This is Paris, the capital of art and fashion.
The beautiful architecture, the vibes, and the landscape make this city the capital of
love, where many couples would like to get married or spend their honey moon.
Now, I have to confess something.
This is not Paris, but you knew that already, like everything is written in Chinese, everyone's
Chinese, and you guessed it, THIS.
IS.
DENMARK.
Yea, it's actually China, but we'll talk more about it later in the video.
Now, there's probably someone leaving a comment right now saying: "Dude, don't do China like
that, they just copied the Eiffel Tower, a lot of countries did that."
And, this guy's right.
There are at least one hundred and ten replicas of The Eiffel Tower all over the world.
And most of them aren't even at the same scale as the original, although many of them resemble
it closely.
So, China copying the Eiffel Tower is not a big deal, right?
Like this is not even the only one in China, they are five more, in the United States,
there are about fifteen.
The Statue of Liberty, the Arc de Triomphe, and many other famous buildings had been copied
before, but entire cities, that's on another level.
So, let's get back to the city of Tianducheng, also called Chinese Paris.
Not only that the Chinese copied the Eiffel Tower, but they also replicated the Parisian
architecture.
The buildings and the landscape are very similar, even the statues look alike.
Look at these fountains.
The original one and the Chinese replica.
Ignoring the background, it's hard to tell a difference between the 2, and you probably
didn't even know that THIS is the original, and this is THE REPLICA.
Although this city is really on point in terms of copying the architecture and overall the
exterior looks of Paris, something is weird here.
It just doesn't feel right.
And this isn't the only western-inspired city in China.
Thames Town, which is supposed to be a replica of London, is also, somewhat weird.
The red phone booths, the statue of Winston Churchill, the British-looking buildings,
and even the guards of the city look like there are straight out of the old town center
of London, except Thames Town is a few miles away from Shanghai.
And the list of copycat cities doesn't end here.
There are Dutch, Italian, Austrian, German, Spanish, Swedish, American and Swiss replicas
all over China.
This begs the question, why are the Chinese copying entire western cities?
First of all, let's take the example of Tianducheng, a city that cost six hundred MILLION dollars
to be built.
After the city was firstly opened in two thousand and seven, it was meant to accommodate ten
thousand people, but, by twenty thirteen, only two thousand people had moved in.
The prices were too high for most of individuals, ranging from a few hundred thousand up to
over a million dollars.
It was a ghost town, few people came there just to take wedding photos and that was really
it.
It remained a ghost town until the developers lowered the prices.
The city grew, more structures were built and by twenty seventeen, more than thirty
thousand people had moved in China's Paris.
The developers of these copycat cities are certainly profit-driven as most of these real
estate projects are marketed to the affluent and elite in Chinese society.
This is how by constructing western-themed towns, the developers of these cities tend
to attract residents to maximize the profit of land that is relatively further away from
the central city.
This brings us into the second reason why China built these copycat cities.
Younger Chinese people are more and more interested in western culture.
Many of them would rather live in a fake Parisian apartment, vising an art gallery that has
a fake Mona Lisa than live in a blocky communist looking apartment in the middle of a city
with millions of people...
Living in these western-style homes gives residents an enormous sense of pride.
In many ways, copycat cities not only reveal China’s strong desire to connect with the
outside world after decades of isolation, but they also exhibit a sense of owning and
conquering the world.
It is no coincidence that one of the most copied structure in China is the White House,
which stands as a symbol for the American people.
With this being said, there is one more big reason behind these copycat cities, and that
is, tourism.
For instance, this is Hallstatt, Austria and it is a World Heritage Site.
And this is Hallstatt, China.
This city has been replicated in detail, to resemble as close as possible the vibe that
the original Austrian Hallstatt would.
The price of this city: nine hundred and forty MILLION dollars.
This was built as a major tourist attraction, the developer’s goal was to let visitors
experience Austria without leaving China.
Of course, Tianducheng, Thames Town, and many of the other replicas were also developed
for tourism, but it wasn't the main reason.
This makes Hallstatt a slightly different copycat town in China and can be called a
success, unlike some other replicas that are to this day...ghost towns.
Most of the "successful" replica towns have some things in common, which made residents
move in.
First things first, they are either located near a large city or have convenient transportation
infrastructure that makes it accessible from the city center.
A mistake which many developers made is that they only ‘moved’ some landmarks into
the city, which is far from sufficient to form a complete image of the western city
they try to copy.
For example, although developers have moved the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, and other
French-style buildings to Tianducheng, most streets and roads are still Chinese-styled
and until the prices were lowered, Tianducheng was a ghost and post-apocalyptic-looking city.
A successful town, like Jackson Hole, which is inspired by, you guessed it, Jackson, USA,
not only replicated the buildings but the whole lifestyle of an American.
Here elements like cowboys, churches, clubs, English-named roads, and western restaurants
can be seen everywhere and some residents join the golf club, go to church, and sometimes
have parties with their neighbors.
The adopted lifestyle from the Americans and the placement of Jackson Hole near the G110
highway, which connects directly to the city center of Beijing made the Chinese Jackson
Hole a very successful copycat town.
And yea, I know, not everyone can afford to live here.
Like, let's be real, a house here is starting from six hundred thousand dollars and can
go up to EIGHT MILLION, so it is only for the wealthy individuals of China.
It's now been about twenty years since China started building copycat cities.
Many people are not quite happy, saying that they look too false and that developers should
not replicate entire cities and stick to Chinese architecture.
Some like them, stating that these are a good place to spend the weekends and to escape
the crowded Chinese metropolis.
Others like to visit, to feel the vibes of the western cities, hoping that one day, they'll
get to see the original, but until then, they just enjoy the moment, taking wedding pictures
with the Eiffel Tower behind them, because, after all, Paris, either of them...is the
city of love.