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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   6611 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 8, 2025

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Bizarre question by Cowen

COWEN: When will Chinese suburbs be really attractive?

WANG: What are Chinese suburbs? You use this term, Tyler, and I’m not sure what exactly they mean.

COWEN: You have a yard and a dog and a car, right?

WANG: Yes.

COWEN: You control your school district with the other parents. That’s a suburb.

Cowen retroactively defines an attractive suburb as a sprawling American suburb. No wonder Wang is confused.

American suburbs are the result of uniquely American circumstances from the mid/late 20th century: white flight, stranger danger, infinite money, fertile population, car lobbies & cheap gas. China has little to do with these circumstances and therefore, little to do with the American suburb.

Also as somebody who lives in Asia/wander aimlessly around China fairly frequently the attraction of the Pod apartment is higher when you've got a genuine 15 minute city. I've spent time staying over in friends' HDBs in Singapore and whilst there's no personal yard, there's good access to shared utilities & minimal nonsense from apartment neighbors compared to when I've lived in the West and had to deal with potential homeless/drug encounters

Are Chinese cities 15 minute ones? My impression is that, outside of the big metropolises, you just have a bunch of high-rises surrounded by 4-lane roads. Like the worst of Asian high-rise living combined with the worst of American car culture.

I haven't been to low-tier Chinese cities for the most part but in my experience even the suburbs of the 1st & second-tier have a lot of redundancy and buildout even into the suburbs. Plus the insane scale of Chinese Ecommerce means that access to big box stores is probably less important than it is in most of the West.

Yeah in China you live in a tiny pod no matter how far from the city center you live. The pods are just cheaper (not even bigger) if the commute is longer.

Suburbs aren't even uniquely American at all. Britain invented single family homes for commuters quite a long time ago. Pretty much every country in the English speaking world (and Japan of course) understands the concept at the very least.

Landed houses do exist in China but they're fairly rare. I've seen enough random townhouse developments from the train even on the edge of big metros (though I assume the cost of entry would be pretty insane)

It depends. Some of the older ones in my wife’s tier three city are very attainable, but it seems a lot of people just don’t like the idea. Either you live in an older low rise or a newer high rise compound. Townhomes are odd.

Yeah I'm basing this on ones I saw in the midst of the greater Guangzhou area and the sheer congregation of wealth there surely means you'd be paying a lot for the rare landed places.

a yard, a car and a dog doesn't a suburb make.

To most, a suburb is best understood as a quiet and safe residential neighborhood away from the downtown core. It has limited through traffic, has easy access to the city and prioritizes families.

I had linked to Google maps of cities (domestic and international) that satisfy these requirements. Then I lost the comment. But, most don't look like sprawling suburbs. They were neighborhoods near Boston (Brookline, Somerville, Cambridge), Brooklyn (Bay ridge, Windsor terrace), SF (Noe valley, Sunset), Seattle (Wallingford, Westlake) and so on.

The impulse to move away from the chaos of a downtown core is understandable. That the alternative must look like a Midwestern suburb is where the rub is.

One thing I will say is China has safe calm neighborhoods in the downtown core and everywhere is safe. Houses are seen as for villagers or rich people. Most middleclass apartments have a central park area that mimics a suburb for families.

To most, a suburb is best understood as a quiet and safe residential neighborhood away from the downtown core. It has limited through traffic, has easy access to the city and prioritizes families.

I'd add another requirement: the suburb must still be dependent on the city for many, if not most, infrastructure and amenities. A suburb has some schools and maybe a grocery store - but not much more. Otherwise, its not a suburb but a small town.

This is also what make suburbs so distinctly American. For historical reasons, most settlements in the old world - and many on the east coast - have their single family residential neighborhoods around town centers that provide many services you would never see in a suburb out west.

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