Commies Love Concrete

"We need GDP!"
"The housing market is weak, real estate investment is falling, steel, glass and cement sales are falling!"
"Local government revenue is down, our investment projects are running into trouble!"
"Exports are down due to weakness in Europe, Japan and the markets tied to our infrastructure development!"
"Defaults are spreading and we can't keep covering it up forever!"
"What can we do?"
(murmuring, shouting, arguing)
"Enough! We pave! Pave everything with concrete!"

China forges ahead with Yangtze mega-city ‘cluster’

China has moved a step closer to making a string of mega-cities a reality with approval to develop a massive urban cluster on the mid-section of the Yangtze River.

And more progress could be on the way amid reports that similar approvals are in store for two other regions - one covering Beijing, Tianjin , and Hebei , and another taking in Chengdu and Chongqing .

The State Council approved a plan on Sunday to forge ahead with the Yangtze urban cluster, which covers 317,000 sq km.

The plan aims to develop urban centres around Wuhan in Hubei , the Changsha -Zhuzhou -Xiangtan city group in Hunan province and around Poyang Lake in Jiangxi .

The plan for the Yangtze's mid-section is part of a bigger urbanisation scheme to create 20 mega-city clusters across the country. Five of these clusters, including the one on the Yangtze River, will have "national" status. The other four are the Yangtze Delta cluster, the Chengdu-Chongqing cluster, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area and the Pearl River Delta.

I used this site to draw a conservative area of the mega city and then compared it to various countries. It would cover Connecticut, Rhode Island and most of Massachusetts in the U.S., or most of Belgium or one of the Baltic Republics.