Why do China's cities look a lot more impressive and feel more futuristic compared to U.S cities? Does China just have a greater desire for urban development?
為什麼中國的城市看起來比美國的更令人印象深刻，更有未來感呢？中國是不是更重視城市發展？
以下是國外讀者的評論：
Shaun Lawson, amateur urban studies/planning student
A lot of it is because China's cities are just newer, with virtually no buildings older than 30 years old and most buildings younger than 10 years. If life worked like Sim City and you could just swap out infrastructure of equal historical value, you could freely bulldoze Manhattan in return for several trillion dollars and build a metropolis that makes Blade Runner look like Colonial Williamsburg, and I would move there tomorrow.
這在很大程度上是因為中國的城市都是新建的，幾乎沒有超過30年曆史的建築，大多數建築都是近10年內修建的。如果生活就像《模擬城市》一樣，你可以交換同等歷史價值的基礎設施，你可以用幾萬億美元推平曼哈頓，建造一個大都市，讓《銀翼殺手》看起來像殖民時期的威廉斯堡，而我明天就會立刻搬到那裡去。
Most of Hong Kong was only built in the last 20-30 years at most; the real famous buildings in New York and Chicago were built at the turn of the century, when America was going through basically the same period China is now, and served a very similar role in the world, as the engine of progress and manufacturing.
香港的大部分地區最多是在最近二、三十年才建成的；紐約和芝加哥真正的著名建築都是在世紀之交建造的，當時美國正在經歷與中國現在基本相同的時期，在世界上扮演著非常相似的角色，是世界發展和製造業的引擎。
To do a Sim City makeover of an American city, however, you'd need to use eminent domain in a wildly unconstitutional fashion. The reason that Beijing has been able to bulldoze the entire city like two or three times in the last 60 years and build 20 subway lines covering an area not much smaller than Rhode Island is because people aren't allowed to sue the go nment and have a lot of carrots and sticks to encourage them to take their cash settlements and move somewhere else, no matter how historic their courtyard may be. Compare this to legendary sloth and difficulty of New York subway construction, where zoning ordinance, legal battles, and to a large extent just the relatively much, much higher costs of labor and concrete keeps things very, very slow.
然而，要對一座美國城市進行模擬城市改造，你必須違反憲法來使用國家徵用權。北京能夠在過去60年推平整個城市兩到三次，在不比羅德島州面積小的區域內建設20條地鐵線路的原因，是因為人們不得起訴政府，當地有很多的胡蘿蔔和大棒的政策鼓勵他們採取現金結算，搬遷到其他地方，無論他們的院落有多大的歷史意義。與之相比，紐約地鐵建設的拖沓和困難是出了名的。在紐約，各地政策、法律糾紛，以及在很大程度上，相對高得多的勞動力成本和混凝土成本讓事情進展非常緩慢。
On the other hand, unlike China, we don't have chemical explosions of 300 tons of TNT going off in our harbors any more, and people aren't kicked out of their homes by the thousands and have historic neighborhoods bulldozed (although we did that to a lot of black and immigrant neighborhoods while building rail and highway infrastructure in the last two centuries). Hoorah for American progress.
另一方面，與中國不同的是，我們的港口沒有發生300噸TNT的化學爆炸，人們並沒有被成千上萬的人趕出家園，歷史街區也沒有被夷為平地（儘管在過去的兩個世紀裡，我們在修建鐵路和公路基礎設施時，也對許多黑人和移民社區這麼做過）。為美國的進步歡呼。
Also, Americans don't really like paying for infrastructure? Basic crap, like roads, schools, healthcare, modernized power plants. We kick it around in town hall meetings and cry about socialist slippery slopes and tend to constantly kick things back and forth between federal, state, and local go nments, and operate at a much lower efficiency, and try to privatize things that really can't or shouldn't be privatized--prisons, waste reclamation, water. As a nation we just have poor impulse control and a love of instant gratification, as well as cultural pro-business anti-go nment attitudes, and it messes up the (expensive and often controversial) infrastructure you need to maintain any modern state, much less the superpower we are.
