It is how everything works in a Communist society, everything bends to the party, the people, the land, the environment. The results to each is usually the same.
China's had little to do with communism for decades now.
Your statement is both true and unfitting to the thread here. The truth is that the current governing policies of the Communist Party of China (CPC) are not doctrinaire communism, in the Marxist-Leninist sense, but rather "socialism with Chinese characteristics," as that party officially labels those policies. But the key political point, and the key motivation for many people wanting to leave China, is that the CPC is the sole ruling party and has been since 1949. Ideology bounces around, but the grip of the CPC on political power on all levels, and on all the major means of gaining economic power, is never relaxed. Mass media in China are subject to prepublication review by censors who are staff members ("cadres") of the CPC. The most crucial distinction between crimes that are punished and crimes that are left unpunished is whether or not the crimes threaten the rule of the CPC. And many activities that are perfectly legal here and in all civilized countries of the world, such as political dissent, are illegal in China solely because they threaten the CPC's grip on power.
I speak Chinese. From time to time I have had the opportunity to participate in seminars with Chinese journalists in the United States, out of earshot of Chinese censors. Even today, I cannot reveal the name of one journalist who once expressed a frank opinion in the hearing of several Americans who are familiar with the situation in China. He said that if the common people of China had full access to uncensored news, the Communist Party of China would fall within a week. The huge efforts that the CPC-controlled government in China makes to set up a "Great Firewall of China" to control Internet access is a sign that the government greatly fears uncensored access to news for the Chinese populace.
That's all true, but doesn't seem particularly "communist" in a relevant way--- that was also true of Greece under the junta, or Spain under Franco. Wouldn't it be more accurate to just call China an authoritarian or one-party state?
Heck, even "socialism with Chinese characteristics" is a bit of an anachronism these days, and the people who take the old conception of it seriously are seen as left-wingers within the government; it's closer to "one-party capitalism with Chinese characteristics"...
doesn't seem particularly "communist" in a relevant way
Perhaps in some academic sense. On the other hand, can you name a single national experiment with communism that didn't become authoritarian? There are certainly plenty of ugly examples.
Oh, that wasn't the angle I was going for; I'm not arguing that "real communism will work" or something. Just that it doesn't seem meaningfully different from "non-communist" authoritarian states, so the label "communist" appears to be a historical anachronism that doesn't add any real information in 2011, versus just calling it a "one-party" or "authoritarian" state. In the 1960s, at least, it added the additional bit of information that the government was attempting to suppress market economics, but that part isn't true anymore.
So since you know, what is that party line? I've found that anything said in a civil manner here with a minimum of snark is usually safe regardless of the opinion expressed by the content.
It's not unique to China. There's a long tradition of powerful families creating wealth from the growth of a city or economy by buying up real estate, promoting the growth of a city, then benefitting from the radical increase in real estate value that results as land transitions from agrarian to urban.
The SF peninsula is an example of this - families that made money in mining bought up land south of the city in the 1800s, then actively worked to promote policies that would lead to growth of the city in that direction.
As noted, housing bubble, the bubble was started by lack of investment opportunities when people start to amass wealth in cash, housing is pretty much the default choice. Bond and other safe investment do not yield enough to cover high inflation.
It is then further furled by a combination of speculative investment and local government/bank/construction industry collusion. This is quite similar to what happened to the States in post-2000 housing bubble, but in greater scale due to stronger government control and growing economy.
Not just houses - if you somehow managed to own the 'peoples bicycle factory' on land right next to the port that is now a Foxconn factory you are likely to have done OK out of the deal.
