By 2005, the country was building the square-foot equivalent of today’s Rome every two weeks.29 Between 2011 and 2013, China both produced and used more cement than the US did in the entire twentieth century.30 In 2011, a Chinese firm built a 30-story skyscraper in just 15 days. Three years later, another construction firm built a 57-story skyscraper in 19 days.31 Indeed, China built the equivalent of Europe’s entire housing stock in just 15 years.
