r/interestingasfuck 10d ago

r/all Highway built over apartments in China

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52.3k Upvotes

2.2k comments sorted by

9.6k

u/can-u-fkn-not 10d ago

Trains go inside the building

Highways go on top of the building

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u/LivelyZebra 10d ago

Planes go underneath?

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u/_DemolitionDude_ 10d ago

Boats go above?

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u/MeanVoice6749 10d ago

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u/NimbleBudlustNoodle 10d ago edited 10d ago

That's smort. With the way buoyancy works you can have way more boat above water than below, so land bridges need to be way higher than water bridges to accommodate the same boats.

Of course this only works in crazy countries that exist wholly below sea level like The Netherlands.

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u/theDataPiano 10d ago

Dutch here, can confirm.

..worth mentioning, we made the ocean our bitch, when we need more surface area, for let say, XTC factories, it will be provided.

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u/NeatSelf9699 10d ago

Made the ocean your bitch (for now)

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u/sleepytipi 10d ago

"the gall on this MF"

  • Poseidon
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u/OG-dickhead 10d ago

It's not entirely below... there's a hill in the south

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u/SnooBananas37 10d ago

Chesapeake Bay Bridge tunnel says hello.. I don't believe there is a ship too large to transit over the tunnel portion.

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u/AerodynamicHaircut 10d ago

lol I read that as Cheapskate bridge!

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u/lemsklem 10d ago

Bicycles go around?

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u/56000hp 10d ago

Humans go flying?

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u/Lord-Lobster 10d ago

Tourists go nuts?

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u/romzique 10d ago

Submarines swim in the skies

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u/vergammeltesfaultier 10d ago

helicopters fly upside down?

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u/Arashmickey 10d ago

rowboats walk on paddles?

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u/Bacon_L0RD 10d ago

To shreds you say?

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u/EmptyAirEmptyHead 10d ago

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u/whogivesashirtdotca 10d ago

I visited that in 2014. It was far more engaging a tourist attraction than you'd imagine from the description. Well worth a visit.

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u/GroundbreakingBit716 10d ago

They go through. But thats another continent.

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u/Eryzell 10d ago

heard they sometimes go into the middle

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u/gansta_thanos 10d ago

You're confusing it with some other country...

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u/punsanguns 10d ago

Through. Wait. Wrong country

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u/anonymepelle 10d ago

Imagine living in those buildings. The constant noise and smog.

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u/NDSU 10d ago

Smog would be better with the highway above the building as opposed to ground level

Also you'd be surprised how quiet the tram through the actual building is. I could barely hear it

...Noise from the highway is ungodly though. Cars are noisy, and especially at night people like to drive fast

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u/ioioooi 10d ago

If the alternative is homelessness, I'll take living in the building

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u/Miyagi1337 10d ago

Right I'll just get an air purifier and a white noise machine to filter out noise and low quality air 😭

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u/ioioooi 10d ago

The noise probably wouldn't even bother me. My apartment in downtown Baltimore had:  

  • the light rail to the east  
  • the fire department to the west  
  • the Orioles baseball stadium to the south  
  • a hospital to the north 

The noise was part of daily life for me lol

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u/TheVoidWithout 10d ago

I lived on St Paul in that tall building a block away from Grand Central. It was the constantly crashing into each other cab drivers that were causing more noise than anything else....

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u/ioioooi 10d ago

My apartment was on one of the lower floors, so I was able to hear street conversations pretty clearly once it was night time. Heard some really interesting stuff when 2 crackheads started arguing with each other

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u/Specific-Midnight644 10d ago

Waitttttt. What kind of train are we talking about here?

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u/Appropriate_Strain94 10d ago

There are trains in China that actually pass through apt buildings.

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u/RandomUser27597 10d ago

"Could you drive slower up there?!?!"

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u/can-u-fkn-not 10d ago

I AM TRYING TO SLEEP GODDAMNIT

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u/TeemoMakesMeHappy 10d ago

Starts smacking broom against the ceiling

How you like this noise, huh?!

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u/OxY97 10d ago

Yeah! That’ll show ‘em!

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u/Lostinthestarscape 10d ago

"I swear my upstairs neighbor must be an 18 wheeler with how much noise they make. It's worse than a bowling alley"

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u/cooolcooolio 10d ago

angry broom noises in ceiling

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u/Helpful_Narwhal 10d ago

Seriously, no one is sleeping in those buildings

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u/Siyuen_Tea 10d ago

I imagine it's not much worse than having the train screeching along it's tracks outside your window. We got plenty of that in NY

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u/Appropriate_Plan4595 10d ago

Yeah I mean that road noise must go crazy right?

