Above all, China built housing. Its urban population has grown by an average of sixteen million people each year since 1978, which means, in effect, that the state built a new city the size of greater New York City and greater Boston combined every year for thirty-five years. Though Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen have soaring housing prices, high rates of construction plus rising wages have broadly improved affordability. From 2007 to 2018, the average price of an urban apartment fell from nine times the average household income to seven times. This building spree consumes colossal amounts of
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