To buy a cheap apartment, Fontana Fang had to go look for it far away: it was in northern China, near the Russian border, that she found her happiness… 4,000 kilometers from her home.
In big Chinese cities, “unless I’m from the elite, I don’t see how young people can earn enough to buy a house,” sighs this 29-year-old woman, who works in marketing.
Like her, many young people frightened by real estate prices choose to buy in remote and declining industrial regions, where becoming a homeowner is still possible.
Fontana lives in Guangzhou with her husband and their two children, but the apartment is owned by the couple’s parents.
In this megalopolis of 15 million inhabitants in the south of the country, the square meter generally exceeds 100,000 yuan (12,400 euros), an inaccessible price for many.
But last winter, Fontana discovered Hegang, a mining town in the northeast where temperatures then hovered around minus 20 degrees.
In this smaller town (1.4 million inhabitants), the couple only had to pay 40,000 yuan (5,000 euros) for an apartment on the top floor with a covered balcony and a breathtaking view of the hills.
Their project? Renovate it to make it their second home, when they want to escape the sweltering summers of Canton.
“I was incredibly surprised. I didn’t expect to be able to buy a home for so little,” rejoices Fontana.
Cities like Hegang, China has hundreds of them, with a rich industrial past but now forgotten.
This is the case of Fuxin, in the province of Liaoning (northeast), or Rushan, in Shandong (east), which have seen their population decline since the 1980s, while government reforms shifted the economic center of gravity of China towards the southern and eastern coasts.
Hegang lost 15% of its inhabitants between 2010 and 2020, according to official figures.
Now these declining cities appeal to the younger generation, attracted by their low real estate prices and relaxed, affordable lifestyle.
A young man who bought an apartment for 68,000 yuan in Gejiu, a mining town in Yunnan (southwest), told AFP that he did so “mainly to have nothing to do”.
He refers to the so-called “tang ping” (literally, “lie flat”) attitude, a counterculture that has emerged in recent years in China that encourages young people to do as little as possible and reject social pressures related to work.
Leaders of the ruling Communist Party have strongly criticized this move, deeming it contrary to the values ??of hard work and innovation.
Gejiu’s new owner, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he had “not even thought about work yet” since moving in: “I’m going to stay here, live on the few savings I have, and find a temporary job in a big city when I don’t have any more”.
During a recent visit by an AFP team to Hegang, street vendors offered fruit, vegetables or cookies for the equivalent of a few cents, while pensioners played cards in front of their homes.
“There’s something spiritual about this slower pace,” observes Kathy Cato, 28, who has also recently purchased an apartment in Hegang.
“In the (richer) cities, we only talk about work and business all day,” adds the young woman, who previously lived in Xi’an and Zhengzhou, two large cities in the center.
“But people don’t do that too much here, because the probability of making a lot of money is pretty low anyway.”
Hegang had known fortune with the coal mines, but now its finances are bloodless: the municipality is struggling to repay its debts and the government came to its rescue via a “restructuring” in 2021.
The measure averted bankruptcy, but the city regularly pays its employees late, according to a local administrator.
For Shen Wenxin, originally from Hegang where he has just moved back to open a café, “the more people who come, the better”.
“But they represent only a tiny portion of the economy,” he adds.
Other residents contacted by AFP also doubt the city’s ability to find a second youth with the newcomers.
Max Chu left Hegang for Beijing when she went to college. She works in the capital and now has no desire to return.
“After a while, the fashion (to go to these industrial cities, editor’s note) will pass”, she predicts, “people will forget them”.
21/07/2023 11:15:22 – Hegang (Chine) (AFP) – © 2023 AFP