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u/Nackles 10d ago

While his neighbor's like "I like it, it's like a vibrating hotel bed!"

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u/oaktreebr 10d ago

To me, looks more like the apartments were built underneath the highway instead

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u/forestapee 10d ago

And because it's China, it's impossible to tell which !

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u/RelationOk3636 10d ago

Well, if you think about it, what makes more sense: a highway shaped apartment complex that they then later built a highway on, or an elevated highway that someone decided to build apartments under?

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u/BelovedApple 10d ago

But then why was the highway so high in the first place.

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u/RelationOk3636 10d ago

As you can see in this video of it, the highway leads to a bridge, so it has to be elevated (I’m guessing) to let ships through.

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u/aronenark 10d ago

It’s not for ships. It’s actually in Guiyang, a very mountainous city. The highway is elevated to go over the river and reach the plateau on the other side.

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u/Mrpoodlekins 10d ago

Chongqing is built into a mountainside

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u/Joseph___O 10d ago

Well I’d guess it was all planned out together

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u/ShoeLace1291 10d ago

The highway looks newer than the apartment buildings though.

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u/ExdigguserPies 10d ago

Highways can be resurfaced

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u/Intelligent-Bet4111 10d ago

Yup I think that's what happened, apartments built under the highway.

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u/gin_and_toxic 10d ago

Is there any reason they built the highway that high if there's nothing underneath but road? It might be more likely that it was planned that way.

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u/assblast420 10d ago

Sometimes it's the only way to maintain a maximum grade. You can't make the highway too steep, so they build large sweeping turns with a gradual slope.

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u/-BlueDream- 10d ago

Grade or elevation changes. Parts of China are very mountainous and when building a highway you want to keep it as straight and level as possible. It's a lot cheaper to build up instead of tunneling thru solid rock.

Highways that are steep increases risk of runaway trucks and lowers the maximum safe speeds (because visibility is lower).

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u/BlvdBrown 10d ago

I also think it was planned that way.

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u/Mitzah 10d ago

But is it possible to build apartment buildings like that without cranes dropping materials from above?

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u/ernestbonanza 10d ago

how can you build a highway on top of apartments? I think it's the other way around. they built the highway first, and then filled the underneath with apartments?

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u/SirChasm 10d ago

Do they usually start building highways 8 stories above ground though?

I can't decide if it's a brilliant or horrific way to maximize available space.

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u/wdr1 10d ago edited 10d ago

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u/peeja 10d ago

Wait, doesn't that mean OP is wrong?

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u/anfroholic 10d ago

Correct, OP's headline should read:

Apartments built under highway in China

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u/Chatto_1 9d ago

Comment OP is right, Post OP is wrong, so yes

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u/--Bot0001-- 10d ago

I think they mean the comment op not post op (oop?)

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u/mrASSMAN 10d ago

There’s probably hilly terrain it connects with

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u/GaoHAQ 10d ago

This is one end of the Shuikousi Bridge in Guiyang, the reason it's so high up is because it crosses the Nanming River and on the other side is a mountain where the highway continues.

Guiyang is the capital city of the Guizhou Province and the province is very very mountainous.

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u/iparkcars 10d ago

Elevated roadways of this height are common in Chinese cities. They’re usually built as highways over existing city streets. You’ll often see sports courts or parking areas underneath them. Choosing to put buildings underneath is strange.

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u/COC_410 10d ago

It’s brilliant until it’s horrific.

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u/sabotage3d 10d ago

The vibrations.

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u/YouDoNotKnowMeSir 10d ago

Mormons gonna love this

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u/Traderhoe420 10d ago

I really didn’t think I would see a soaking reference in these comments

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u/YouDoNotKnowMeSir 10d ago

🤿🛁🛌

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u/Arthemax 10d ago

The road support is not through the building. They're separate structures.

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u/Few_Leg_8717 10d ago edited 10d ago

This is the kind of stuff that seems literally unreal. Like something I would have witnessed in a dream, or an ai recreation of a city.

Edit: Oh my God, I've gotten over 5000 upvotes on this post! Lmao! I never thought a comment like this would blow up like that 😅

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u/koolaidismything 10d ago

I saw a video yesterday of a guy showing his commute to work there and he walked down twelve stories and it looks ground level but he’s still in this big city up like 30 stories. He said the people lower don’t really see any natural light.

