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Kundu closed

HFCAMPO (3062 posts) • 0

Walked down Xin Wen Road yesterday and every shop in the area was closed. There was a white sticker on each door from the military.

voltaire (225 posts) • 0

There are also white stickers on the doors down Hongshan Nan Lu (north side) and Longfeng Jie (north side).

Seems there is a mass military land reclamation in progress.

Is this: (a) The government kicking the military out of the middle of the city?; or (b) Someone in the military trying to turn a quick buck; or (c) Beijing-sponsored attempt to re-invigorate the nationally ailing construction industry and keep down unemployment for migrant workers by initiating military-owned commercial land revamps during the lapse in the construction boom?

My thoughts: (a) There have been rumours of Kundu shutdown from Beijing for awhile, so this would not be too strange. Wouldn't be too hard to verify though, just ask one of the owners. Incidentally, I would be happy about this because the military presence has created lots of pain for regular people, eg. it is very difficult for hotels or residential real estate owners to allow foreigners to stay in most of these areas because the military is afraid of 'spying' (like they do anything all day except make noise anyway!) (b) If this is the case, they are not going about it very covertly. (c) If this is the case, one would expect similar and roughly concurrent projects in other cities.

HFCAMPO (3062 posts) • 0

Yes, many ideas came to mind when I saw the military stickers on the doors. I doubt the military is going to expand their base. My thought is that they will sell it to a developer.

Lets see what happens.

Geezer (1953 posts) • 0

GDP is sinking. Time to boost investment by building more. First, you gotta a lot of stuff. First step is a notice to quit the property, usually a 30 day notice.

michael2015 (784 posts) • 0

I was wondering if this is part of the continued streamlining and alignment of the military with Beijing's guidance.

As we all know, some of the top military heads are now in life imprisonment for their complicated lifestyles. Beijing has repeatedly ordered the military to streamline their activities in alignment with military activities.

Kundu is obviously military property (they appropriated our home decades ago), a former nightclub and bar hotspot, and or course, a known (hearsay) spot for drug dealers and abusers, which is seriously uncool in China.

So, converting the area or reclaiming the area into office, commercial (to include hotels), and residential spaces is about the safest thing the military could do with the land.

Would be nicer if they turned it into a giant public park, a giant school (K-12), or some other public works project, but the person who'd do that would be exceedingly rare these days.

Haali (1178 posts) • 0

it would be a lovely place for a park, but the chances of that are infinitesimally small.

AlexKMG (2387 posts) • 0

Or maybe some bigshot general or politburo guy is in town and this is all show for a month. Though would love it if they built a park around the Mask.

GoK Moderator (5096 posts) • 0

To be honest, any unnecessary public buildings on, now, prime land is a waste of land resource.
In many cities universities and schools have moved to out of city areas, sometimes as much as 20km. I think someone mentioned that there is a regulation that the old main campuses cannot be sold. But having larger campuses elsewhere is the norm.
In Kunming, and perhaps other cities, the city government has also moved to satellite suburbs.
Even in UK a lot of local government departments (not in the town hall) have moved out to the suburbs.

If the Army is moving, great. The Army needs to be out of town, with good access to highways. Convoys through city streets are a problem for everyone, not least the Army. Also moving out of town would give the army units new accommodation with modern infrastructure and utilities. several thousand personnel on one small site is a huge strain on the local utilities, and infrastructure. This is equally true for schools and colleges.

If they do redevelop, I doubt there will be a Mask to have a park near.

In China there is a lot of development of brownfield sites.
Kunming seems to have experimented, unsuccessfully with satellite towns. Even re-zoning the city limits to include TaiPing and building a new town (Wonway) and establishing big new hospital (part of Yunnan No1 hospital). But nobody wanted to go there. It is in fact only the same travel time as driving from Chenggong to the city center.

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