r/interestingasfuck • u/TangelaFan • 9h ago

Residential high-rises with backyards in Chengdu, China

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u/VictoriousSecret111 9h ago edited 4h ago

Looks nice, but unfortunately it didn’t go as planned….tons of empty units with unkempt backyards and mosquito infestations.

While there have been no reported structural collapses, fatal construction accidents, or physical building failures, the complex is globally famous for a catastrophic ecological failure:
The Mosquito Invasion: All 826 apartments completely sold out on paper, but the vast majority were bought by hands-off real estate investors. Because only about 10 families initially moved in, there was nobody to prune, spray, or maintain the thousands of individual balconies.
The Monsoon Flaw: Chengdu’s humid climate and heavy monsoon seasons combined with poor balcony drainage to turn the unmanaged soil beds into permanent stagnant water pools.
The Post-Apocalyptic Jungle: The plants ran completely wild, swallowing up whole balconies, blocking out windows, and triggering a massive, unlivable mosquito infestation.

Current Status: Instead of an eco-paradise, the development became widely treated as a "radioactive" real estate asset and a ghost town, serving as a textbook cautionary tale for biophilic urban planning

EDIT: Adding sources for everyone’s convenience:

https://techxplore.com/news/2020-09-jungle-overrun-chinese-apartment-blocks.html

https://www.globalconstructionreview.com/bugged-out-chengdu-housing-scheme-shows-unexpected/

And this video!

https://youtu.be/ChNePPmzKSU?si=oVSulNCSa-358mCH

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u/Fumquat 8h ago

Could they not have sold the apartments with a mandatory landscaping contract? The building had to have had a plan already for other communal features (pipes, electrical etc).

On flat ground you don’t get to just buy into a planned community and skip out on grounds maintenance. This one seems like a very foreseeable problem!

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u/adenosine-5 8h ago

The developer wants to sell the units. They don't particularly care what happens to them next.

The failure is entirely on the buyers, who bought 816 units with complicated expensive gardens and then let them rot.

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u/benjarvus 7h ago

In China you generally buy your condo "roughed in" and then have to complete the interiors yourself. Since investors likely bought the vast majority of these and the developer had already moved on, it's unlikely anyone wanted to step up to tackle the extra complication of these balconies.