It could be okay if it's well maintained.

There is much discussion to be had about how the quality of our surroundings affects the quality of life and society. Same things apply to all cultures, including our own. It's a subject I've had a long interest in.

Haven't time to delve into it now, but its a fertile subject for discussion.

'We,' being the 99%. The other 1% is where the money is.

Restore 1950s tax rates and return us to the conservative paradise the right claims we had.

"However, despite the slow start, new legislation signed into law by dos Santos has resulted in a massive boom in demand. As of September 2013 the current population is 40,000 residents and continuing to grow. Officials expect the population to reach 70,000 by January 2014".

So far that isn't the case.

The city project in Angola was payment for oil.

The British and other European powers didn't move en masse to many places they colonized. India and Africa never saw really substantial numbers of whites moving in there, just enough to exert control and start raping the resources.

All colonization requires is taking control-either directly or indirectly like the British did in many cases by the yielding power and influence against local governments until they ended up being little more than puppets. Once control is taken, they can exploit the resources and people.

Traded for oil? Looks like the resource exploitation is already underway...

'I'm taking what I want and giving you what I say in return' is colonialism. Mass immigration to the colony is absolutely not a requirement of colonialism.

The Chinese have expertise in building infrastructure and the African countries want to build infrastructure.

It's a Chinese bargain.

nt

People have been eyeballing Africa as a place where they could exploit locals with super low wages, it's just the infrastructure to take products to market was never there. Now it will be.

I think Africans know better on this one.

You could argue the colonial powers built railroads and other infrastructure too, while ignoring the mountain of shit they dumped on the African people.

Ask yourself why that city is mostly empty. Do you think 99% of the people there can afford those apartments?

China builds things. Often crap that no one wants. Its what they do.

That's basically what you are saying.

The same as happened after WWII with the Marshall Plan in Europe.

This was not an act of goodwill, it was a trade deal that favored China.

What do the African people want in your opinion?

China did a big oil deal with them. You claim it is some great act of charity.

If you want to trade with a nation it helps to build up their infrastructure.

"The cost is reported as US$3.5 billion, financed by a Chinese credit line and repaid by the Angolan government with oil."

It's bartering but it's still a transaction.

Lots of countries do that to preserve their foreign currency reserves.

The Angolans are paying for a big - mostly empty - city with oil.

After all the lawsuits over Chinese drywall, and other Chinese building materials.

If it's better than what they had before, then it's a plus.

How long before these fall into disrepair ?

Something tells me that probably China didn't expend their "best" for these projects.

But I meant infrastructure.

Big dams, big bridges, highways, broadband superhighways etc.

for anyone paying us to do so. Just like China.

Oh wait, we never did get paid for that, did we?

on stinking projects that will help citizenry. We must give all our money to corps that will stash it in offshore accounts so they can count their dollars.

He who dies with the most toys still dies.

The Chinese government is a large part of the economy. It gets first dibs. It does what it wants.

It wants to build the 3 Gorges Dam, it does so.

Environmental impact? That's done by the government. The government wants to build the dam, it does the environmental impact reports. The reports say what the government wants.

Funding? That's done by the government. The government wants to build the dam, it does the financial analysis. The analysis says what the government wants.

Public debate? That's done by the government. The government wants to debate the issue on its terms with itself, it does the debating. The debate says what the government wants. If private citizens want to say something else, they can--but it's not like you can easily find their speech, and if they become too loud ...

Regulation and law enforcement? That's done by the government. If the government gets reports of violating laws and regulations, it evaluates those reports. The reports say what the government wants.

It's all a matter of political will. If we wanted to, we could easily do something like this. We'd first have the political will to not have to deal with low-life poor people in the boonies, if that's not our political base. We'd have the will to suppress dissent quite handily and not bother to feel bad about it. We'd have the will to say that social welfare could be cut to merely "comfortable" levels and to define "comfortable" in accordance with the amount of money we had available. We'd have the will to make sure that tax rates increased significantly on those that have comfortable lifestyles ... by Chinese standards. We'd have the political will to decry anybody that disagreed with the government as not just "un-American" but "anti-American", therefore cultural traitors to "our" cause. And if the traitors didn't like it, for sure his job would vanish or his company would suddenly be in the hands of a "patriot," a relative of a government official and CP boss.

It's like Russia and the Crimea. Through sheer dint of political will, the food crisis in Crimea has been solved. There was a drought caused entirely by interruption of water flow through the main canal bringing water from Ukraine that devastated crops there in a giant crime against humanity, and still the grain harvest there is 2 1/2 times what it was in each of the previous two years! They have so much they don't know where to put it! Just imagine. Soon there'll be reports about 3x the amount of sand, they'll have 4x the amount of "tourist-friendly" waves, and suddenly July and August, the prime tourist months, will each have 41 days and 8 weekends each with two Saturday nights (but still only one Saturday).

In other words, does Angola see real benefit, or is it basically income-insurance for well-connected Chinese construction firms and a handful of Angolan facilitators?

Just wondering if these are more efforts to make their GDP appear bigger, as they've been doing in China.

Those 'apartments' are for 'sale'. From the wiki - Although Kilamba contributes to meeting the election pledge made by President Jose Eduardo dos Santos in 2008 to build a million new homes in four years, Angola does not have a large middle class able to buy such homes.

As Chinese labor becomes more expensive, there has been a small shift in manufacturing to Africa.

You have to ask yourself WHY is China doing this. Doubtful it's because of any grand humanitarian gestures on their part. Once the infrastructure is in place, then they can begin moving in the cheap workers.

A few years from now, many of your cheap Walmart goods may read "Made in Angola" instead of "Made in China"