• invalidusernamelol [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      The tracks are elevated so they can be made incredibly level and straight for traveling at 300+kph. It also has the added benefit of not totally leveling everything you're putting tracks over (you can still farm and stuff under them). Elevated tracks like this can also be pre-fabbed and delivered by existing rail, literally bootstrapping infrastructure.

  • Abraxiel
    ·
    3 years ago

    Hello, yes, this is the city building game I want to play.

  • disco [any]
    ·
    edit-2
    3 years ago

    What are we looking at, and how can we tell that it's a poverty alleviation thing?

    • wtypstanaccount04 [he/him]
      hexagon
      M
      ·
      3 years ago

      High speed rail, which speeds up trips for the masses, helping to alleviate poverty.

      • invalidusernamelol [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Also, notice how little space it takes up and how it can pass through communities without totally destroying them

        • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
          ·
          3 years ago

          Wait, wait, wait. What? You can't just grow the domestic economy without immiserating local people by seizing their property or devaluing their existing assets. I was very explicitly told that Creative Destruction is the order of the day and anything else would be highly inefficient.

      • captcha [any]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Doesn't look like there is a station for that slum...

        • invalidusernamelol [he/him]
          ·
          edit-2
          3 years ago

          Here's a closer image of a similar passing

          From another angle where the station is clearly visible

          A good thing to remember, most of these photos are taken by people who just got off the train and hiked from the station or took a short taxi ride. There's always a station nearby. Same cannot be said of the planes I see overhead.

          Lots of these villages are being moved too. The giant high rises and new buildings in the second photo are where everyone's being slowly moved to.

            • invalidusernamelol [he/him]
              ·
              3 years ago

              The village in the first photo is the old village too, the new big city projects are trying to integrate all these smaller villages into the bigger cities with those high rises in the second photo and high speed rail connections.

            • invalidusernamelol [he/him]
              ·
              3 years ago

              Oh I know, it's been pretty clear that they're avoiding just demolishing towns and replacing them. The policy right now seems to be building newer housing nearby and allowing people to move on their own time.

          • captcha [any]
            ·
            3 years ago

            Those are all completely different sections of track taken by drone cameras and don't give any perspective of how far away the train station is related to the old villages.

            • invalidusernamelol [he/him]
              ·
              edit-2
              3 years ago

              You can literally see the same building on both images.

              It's also very clearly a walkable distance because there's an obvious path from the village, across the street, up the hill, and to the station.

              • captcha [any]
                ·
                3 years ago

                Ah didn't see the little triangle building down in the corner.

                • invalidusernamelol [he/him]
                  ·
                  3 years ago

                  Yeah, I checked first. Both taken by the same photographer on the same day. The rail pictures archive is incredibly detailed

  • Abraxiel
    ·
    3 years ago

    What do you reckon all those low, dark buildings are?

  • Parzivus [any]
    ·
    3 years ago

    railpictures.net

    :volcel-vanguard: gonna need backup for this one

  • Mizokon [none/use name]
    ·
    3 years ago

    interesting that they elevate the rail line instead of having it on ground. ig it would be more expensive to build and maintain but better for people on ground...maybe its because HSR requires smooth slopes or something.

    one of the common complaints about rail/roads going through farmland is that it splits the farm in half and makes it much harder to cross, this shouldn't be a problem with elevated rail.

    • Tofu_Lewis [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      My guess is that elevating the line helps reduce the risk of flooding making the line impassable.

    • disco [any]
      ·
      3 years ago

      Honestly, if this picture was from the US I would say they were factory farms.

        • Gucci_Minh [he/him]
          ·
          3 years ago

          Unlikely these particular ones are though, a lot of agriculture in China is still done by families of farmers with relatively small plots of land, and you can see each plot has its own house where the farmers are.

        • Krem [he/him]
          ·
          3 years ago

          They're greenhouses. Pig farms are usually long brick bulidings, I think chicken farms are too.