French photographer and graphic designer François Prost has a new photo series out that I thought I would share with you today. It’s called “Paris Syndrome” and I discovered it via CityLab.
What the series does is visually compare Paris to a housing estate in Hangzhou, China called Tianducheng, which was designed to be a replica of Paris. Tianducheng even has its own Eiffel Tower, though this Chinese version is only 108m tall and the French original is 324m.
Still, in many of François’ photos, you may find it difficult to distinguish between the two (provided you ignore the Chinese people and the Chinese signs). The neighborhood was initially a ghost town, but apparently it’s now starting to fill up.
The reason I mention this photo series is because it reminded me of the day that I spent in Macau last week. I’m not much for gambling – and Macau is firmly the gambling capital of the world with revenues that greatly exceed Las Vegas – but I was curious to see it.
Similar to Hong Kong, Macau is a Chinese Special Administrative Region with a lot of autonomy. But from 1557 to 1999 it was under Portuguese administration. And so historically it has been home to this very unique Eurasian culture spanning everything from food to language.
I say “historically” because the Macanese and their Patuá language – which is supposedly a blend of Portuguese, Cantonese and Malay – seem to be on the brink of extinction.
Today it’s all about the casinos. And the demand is firmly coming from mainland China. In 2016, 90% of Macau’s 31 million tourists came from there.
I fully appreciate the demand drivers, but I struggle to understand the allure of replicating and bastardizing attractions from other places. Macau also has an Eiffel Tower, as well as a Venetian (like Las Vegas). You can go for gondola rides in its canals.
The more interesting part for me was the historic center of Macau with its Portuguese paving on the sidewalks. But maybe that’s just me.
Image: François Prost
Unconditional basic income is a popular idea these days, particularly in the tech community, as one way to respond to growing inequality. (Though, could our current levels of inequality just be the result of a larger economic cycle?)
One of the obvious counterarguments is that free money will make people lazy. But there are a number of studies out there, including real world examples, that suggest this isn’t necessarily true.
Wired recently published an interesting recount of one such example.
In the late 90′s the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in North Carolina opened up a casino. Many would argue that casinos are horrible as an economic development tool, but in this instance the roughly 15,000 tribal members were all promised an equal cut of the casino’s profits.
The first payments worked out to about $595 each. But in 2016, each tribal member received approximately $12,000.
The operator takes 3% of annual profits as a management fee, and then the rest is funneled back into the community to cover things like healthcare and infrastructure. About half of the casino’s profits go toward these “per capita payments.”
All of this has made for an interesting case study on what can happen when you distribute unconditional money to low-income households.
What researchers discovered was a slew of positive externalities ranging from not only higher household incomes and fewer people below the poverty line, but also better health outcomes and children staying in school longer.
For the full Wired article, click here.