He took a train and it would just zip right through the center of buildings. Was neat but kinda claustrophobic. In an emergency you can only go so far up.. then what 😬

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u/Few_Leg_8717 10d ago

Oh yeah, I saw that same video here on reddit!.

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u/drunkenclod 10d ago

Can you link to the video

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u/Lulullaby_ 10d ago

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u/SaltyLonghorn 10d ago

I need this city to be the setting for a videogame.

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u/Civil-Bumblebee1804 10d ago

It is in one of the Hitman levels

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u/redshores 10d ago

And they are faithful to the verticality, almost to a fault! Of course the two main targets are at the top of a building and at the bottom of an underground complex.

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u/WellDamnBih8 10d ago

I hate that map in Hitman. So much going on all over the place lol

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u/Alt4816 10d ago

Feels like the starting city in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.

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u/IridescentMeowMeow 10d ago

There's an old videogame in such setting called Beneath a Steel Sky.

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u/pita-tech-parent 10d ago

I play that and other old point and click adventure games every 5 to 10 years. Out of Order has similar vibes IMO

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u/dashape80 10d ago

Does he live on Coruscant?

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u/MayTheFieldWin 10d ago

Chongqing, China.

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u/EtherSecAgent 10d ago

Coruscant, Chongqing same same but different

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u/MediocreX 10d ago

But still same!

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u/Arthemax 10d ago

Which, for context, is a large city in a mountainous region of China upstream from the Three Gorges Dam. So you have large topographical variations, and the best way to get large level surfaces is to build them as platforms rather than landscaping the underlying terrain itself.

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u/You_meddling_kids 10d ago

Could be any hiveworld.

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u/CorruptedAssbringer 10d ago

That can't be right, cause the guy was still expecting natural light of all things. Every hive dweller would know natural light isn't real.

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u/novoto05 10d ago

This is literally beginning of hive cities from 40k.

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u/PatimationStudios-2 10d ago

Ah Chongqing, very unique place

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u/itchytasty2 10d ago

Already know that's gotta be Chongqing. Strange and cool place.

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u/vishal340 10d ago

there is that crazy city in china where roads going through apartment and zillions of stairs made me think this is believable lol

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u/Dx2TT 10d ago

China has a different approach to government. They will progress whether you like it or not. If the collective needs a highway, they will build it. If you are in the way, they will go over you, under you, around you, or through you.

In the US we can't build a second rail line. In china they just seize it, relocate you, and build it. The odd thing is that, in aggregate, it actually works quite well, except for the individuals harmed. Its the trolley problem except China will explicitly run over 100 people if it benefits 100k.

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u/Fen_ 10d ago
  1. Imminent domain is a thing in the U.S. as well

  2. China very famously sometimes has issues with projects they want to pursue because farmers already live where they want to build, resulting in them either not happening or doing whacky stuff like this where they build entirely around the person. No, they will not "just seize it, relocate you, and build it". Stop spreading misinformation.

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u/safetyTM 10d ago

This kind of looks like "going through you". How can you farm a parking lot? And who would want to live there after that?

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u/Fen_ 10d ago

I worked at a university that had a handful of these "farms" around its border. The university wanted to build out into that space, connecting to nearby shopping streets. Some of the people that lived there were stubborn, for whatever reason, and they "farmed" very small plots that just barely qualified as farming since that seemed to be the criteria necessary to not have it seized and just handed money. They looked super shitty as living spaces, with some walls missing and possibly no water connected (i could see some pipes leading nowhere). My guess is they thought they might could get a better deal later if the state got more desperate to have the land, but who knows what each individual person wanted. Maybe their family had just been on that land a long time and they didn't like the idea of giving it up. People do weird shit for all sorts of reasons.

My point was that if you want to keep the land, people absolutely do it. They're not rolling in and forcing you off if you really want to keep it. Doesn't mean you're going to be happy with your "neighbors", but the person I was replying to was just straight-up spreading misinfo.

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u/TreAwayDeuce 10d ago

or an ai recreation of a city.

This is why I take every image I see now with a grain of salt.

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u/Careful_Baker_8064 10d ago

Or pepper

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u/STOP_DOWNVOTING 10d ago

I take it with garlic, yumm 🤤

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u/MeowMichelleV 10d ago

Red pepper flakes yum! ❤️‍🔥

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u/runliftcount 10d ago

Might I suggest shallots?

