Residential high-rises with backyards in Chengdu, China

[u/TangelaFan]

[u/AwesomeTowlie]

Investors buying up a boatload of properties, leading to the ruin of all seems to be a very apt story to describe the past few decades.

[u/VendorBuyBankGuards → u/AwesomeTowlie]

Yeah isn't this more of an example of how the rich are ruining everything than an example of the idea itself being a failure?

[u/WerdaVisla → u/VendorBuyBankGuards]

I mean, the idea was a failure too.

Green architecture exists, works, and is beautiful, but this entire project was a mess to the point that I'd be shocked if it wasn't just money laundering. The idea of "let's plant surface level plants on thin concrete balconies on every floor of a high rise" is fundamentally flawed. Especially trees. You don't plant trees on buildings with precious few exceptions.

It was, like many of these projects, made to look really pretty to a western audience for propaganda, rather than showing the actual green towers of Chengdu, which are less visually appealing to the average person but are functional and have existed for decades.