還有，美國人真的不喜歡為基礎設施買單嗎？基本都是垃圾，比如道路、學校、醫療、現代化的發電廠。我們在市政廳會議上大吵大鬧，為社會主義大滑坡嚷嚷，很多事情都在聯邦、州和地方政府之間踢皮球，處理的效率很低，並試圖將不可能的東西，不應該的東西私有化——監獄、廢物回收、水。作為一個國家，我們對沖動缺乏控制、對即時滿足十分迷戀，文化上又有親商的反政府態度，這就搞砸了維持現代國家所需要的(昂貴且經常有爭議的)基礎設施，更不用說我們還是個超級大國了。
Also, this is the building spike in China now. More or less, what is being built now is the architecture that will be considered iconic of China 100 years from now; labor and commodity prices will increase and the money supply will get tighter, and hopefully legal rights will increasingly strengthen, until it becomes much more difficult to just build a city of 20 million people from the ground up.
另外，這是中國現在的建築高峰。現在正在建設的建築100年後將或多或少被視為中國的標誌性建築；勞動力和商品價格將上漲，貨幣供應將更加緊張，希望合法權利將越來越強，要建設一個2000萬人口的城市變得越發困難起來。
I'd also like to say that while shameless eminent domain, collaborative utilitarian go nments, and nationwide embrace of infrastructure funding tend to get great results in urbanization, while avoiding the slums prevalent in so many other developing countries, I absolutely hate 90% of Chinese architecture and urban planning. The Forbidden City was built in the Ming Dynasty but it still has perfect drainage; after any heavy rainfall in Beijing almost every sidewalk is covered in toxic puddles for days. Almost every modern skyscraper is a cheap, badly insulated Le Corbusier phallus or else a cookie cutter villa complex, because the ghost of Levittown somehow crossed the Pacific
我還想說，雖然無恥的土地徵用權，協作的功利主義政府，以及全國範圍內對基礎設施投資的接受，往往會在城市化進程中取得巨大的成果，同時避免了許多其他發展中國家普遍存在的貧民窟，但我絕對討厭90%的中國建築和城市規劃。紫禁城建於明朝，但排水系統仍然很好；但現在北京下大雨之後，幾乎每條人行道都會被汙水淹沒好幾天。幾乎每一座現代化的摩天大樓都是廉價的、隔熱性差的勒柯布西耶菲勒斯別墅群，或者說是一座千篇一律的別墅群，因為萊維敦的鬼魂莫名其妙地穿越了太平洋。
There are exceptions.
也有例外。
Another point would be that average young Chinese are just more comfortable with the future in general than Americans, since they're not held back by lots of sunk costs and emotional commitment to outdated infrastructure built a hundred years ago. Telephones went straight from landlines being a luxury to universal 3G wireless, from clunky coal-burning trains to selling high speed rail systems back to Germany. Internet penetration is higher and the tech world is generally more competitive, with software like Taobao, Alipay, and WeChat really blowing away western competitors.
另一個觀點是，一般的中國年輕比美國人更適應未來，因為他們沒有被大量的沉沒成本和對100年前建造的過時基礎設施的情感承諾所束縛。電話一直在發展，從作為奢侈品的固定電話到隨處可見的3G無線電話，從笨重的燒煤火車到將高速鐵路系統賣回德國。互聯網普及率更高，科技界的競爭也更激烈，淘寶、支付寶和微信這樣的軟件真的把西方的競爭對手都嚇跑了。
CGTN Social Team, works at CGTN
Cities are the nerve centers of the world. An estimated 56 percent of the global population live in urban settlements today, with that number set to grow exponentially in the coming decades.
城市是世界的神經中樞。據估計，目前全球56%的人口居住在城市，未來幾十年，這一數字還將呈指數增長。
China, which has added an astounding 650 million people to its cities in the last four decades, is bound to play a key role in global urbanization.
在過去40年裡，中國城市新增人口達到了驚人的6.5億，中國必將在全球城市化進程中發揮關鍵作用。
As the United Nations observes World Cities Day (WCD) on October 31, it is worth noting that of the 20 fastest growing cities in the world today, seven are from China – Shanghai, Chongqing, Beijing, Suzhou, Guangzhou, Nanjing and Xi'an.
