Chongqing, the Largest City – In Pictures

Chongqing became an autonomous city back in 1998, so it wasn’t considered that insignificant (not to mention it was the wartime capital of China during WW2). However, as a city (vs a state-like municipality), I think Chengdu has passed it…eg chengdu has more people passing through its airports.

It’s missing in most European places because there’s little need for it.

When there is a need, Europe does pretty well. At least relative to the U.S.

For example, Europe built the completely novel floodgates for Venice. It’s been very successful as far as I’m aware when it was heavily doubted before and throughout its development.

On the other hand, the U.S. won’t even contemplate building something similar to protect NYC, despite the fact that Europe has already done it and proven the concept, and that the region this would protect is orders of magnitude more economically valuable than Venice.

Similarly consider high speed rail. Italy completely revolutionized domestic travel by setting up excellent high speed rail over a few years. They did it not by government fiat but intelligent regulations paired with privatization and market rules.

While it’s not China scale, it’s more than sufficient for Italy’s scale.

At the same time the U.S. is completely incapable of creating high speed rail and to the extent it has its done so by redefining it down.

Lots of low-quality construction work though. Anecdotally, I used to live in a 30-story building in one of the special economic zones. My building had horrendously large cracks in the concrete, and even though I knew rationally that it wouldn't come down, it didn't feel safe, especially during typhoons, etc.

The thing is, we used to do this. Walk around London or Florence or Rome and you will see era-adjusted sights that are equally impressive. For that matter, go check out Blenheim Palace. It’s a reasonable question to ask: What happened? But the answer is prosaic. These sights all come from times of _incredible_ inequality. Which you don’t see in these pictures but is vastly more relevant to the day to day lives of most citizens.

Show me a place that looks like that where no-one goes hungry, has to worry about medical bills and doesn’t live in fear of the rich and powerful and then I’ll be impressed.

vienna is doing it. there is a new neighborhood built from scratch on a green field. literally. a 20 year project for 25.000 residents and 20.000 jobs. just a few decades ago it was all farmland (and an unused airfield). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seestadt_Aspern

The Netherlands grew by 1 million people between 2015 and 2025, roughly 6,5% increase in population.

And (almost) everyone has a house.

Except we don't build flats and suburban one-house-fits-all massive construction projects. We mostly do smallscale development times a 1000, in stead of one big one.

We think it results in better cities.

Though, it is true we should build even more.

The cost of housing in the large Chinese megacities is comparable to, if not higher than, that in Western countries. Therefore, they are not constructing housing at a fast enough pace to meet their population’s needs. However, they do build at a rate that is 2-4 times faster than that of Western countries.

> No doubt it's a comfortable place to live for many people,

It does not look very comfortable to me. Lots of huge residential tower blocks, one that has a metro line running THROUGH it, a bookshop with shelves that are not reachable.

All those in a curated set of pictures!

I would not consider CQ comfortable. Shanghai is 1000x more comfortable.

Vertical, as in those incredible never-ending stairs: https://youtu.be/257PMPqPgXE

I loved it when I saw it, it had easily more charm and diversity than Beijing or Shanghai

They should replace this with a density metric. If a city is big enough, it becomes just "cities" next to each other. The difference is in central density and time from the extremities to the center. In this case, Chongqing, HongKong and Paris are denser than say Los Angeles; even though the Los Angeles metro area has a comparable/higher number of people.

Jacksonville, FL also claims to be the largest city in the contiguous US... by area. It's not a small or bad city, but not even in the top 10 in most other metrics.

The first list appears to come from one U.N. report where they're using completely different standards for different cities - some are using population estimates for the municipality, others population estimates of just the urban core, and others still using population estimates for the entire region.

As far as I can tell, Tokyo is at the top of the list because because they seem to be using the estimates for the entire region. Other estimates for Tokyo's population - even on Wikipedia - are less than half the number listed there.

"Chongqing, which is the largest city proper in the world by population, comprises a huge administrative area of 82,403 km2, around the size of Austria. However, more than 70% of its 30-million population are agricultural workers living in a rural setting."

