning Post also notes that the ban is fueled partly by an oversupply of office space in Chinese cities due to three decades of intense skyscraper construction.
In addition to a structural height cap of 500 meters on new buildings, local authorities will also strictly limit the construction of towers taller than 250 meters. Construction of buildings taller than 100 meters will also need to closely match their contextual scales, and demonstrate adequate fire rescue capabilities for the area.
The new policy carries great significance, given that China currently contains five of the world's ten towers exceeding 500 meters in height, according to the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. China is also home to 44 of the world’s 100 tallest buildings.
An array of tall buildings in China have recently made headlines. Last month in Shenzhen, Morphosis’ newly completed skyscraper set a world record for the tallest building with a detached core, while Sou Fujimoto unveiled a competition entry for a Sky Island tower In Hangzhou, meanwhile, BIG recently unveiled plans for an infinity loop headquarters for China’s largest smartphone manufacturer.
13 Comments
first world problems
More of a second world problem, really.
USA has one building over 500m
This article is about China.
you're saying they're second world, though?
*long inhale*
The delineation between First, Second, and Third-Worlds, while often misattributed to some sort of development metric, is actually rooted in Cold War history. The "First World" being the US and its allies, "Second World" consisting of the USSR, China, other communist states, and their allies, and the "Third World" being those nations not directly allied with either. So, yes, China is in the "Second World" by the definition of the term.
The reason this is a "Second World Problem" (in the joking manner of First World Problems) is a little complicated. First, it's important to understand that the sino-soviet model of communism was and still is structured on Stalinist-Maoist authoritarianism. Kind of a collectivist dictatorship. One party rule, etc. Historically, these politburo-based hierarchies become cults of personality that reward loyalty above all else. The punishment for disloyalty is swift and severe. All too commonly, loyalty gets confused with results. All of this places a huge burden on local party leaders to tell their bosses what they want to hear, instead of what's true, to avoid upsetting the impression that the Great Leader is infallible. Mao's infamous famine happened this way: Local leaders, desperate to please Mao, reported surpluses of grain when in fact there were massive shortages. Mao changed his policy in response to false information, and millions starved.
I'd argue a similar cult of personality has formed around Xi Jinping, on top of a larger cult of nationalism that's driven Chinese hyper-development since the early 90s. This, combined with a lack of independent judiciary or rule of law, incentivizes corruption, corner-cutting, bribery, and all manner of shenanigans in order to deliver on over-promised unachievable goals. In this case, you get shoddy construction, which has shown up time and time again throughout China as the country rapidly urbanizes (as the article alludes to)
The leadership, unable to confidently control codes, standards, and quality (because of the incentive model they've unleashed) has decided to respond with an outright ban on certain structures, to avoid eventual inevitable disasters.
So, yeah, it's a problem sort of unique to "the second world"
Jokes are never as funny when you have to explain them.
Accurate terms 60 years ago.first World is now means highly industrialized countries. Third World means undeveloped countries. Second World describes those that fall between the other two.
I'm a purist.
based on the purist description, would it be accurate to describe america during 2017-2020 period as a 2nd world country?
also, this news is far from 'new' - it only codifies what's been required in practice for about 5 years now. the stated reasons change every few years... you could suppose they are not technical, and more likely relate to efforts to avoid economically-risky showmanship between smaller cities. from a life safety perspective, a badly built 450m tower is no better than a badly built 600m tower. but actually the construction of high rises in china isn't obviously worse than any other major country. probably much better than south florida! https://www.mingtiandi.com/real-estate/projects-real-estate/wuhan-greenland-center-height-cut-down-to-500-metres/
I agree 100% with tduds explanation about the terms first, second, and third world. These terms have been misused politically and for all kinds of reasons but the terms are conflated with development status. There is a different set of terms and metrics for measuring development status but they are not as easily understood and conveyed to the mass majority of the uneducated idiots in the United States who have no clue about anything other than their little 'world'.
Nations level of development status is commonly measured by HDI (Human Development Index) that is calculated by the UN. There are other statistical data and metrics to measure various aspects of a country's social, economical, etc. level of development.
As you can see, here, there are a lot and several ways to measure various aspects of a nation as to its level of development. I wouldn't just look at one Index as they are used for different audiences and areas of interest or focus of development. A country can rank high in HDI yet have very poor equality because HDI is more interested in economics and industrial/commercial level of development for economic reasons than it may be for other concerns like wealth distribution equality.
Sorry, I am not posting all the links here at this time. I'll leave that up to you all to discern for yourself.
An anecdote about the China Zun in beijing, the top floor was originally envisioned as a 3 story high cafeteria/restaurant overlooking the entire city, but somehow the people designing it failed to take into account visibility into China's white house besides the forbidden city, so last I heard it's sitting empty. There was a proposal to black out the glazing facing that area, but who knows how that's going.
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