聯合國在10月31日慶祝世界城市日(WCD)，值得注意的是，當今世界上發展最快的20個城市中，有7個來自中國——上海、重慶、北京、蘇州、廣州、南京和西安。
In fact it was at the Shanghai International Expo 2010 that the idea for an international day to encourage international community's interest in global urbanization was conceived and led to the UN General Assembly passing a resolution in December 2013 to designate October 31 as World Cities Day.
事實上，正是在2010年上海世博會上，人們提出了國際城市日的想法，並促使聯合國大會在2013年12月通過決議，將10月31日定為世界城市日。
China has been at the center stage of global urbanization in recent decades. In 1978, just a little over 171 million people, or 17.92 percent of the total Chinese population, lived in cities.
近幾十年來，中國一直處於全球城市化的中心階段。1978年，中國只有1.71億人(佔總人口的17.92%)居住在城市。
By 2017, the number of China's urban dwellers soared to about 813 million or 58.52 percent of the country's population, surpassing the global urbanization average of 54.74 percent.
2017年，中國城市居民數量飆升至約8.13億人，佔全國人口的58.52%，超過了全球平均54.74%的城市化水平。
By 2030, urban population will account for 60 percent of the global population and one in every three people will live in cities with at least half a million inhabitants, according to United Nations' data on world's cities.
根據聯合國關於世界城市的數據，到2030年，城市人口將佔全球人口的60%，每三個人中就有一個人將生活在至少有50萬居民的城市。
In comparison, China's urbanization rate will reach 70 percent by 2035 with over 1 billion Chinese citizens living and working in cities with a combined area of 100,000 square kilometers, according to a report published by the National Academy of Economic Strategy (NAES) under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
相比之下，根據中國社會科學院國家經濟戰略研究院(NAES)發佈的一份報告，到2035年，中國的城市化率將達到70%，超過10億中國公民將在總面積為10萬平方公里的城市生活和工作。
The pace and scale of urbanization has had a profound impact not only on China's political, environmental, and economic conditions but has created ripples across the world in profound ways, influencing everything from global climate prospects to socioeconomic conditions, and indeed the world economy.
城市化的速度和規模不僅對中國的政治、環境和經濟狀況產生了深遠的影響，而且從全球氣候前景到社會經濟狀況，乃至世界經濟，都在世界範圍內產生了深遠的影響。
Urbanization has been an important catalyst in pulling more than 700 million people out of poverty, many of whom participated in China's massive rural-urban migration, moving from the countryside to the cities and from agriculture into jobs in industry and services.
城市化是使7億多人擺脫貧困的重要催化劑，其中許多人參與了中國大規模的城鄉人口遷移，從農村到城市，從農業到工業和服務業的就業。
China's cities have largely avoided the social ills of rapid urbanization such as widespread urban unemployment and poverty. This has been achieved partly by regulating the flow of people to its cities, but more so by creating the conditions for rapid growth in income and employment.
中國的城市在很大程度上避免了快速城市化帶來的社會弊病，比如普遍的城市失業和貧困。這在一定程度上是通過控制城市人口流動實現的，但更多的是通過為收入和就業的快速增長創造條件實現的。
The continued urbanization is bound to cause a surge in China's consuming capacity in the coming decades as it transforms into a high-income country. China's mega cities now have income levels comparable to some member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
未來幾十年，隨著中國向高收入國家轉型，持續的城市化必然會導致中國消費能力激增。目前，中國特大城市的收入水平可與經濟合作與發展組織(OECD)的一些成員國相媲美。
Brookings Institute's Global Metro Monitor in 2018 reported that 103 of the world's 300 largest metropolitan economies are now in China.
布魯金斯學會(Brookings Institute) 2018年發佈的《全球地鐵觀察》(Global Metro Monitor)報告稱，全球300個最大的大都市經濟體中，目前有103個在中國。
Robert Narracci, Architecture
1) Newness : a very large percentage of Chinese development is recent compared with US development and is by nature newer looking.
1)新：與美國相比，中國的發展有很大一部分是最近才出現的，看起來更新。
2) Boom time : the recent decades of economic exuberance has led to forward thinking experimentation in architecture.