You should definitely go. I haven't been to Chongqing myself, but I spent a month in Beijing, two weeks in Shanghai, and a week in Baotou, and each place offered a completely different experience.

My personal favorite was Beijing. Honestly, it felt like stepping into another world, with a vibe unlike anywhere else I have been, even compared to Shanghai or other East Asian cities like Tokyo. The people were incredibly warm and friendly, the street food was outstanding, the environment felt almost otherworldly, and the historical sites were phenomenal. Getting lost in the hutongs felt like its own adventure, the punk culture was alive and thriving, and the art district was the best I have experienced (even coming from New York City). If you skate, it's a paradise with spots everywhere you turn. Public transportation and taxis were also super affordable, clean, and efficient.

Shanghai was cool too, but it felt much more familiar. At its core, it reminded me of Manhattan, just more intense. The people there also gave off a similar vibe to New Yorkers. If you are into electronics, it's a great place to explore, although I hear Shenzhen is really the true hub for that.

Baotou felt a lot more desolate but also very peaceful. I spent most of my time there on a farm and hiking around the Gobi Desert though.

One thing to be aware of is the air quality in Beijing and Shanghai. On bad days, you would come back with black snot. I was a smoker at the time, which did not help, but even non-smokers experienced it. There always seemed to be random particles or even feathers floating in the air lol.

As someone who skates, I found the police and security surprisingly relaxed. They would usually let you skate for a while before politely asking you to move along. The only unsettling thing I witnessed was a group of officers with SMGs escorting someone out of Tsinghua University.

The saddest thing I saw was the desperate poverty on the outskirts of Beijing. There were large piles of trash, open sewage, and pollution. At one point, a concerned local pulled over and told us to turn around because of violent protests between farmers and the government up ahead. The outskirts of Shanghai showed similar poverty, though without the protests.

That said, aside from the outskirts and days of bad air quality, all three cities were incredibly clean, especially compared to New York.

This was all about 15 years ago, so I imagine a lot has changed since then.

Still, I would absolutely recommend going. If you can, spend time in places that feel unfamiliar, especially Beijing. It's an experience you will never forget.

Interesting - not available for me (in Germany!)…

How does spicy food help with hot & humid?

I’ve been there. It’s crazy how the smell of spicy hotpot permeates every street.

And it’s also crazy the spice levels they’re used to. It’s the only place in China I’ve seen 微微辣 (“very very little spicy”). And it was still incredibly spicy!

It gets hot and there's a couple days each year it's probably best to stay inside, but it's really not that bad. I'd take Chongqing over Jakarta or Kuala Lumpur, personally (in terms of weather).

Doesn't sweat stop working in hot+humid climates, since it doesn't evaporate?

So it’s just Chinese Houston? Got it. I’ll pass. Done it once. I don’t have enough shirts in the world for that humidity.

I had to look it up and could not find any English sources for this location but the book store chain is named after Sisyphus (my first thought was the struggle against online retailers) and has multiple stores in Chongqing, this one looks more practical and like a stylish library and store for books: https://www.dezeen.com/2019/08/04/chongqing-zhongshuge-books...

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This. Chongqing is not a "city" in the English sense of the word. Even in China, they jokingly call it a 省 (province).

The CCP has a pretty tight grip on the domestic narrative. The farmers in China have no agency to complain. US farmers, on the other hand, are a powerful constituency, especially the consolidated, corporate entities.

Multiple things at play here

For candid Chinese dissidence there are a couple of tolerated zones on wechat, like an American Embassy’s wechat page. Its not protected, people just use it that way sometimes. And you just have to learn some of the slang.

There are in person clashes sometimes. The municipal level isn’t as quick to seem every little action as an affront to the territorial unity of China, which is against the Chinese constitution.

The social safety nets are very expansive and work decent for the population. Housing, healthcare, busy work for income.

If you take the list of largest cities in China and google them from largest down, you'll find an incredible number of cities that just look like they're in the future.

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