Chongqing: The municipality of Chongqing, with 30 million people and a
$160 billion GDP (comparable to Ukraine's), constructs 700,000 units of public
housing annually, with 430 million square feet due to be completed within the
next three years alone. New York, with a population of 8 million, has 180,000
public housing units. Here is a typical Chongqing social housing project -- part of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's aims to build 36 million low-cost homes by 2015 in an initiative estimated to increase local government borrowing by an estimated $307 billion.
Nelson Ching/Bloomberg/Getty Images