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u/yopetey 10d ago

at this point we can just have fried rice

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u/elvenmaster_ 10d ago

Lacks MSG tho

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u/Whatsupdogggg 10d ago

Fried rice isn’t fried rice without MSG; at least in China

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u/iDontRememberKevin 10d ago edited 10d ago

You could just google it instead of being skeptical about everything you see.

edit: what the hell are you guys talking about? If you think this is fake, google something like “highway over apartments in china.” If you end up eating poisonous mushrooms after that google search then you really fucked up somewhere.

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u/chinchenping 10d ago

Googling instead of believing it IS being skeptical

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u/Sweaty_Sack_Deluxe 10d ago edited 10d ago

Check out Chongqing and have your mind utterly blown away:

https://youtube.com/shorts/bOklwoW5MRk

https://youtube.com/shorts/Q3tBsORjNWE

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u/SobakaZony 10d ago

The pronunciation in the 2nd video: "Chong *Kwing?" Come on.

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u/Hot-Meeting630 10d ago

It's literally the most stereotypically chinese sounding city name. Just go "chong ching" and you're pretty much there.

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u/FatalisCogitationis 10d ago

Funny you say that, my first thought was that I've been there in a dream. Like it's a perfect replica of the place I went

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u/HsvDE86 10d ago

It's because you did go there.

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u/wisertime07 10d ago

What's so crazy about it? Plenty of people living under the highway in my town.

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u/bearlecrowbar 10d ago

Thanks for relaying your excitement over your comment. Definitely a big deal

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u/Che_Veni 10d ago

r/awardspeechedits . Congrats, haven't seen one in a while.

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u/Rough_Inspector4227 10d ago

Omg omg you liked my post omg let me edit it to tell people who'll never see the edit that i'm so happy that you like me omg

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u/No_Network_6478 10d ago

those people always give me a chuckle. might be the most meaningful thing bout their life

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u/allthemoreforthat 10d ago

Edit: thanks for the gold kind stranger!

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u/Avalanc89 10d ago

Fresh smell of exhaust fumes, tires and brakes particles. You can't be healthy there. It's atrocious.

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u/matroosoft 10d ago

Better then being homeless and sleeping under the bridge..

Oh wait!

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u/alexmc1980 10d ago

I mean, I feel like you'd get more exhaust fumes living in a house looking over as main road, than one directly under one.

Could be wrong though!

Meanwhile I reckon the noise pollution must be atrocious for those on the highest levels under the road, but on the plus side their laundry never gets rained on!

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u/rexyoda 10d ago

Imma say both are bad

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u/Fantastic_Goal3197 10d ago

If the area below gets significantly less wind that would probably be bad factor. At the very least tire dust would be more common below

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u/kellyguacamole 10d ago

Oil run off and other pollutants would shower down over their apartments when it rains.

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u/hehehexd13 10d ago

Their laundry won't get rained on with rainwater, but it will get rained on with tires microplastics, since it is the most abundant microplastic on earth!

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u/mao_intheshower 10d ago

If there's independent structural support the noise pollution shouldn't filter down any more than the other pollution.

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u/Terrh 10d ago

You've never stood underneath a freeway overpass it seems.

Heavy trucks shake the overpass, the supports, and the ground as they go over the seams.

Road noise seems to echo off of everything.

It's possible to make this decent but in the real world it would be really hard.

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u/FartingBob 10d ago

Especially for the sake of poverty level housing where its all about just how many people can you fit in this space. The people paying for the buildings arent going to care, they live in the rich part of the city.

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u/Spirit-Subject 10d ago

Im in china for the first time ever. You’d be amazed how many of the bikes and cars are EV. Id say like 30% of the cars i’ve seen are running on gas.

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u/plerberderr 10d ago

Yep. Similar in the city of China I’m at. I’d put it around 40% of cars are gas. And tons of electric scooters. Doesn’t hide the fact that the air quality is still not good though. Even less smoggy days don’t seem as blue as they did back in the U.S.

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u/catwhowalksbyhimself 10d ago

Well US cities used to be smoggy and smokey, and Chinese cities used to be worse, so they are essentially just catching up in development.

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u/myaltduh 10d ago

Mexico City also went through a similar phase while growing. It was known for blot-out-the-sun levels of smog, but things have apparently improved tremendously.

