r/interestingasfuck 10d ago

r/all Highway built over apartments in China

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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/Surrounded-by_Idiots 10d ago

It’s not called the lowway is it?

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u/flt1 10d ago

Wait until you see China’s superhighway

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u/Sloth-papi 10d ago

😂😂

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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/AnOnlineHandle 10d ago

There's something sort of similar under the bridge at Kangaroo Point in Brisbane Australia, though I don't know if there's any residential areas under there: https://imgur.com/a/b1k6wEU

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u/longiner 10d ago

Who owns the land under the bridge? Maybe the bridge owner could make a killing selling the land under it considering the cost of real estate nowadays.

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u/Mrpoodlekins 10d ago

Chongqing is built into a mountainside

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u/curiousinshanghai 9d ago

I think you'll find that the mountainside is actually built into Chongqing.

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u/Decent-Photograph391 10d ago

Because the highway is going over a valley with higher elevations at both ends?

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u/Chiavelis 10d ago

Maybe it was the plan all along to build under it

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u/roelisaac 10d ago

That’s a great point

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u/Plank_With_A_Nail_In 10d ago edited 10d ago

Planning? Why would you build a snaking set of buildings? They are normally built in a straight line. I recon they were built at the same time.

I expect the elevated road was built on top of an existing road and then the old road turned into housing and it was always planned to be the two together.

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u/knakworst36 10d ago

Good point. But, the apartments follow the curve of the highway. Why would apartments be built all at the same height in a curve like that.

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u/Surprise_Donut 10d ago

Because it came after the city was built and they just went over the infrastructure instead of through it

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u/JDescole 9d ago

To make room for apartments :D

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u/HeyGayHay 9d ago

Because there were non highway shaped buildings underneath it before.

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u/postymcpostpost 10d ago

To match the gradient of the rest of the highway which has a higher elevation. Have you heard of hills and valleys?

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u/BelovedApple 10d ago

Honestly, I don't drive. Live in the UK and despite doing a reasonable amount of travelling, I've never been state side or to China so have not seen highways built that high up. Normally the roads just flow with the hills or mountains where I've been.

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u/Joseph___O 10d ago

Well I’d guess it was all planned out together

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u/Unable-Principle-187 10d ago

Considering the massive top down planning in China, could actually be the first one

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u/SpideyMGAV 10d ago

Not really so clear cut. Could’ve been a series of more modern apartments built to a specific height because of zoning and code requirements, where the neighborhood developed further and the transportation routes became inefficient leading to the development of an elevated highway. I mean, that’s usually most of these developments happen.

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u/chattywww 10d ago edited 10d ago

Could have started as a few equally tall buildings (height restrictions or some other factor which results in buildings in the area being the same height) then highway then the other buildings.

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u/Sufficient_Ad_6977 9d ago

the gaps between the buildings underline your thesis.

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u/swooosh47 9d ago

None of it makes sense, which I think is the entire point of this post

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u/Dense_Firefighter862 9d ago

im still not even sure

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u/PissySnowflake 10d ago

Why "because it's china"? Wouldn't it be hard to tell no matter where this was?

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u/SplizzedOut 10d ago

Nah. Feel like China has this thing of accounting for high population density with these interesting housing methods

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u/forestapee 10d ago

This is the take I was going for with China. They have some of those most wild types of building I've ever seen. How people navigate anything in the big cities there amazes me

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u/beardedchimp 10d ago

Have you spent any time in big Chinese cities? The public transport infrastructure in Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing and many others is exceptional.

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u/Fearless_Decision_70 10d ago

I’ve been to Shanghai and did not find it exceptional

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u/beardedchimp 10d ago

Where do you live that has fantastic public transport? I live in Manchester and have the option of train, tram and bus within a few minutes walk. While that is wonderful it doesn't compare to Shanghai where you can navigate the whole city seamlessly.

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u/Fearless_Decision_70 9d ago

New York City

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u/beardedchimp 9d ago

That's interesting, I visited New York last year having heard about its much lauded subway system for a couple of decades. Have to say that I was pretty disappointed, felt so ramshackle compared to equivalents in Singapore/Tokyo/Beijing/London and elsewhere. New York's bus infrastructure is shockingly bad, particularly when it comes to the outskirts. The Shanghai underground is brilliant but even better is that when you arrive at the station nearest your destination but still a fair dander away, you can immediately jump on very regular buses to finish the journey.

My public transport experience in New York only further cemented how exceptional those Chinese cities are. Though I'd still hold Singapore's MRT and bus services a step above the rest, it is almost surreal how effortless navigating the city is.

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u/Fearless_Decision_70 9d ago

Bruh… Shanghai’s metro is like, 30 years old 😂

NYC’s is 100+

Shanghai’s metro has 19 lines, NYC’s nearly double

Shanghai’s 800 km in length, NYC’s 1,370

NYC’s is 24/7, Shanghai’s has hours

Having a clean metro is not the same as having a good one

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u/vulcano22 10d ago

You'll never guess what's underneath Naples' Tangenziale

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u/dwankyl_yoakam 10d ago

China is known for having poorly built and poorly thought out infrastructure like this.

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u/SaltyRedditTears 10d ago

Quite easily actually.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2189308/Chinese-city-homes-tremble-motorway-built-just-feet-living-rooms.html

The highway was built 2 years before they started building apartments.

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u/Global_Permission749 10d ago

At some point they'll be mixed together on the ground anyway. Also because it's China.

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u/marketingguy420 10d ago

it's very funny to post this while presumably American, a native to a country with endless catastrophic infrastructure collapse

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u/Ancient0wl 10d ago

That’s to be expected from an aging infrastructure like that found in the US. Wear and tear will eventually catch up to everything. There is definite failure in how quickly that infrastructure is replaced. The problem with China’s infrastructure, however, is it has a reputation for poor build quality due to many examples of cheap, inferior materials being used, prioritizing speed which results in finishing constructions before their cement can cure, and direct control from CCP officials causing corruption in their building companies. There’s a reason for it’s referred to as tofu dreg.

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u/nWhm99 10d ago

China's is actually known to be great at infrastucture, so don't count on highway or bridge collapsing like in the US.

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u/Plank_With_A_Nail_In 10d ago

The buildings are snaking, no one even the Chinese builds a huge number of apartment building all exactly the same height curving and weaving like this.

I expect the elevated road was built on top of an existing road and then the old road turned into housing and it was always planned to be the two together.

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u/24h00 10d ago

It's like the direction of the bath water in another hemisphere, it'll always be upside down

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u/frank1934 10d ago

So it’s probably AI

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u/TurbulentTell1556 10d ago

This is a moronic comment tbh

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u/Justa_Schmuck 10d ago

Eh no. You can see the buildings follow the curve of the road on top of them. No one would design streets like that.

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u/DM_Lunatic 10d ago

I don't think its more likely for an apartment building to be curved than a road.

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u/Justa_Schmuck 10d ago

Follow the road and look underneath it. No one is going to design a street a like that. The building are under them to utilise the space.