Don't like this unit?: I have 10 million more

While rising prosperity in China has spurred demand for U.S.-style suburban tract housing, with gated entrances, man-made ponds, and roomy square footage that would make an Atlanta or Dallas hausfrau envious, there is also a very contrarian development taking place.

High-rise condos and apartment buildings are shooting up like a bamboo forest, many half filled with tenants while construction crews busily finish the other half. It seems they can't be built fast enough for the millions of migrants moving to China's mega-cities.

Construction in China goes on all day and night until completion, a manic energy that contrasts sharply with the seemingly glacial pace of U.S. construction. I remember it took two years to build one New Jersey high school. Time is money, and the difference can only be explained by the politics of union organization. Chinese labor is unorganized and cheap. But I digress.

The consequences of the dense urban living model are salubrious (to the environment), compared to the sprawling, commute-until-you-drop model of, say, a Weston, FL. The collapse of the U.S. residential real estate market, rising energy costs, and the rediscovery of more human scale "communal" urban living may force many Americans to re-examine their preference for the 'burbs.

Take a look at the NYT photoessay on China's "instant cities." The scale and pace of urban development is breathtaking:

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/16/chinas-instant-cities