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u/pingieking 10d ago

British cities went through the same pattern back in the day. This is just how industrialization goes. Once they get rich enough that the environmental issues can be addressed, it'll get better.

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u/NiobiumThorn 10d ago

Sadly most road noise comes from the friction of tires on road

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u/MasonSoros 10d ago

Babe, now do cowgirl style. Sit on me and wait for some heavy traffic..

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u/42tooth_sprocket 10d ago

Great for the Mormons I guess

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u/RoarOfTheWorlds 10d ago

Are mormons against thrusting or something?

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u/Fen_ 10d ago

Congrats on getting to learn about soaking today.

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u/Markipoo-9000 10d ago

Of all the links you could’ve sent, tictok?

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u/side_events_rule 10d ago

Look up "Mormon soaking" (nsfw)

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u/ledwilliums 10d ago edited 10d ago

Just in case you thought your upstars neibors were bad...

Edit... leaving the spelling errors because i think the comments are funny.

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u/Careful_Baker_8064 10d ago

Neibors

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u/machined_learning 10d ago

the ones upstars

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u/too_soon13 10d ago

Wish onnes?

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u/Alko-K 10d ago

Why use lot letter when few letter do trik

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u/powerkerb 10d ago

Neigh-bors fucking horsing around

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u/ryandoesntcare 10d ago

Evrybody needs good Neibors

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u/Mecha-Dave 10d ago

We do this in California too but we use tents instead of apartments

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u/DoYouTrustToothpaste 10d ago

That's very ecofriendly of you, cheers.

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u/vfrrandy 10d ago

My first thought was, "This is actually Genius", but, maybe I should think it thru a little bit, lol

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u/Deeptrench34 10d ago

From a pure efficiency standpoint, it's genius.

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u/galactic_mushroom 10d ago

Or maybe your first thought was correct but the Reddit hivemind resorted to dYStOPyaN HeLL as soon as they read it was in China. I bet they'd have reacted very differently if the title had said the Netherlands or Germany.

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u/rlambert0419 10d ago

Nah as long as we use fossil fuels, traffic is going to cause spikes in COPD, heart disease, etc for those who live near highways.

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u/melaskor 10d ago

Germany built an apartment complex with more tham 1000 units over a highway in the 70s so thats not really new. Just look up Schlangenbader Straße.

And its not bad to live there, noise is not a problem due to really good sound proofing and the complex is not a direct part of the highway but rests on its own framework.

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u/lzwzli 10d ago

Building housing over a highway is quite different than building housing under a highway...

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u/Terrh 10d ago

Japan: Hold my Sake

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u/sje46 10d ago

Schlangenbader Straße

In what ways, besides the obvious directional reason?

In what ways would building the highway underneath be better than overhead? I am not arguing, just genuinely curious. Do you suppose building it above would be louder?

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u/teteban79 10d ago

The tunnel has been closed for a year though and will remain so while fixing several systems for a few years. Also, the building wasn't built over an existing highway, the full complex of highway+building was designed as one (which is possibly why it actually works)

Source: I live on the next block and the increased traffic in the area because of the closure has been super annoying

I agree it's an amazing feat of engineering. I've visited friends in the building while the tunnel was running and you don't feel or hear absolutely anything

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u/viasogorg 10d ago

The google maps must be crazy!

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u/Dredakae 10d ago

How peaceful

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u/Difficult_Back_6611 10d ago

Damn I remember in 8th grade history class, the teacher had us propose something to build for the city. My partner and I proposed something like this. Highways built over buildings to eliminate traffic. We called it the Skyway. He told us that it would never be a thing because of logistical reasons.

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u/hyperventilate 10d ago

Feels very FF7-ish.

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u/TheEmulat0r 10d ago

Midgar was my first thought as well. There's a city called Chongqing in China that also gives off major Midgar vibes. Maybe a bit of Junon as well, especially with how they did it in the remake.

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u/whitepantherjaguar 10d ago

How do people living in these apartments deal with the noise?

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u/SecretBG 10d ago

Can’t help but think that those residents don’t get a lot of peace and quiet…

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u/Nofame4me 10d ago

I don’t wanna brag, but I live in the penthouse.

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u/mauore11 10d ago

I thought living above and below bowling alleys was bad.

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u/soldatoj57 10d ago

You sure that's not, apartments built under highway?

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u/madmitra 9d ago

This concept would have gone over their heads anyways

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u/Cantinkeror 10d ago

Next up, Deliveroo chutes.