Ghost Neighborhoods - Edit

[dukealien]

I think using the names of the countries is a bit too explanatory for my taste.  Subtle clues might be nicer. For example, L1  might read ‘villages of empty jinka, or some such. Any reader worth having, IMO, would take the time to google ‘jinka’



I swapped a coupleof lines around, so ‘up close shoddy made...’ came directly after the houses, not after the highways:

glaring skyscrapers
eight-lane highways
empty, empty, empty
blocks of residential houses
up close shoddy-made decayed
built near nowhere to
defraud a people of
their savings with vain hopes
of ownership denied: 
China

I understand the social implications, but think you need something to tie them together into an epiphany of sorts. Perhaps just an ending couplet. Otherwise, I wonder ‘why the comparison?’ I do question whether the Chinese homes were built as an intentional attempt to defraud (more money could have been scammed if they never actually built the homes), or if was just an ill-conceived grand plan that failed miserably.

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And I wonder if ‘residential houses’ might be redundant.  Residential structures, maybe?

Thanks! Your observations are valuable, particularly about changing order of lines and the redundancy of "residential houses" (probably will change to "residential structures" unless something better comes to mind. "Jinka" would be, I think, a step too far... in fact, I'm considering moving the nation identifiers to start instead of ends of stanzas. The two situations are mysterious enough in plain language!

@busker - You'll have to take my word for it that an attempt at poetic craft was made... which is not to say it wasn't so poor as to be invisible. Think of my submtting it for crit as a call for help, perhaps?

On the issues (specifically Chinese "ghost cities" rather than Japanes ghost apartments - the latter seem to be Things That Can't Be Helped, not, like the ghost cities across the water, Things Not Spoken Of) I find myself in a peculiar situation. First, yes, though the poem compares and contrasts the two situations, politics infuses everything these days. So be it.

Second, without in any way doubting your statement, I find it difficult to classify the "ghost cities" phenomenon and its causes simply "ill informed." First, the alternate hypothesis to their existence would be that they're a propaganda construct. Physical existence is hard to hide: they're visible from orbit. A lie large enough to insert them into Google Earth(sm) as well as the associated drone/helicopter views would require as much effort as building the darned things.

Motives for such a gigantic propaganda exercise are also hard to discern. What would be its purpose other than to make mainland China lose face collectively? That may be a credible motive for some, but parsimony (Occam's Razor) says otherwise. They exist, and denials (not yours, which is based on evidence of your own eyes) only strengthen the conclusion that they're a major embarrassment.

As to the financial situation, as best I can determine they were run up by provincial/local authorities but "ownership" (actually a long-term lease) on apartments in them was an individual traded item, thus grist for fraud. The issue of corruption vs. criminal origin of the fraud (I guess the term for the middle ground between the two would be "chicanery") seems irrelevant, but one involves national loss of face while the other does not.

A central issue is the denial of real (in both senses) property, which is indeed ideological, hence political. The human cost is waste and loss, or so it seems to me. A third stanza could consider the American/Irish case where buyers and financiers colluded in fraud which presumed prices would always rise, and everyone lost. Some of those houses, too, stood empty... with their plumbing, windows, and all other saleable parts stripped!

Thanks for the read and comments. Update (to the poem) following in due course.