Hacker News Reader

Comment by gooftop | Hacker News Reader

I had the exact same reaction as d3vmax - and quoting one paywalled article about a failed builder does not make “ghost cities” a thing in India. Yes there are fraudsters who cheat people and never build anything, but India does not have the same kind of ghost cities that China does.

View on HN

Jaypee Group is not a small builder.

It used to be the largest builder in North India, but they were very close to Akilesh Yadav and the Samajwadi Party.

After BJP won the Uttar Pradesh state elections in 2017, Jaypee (which was already struggling with finances) lost a number of tenders in NOIDA, loans were called, and they along with other similar builders caused IL&FS to become insolvent.

It's very similar to the Ghost Cities you'd see in China in the 2000s

Also, India has Google Street View. Go explore OMAXE New Chandigarh, Sector 128, Kharar, etc.

Lots of half built buildings in middle India.

And this is why PMAY-U is being pushed so hard by all parties in India - it's an easy way to bail out builders without breaking financial laws.

You are very focused on the Noida scene. That's an outlier in the Indian real estate situation right now. Almost everywhere, there is a "shortage" of housing, forget about ghost cities. Also after RERA, a lot has changed. You seem very confident in your analysis but honestly you need to look up more.

The backbenchers are doing a better job than mr Rajan, growth numbers are easy to judge for all.

Jaypee Group's failure is not the same as ghost cities of China. Ghost cities of China were fully built but people refused to move in. India has the opposite problem. Most people want to move in to the projects but the builder defaulted and could not complete the project.

India's half built cities are more of a financial fraud problem rather than people problem.

Not the same as China.

> Lots of half built buildings in middle India.

That's not usually what we mean by "Ghost cities". I just checked wikipedia to be sure, for both "ghost cities" and "under occupied developments in China"[1] which leads with:

     Under-occupied developments in China are mostly unoccupied property developments in China, and frequently referred to as "ghost cities" or ghost towns.

Half-built structures aren't comparable to the common understanding of the term "ghost cities".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Under-occupied_developments_in...

That's what they mean in China as well.

The same way you book a flat from DLF and wait for them to build the shell, that's the same process if you buy a flat from Evergrande or Wanda (tbt)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com