I mean, from that article:
Despite its seemingly outlandish location, Caojiawan Station’s location is part of an insightful plan that anticipates growth in rapidly modernizing China – so say Chongqing Rail Transit employees.
Even here the 'so say' bit clearly creates the same framing as the title.
Yep and it's also important to consider the political/economic climate.
The 2010s had most media groups reporting on rapid, ostensibly directionless growth in China. One of the more recognized themes were the "ghost cities", so I imagine this got a lot of attention for its apparent absurdity. I honestly can't remember this one but I must have seen a hundred stories like it.
Remember that western propaganda is always a projection, it was most likely a whataboutism for the real ghost towns in US and Eastern Europe where capitalism hollowed the local communities to the point of drastic population drop.
headline matters
Yes and their box network is better than any old stars subway networks that you could find in Europe.
Tbf if this was done in America. Nothing would happen and we would just have a station in the middle of no where. I wouldn't be surprised if this happened when we did have trains.
and that's what makes this kind of propaganda work because people naturally project their own lived experience onto China
Yea, we are about to have dozens of abandoned and/or half completed billion dollar data centers around the US.
It's exact how a lot of towns formed when we had trains. Trains needed fuel (coal, wood) and water....a lot of it and unreasonably frequently. Stations were built regularly along tracks. Towns formed around those.
Me playing Cities Skylines 🤝 China
look, we took a picture on a construction site and the construction was gasp only partly completed
A more neutral title could have been something like:"Urban Expansion Project Set to House x Million on Track to be Completed Ahead of Time". And instead of literally framing a picture in the most unflattering way possible, they could have shown a 3d model with a birds eye view of the city planning, and maybe workers who are involved like the architect explaining it.
Moving to China, bye.
I haven't been to Chongqing since 2014. I bet it changed massively if I went back.
You look around and think "damn, this place is chonky"
3 years with that much difference is pretty incredible I gotta say.
For contrast, where I live there's an LRT line that's been under construction for over a decade...
I remember seeing this circulated on reddit as proof that China was on the brink of collapse.
In the capitalist west, it is frowned upon to plan further than next years earnings report.
Unfortunately still not the best planning, the station drops people off besides what seems like an arterial road.
#funny
