A sliver of England, south of Shanghai
A Chinese suburb gets a British theme, complete with a cathedral in the town center. Home prices average about $500,000 U.S.
By KRIS HUNDLEY
Published September 19, 2005
SONGJIANG, China - The Chinese government is building a cathedral here. But it has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with ambience.
The massive stone structure, now covered with an exoskeleton of bamboo scaffolding and topped with a red Communist flag, sits in the middle of Thames Town, an ambitious development 30 miles southwest of Shanghai.
On a 250-acre parcel encircled by a sluggish canal, the government and four private investment companies are creating a little slice of England in Asia for wealthy home buyers.
Brick homes with slate roofs, with an average sale price of $500,000 U.S., sit on neatly groomed lawns. Multifamily stone row houses skirt the commercial area. A four-star resort will be housed in a faux-castle complex. The cathedral will dominate the town center.
As workers haul roofing tiles on their backs, signs around the construction site promise the development will deliver "Village amorous feeling of New Englang (sic) community."
In Thames Town's sales center, a young woman wearing a blue blazer with a crest looks puzzled when asked why the British theme was chosen for a Chinese suburb. But such dissonance is not unusual in Songjiang, a former farming community that is the new home of several of Shanghai's major universities.
Down the road in this flat, dusty town are Long Beach Villa, Emerald Gulf, Mountain View and Hyde Classic Garden. French mansard roofs top yet another complex.
The British motif has proven popular. Though Thames Town will not be completed until 2007, about two-thirds of the project's 300 single-family homes reportedly have been sold. Buyers include overseas Chinese, residents of Taiwan and Hong Kong, and business people from Shanghai who will be able to take a high-speed rail, now being built, into the city.
When Thames Town's first phase of housing went on the market two years ago, prices ranged from $55 to $65 per square foot.
By the time the most recent phase went on sale in October, the asking price had nearly tripled.