2)繁榮時期：最近幾十年的經濟繁榮導致了建築領域的前瞻性思維實驗。
3) Economics : very cheap labor costs have made it 10x more economical to build in China than in the US and some of that savings has been thrown into a prideful bravado of architectural expression.
3)經濟效益：非常便宜的勞動力成本使得在中國建造比在美國經濟10倍，其中一部分節省下來的錢則被投向浮誇的建築外觀。
4) Talent Attraction : western architects frustrated by western malaise, conservatism, and (frugality) have opened up shops in China to participate in the exuberance.
4)人才吸引：西方建築師對西方的萎靡、保守主義和(節儉)感到失望，在中國開展業務，參與到這股建築熱潮中。
PS That all being said, beyond the notable downtowns there are many pitifully poorly designed buildings in China. Just as in the US, the flashier stuff gets your attention but is a small percentage of the whole
順便說一句，除了著名的商業區，中國還有很多設計糟糕的建築。就像在美國一樣，浮誇的東西確實會吸引你的注意力，但佔比很小。
Michael Cheng, Lived in the San Jose Bay Area for 32 years and lived in LA and East Coast
That's one personal opinion. I don't happen to share the same opinion. If anything, I think Vancouver looks way more modern, if not futuristic, at night with its lean and clean lines.
這是我個人的看法。我不同意你的看法。我認為溫哥華的夜晚以其簡潔乾淨的線條更顯現代。
Shanghai and Beijing are both rapidly developing cities. Almost all the towers are under 20 years old. I don't particularly like the mishmash of architectural styles designed to attract attention.
上海和北京都是發展迅速的城市。幾乎所有的高樓歷史都不到20年。我對那些為了抓眼球而設計的建築風格的大雜燴並不看好。
LA is a suburban sprawl that really can't be compared to any tier one city. New York City is just dated, with only a few newer projects to light the way
洛杉磯是一個郊區，實在無法與其他一線城市相比。紐約市也過時了，只有幾個新的項目還能撐起門面。
Lauren Anderson, I love this country.
City design is based on city planning & zoning. I've never been to China, but, in the U.S., property ownership rights are a big deal for individual citizens. And, to tell a person what to build & how to build on their own land is a big deal which involves various constitutional rights. If cities in China are able to build/develop in a more aesthetically pleasing way, on a grander scale, the go nment might have more power and rights over the land, as a whole, rather than multiple individuals. For example, if the go nment (one entity) owns/controls 500 sq. km., rather than 500 individuals (like in the U.S.), the go nment can make a more cohesive design, because there is only one entity making decisions, rather than 500.
城市設計以城市規劃和分區為基礎。我從來沒有去過中國，但是在美國，房產所有權對每個公民來說都是一件大事。而且，告訴一個人在他們自己的土地上應該建造什麼以及怎麼建造是一件大事，涉及到各種憲法權利。如果中國的城市能夠以一種更美觀的方式，在更大的規模上進行建設/發展，那麼政府可能對整個土地擁有更多的權力和權利，而不是多個個人。例如，如果政府（一個實體）擁有/控制500平方公里，而不是500個個人（如在美國），政府可以做出更具凝聚力的設計，因為做決策的只有這個實體，而不是500個人。
John Mahan, studied BA Business Marketing at The University of Texas at Austin
To put it simply...
簡單地說……
China (and some other countries) has very new modern infrastructure compared to the U.S.
與美國相比，中國(和其他一些國家)擁有非常新的現代化基礎設施。
The chinese go nment not only encouraged impressive looking buildings but also built some themselves. Anyone who watched the Beijing Olympics could see that China was desperately trying to impress the world...and in many ways they did
中國不僅鼓勵那些外觀令人印象深刻的建築，而且自己也建造了一些。任何觀看過北京奧運會的人都能發現，中國正拼命想給世界留下深刻印象……在很多方面，他們確實做到了。
Yu-Hsing Chen, lived in The United States of America
As most others noted, it's more than anything else because it's newer, that and they have too much hot money to throw around. it's certainly been a dream ground for architects around the world in the last decade
正如大多數其他人所說，因為它比較新，而且他們有太多的熱錢可以用來投資。在過去的十年裡，中國無疑是全世界建築師的夢想之地。
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