Are hutongs really all that bad there? When I was in Beijing, they were nice areas typically, albeit they smelled worse because of things like drainage not running as low, but overall it didn't seem terrible and many of them were pretty big areas for local business.

I ask because I always thought Shanghai was more developed pretty much everywhere in comparison to Beijing. I mean, I'm sure the actual commie-blocks were the same (I visited one that was actual nearer to the center of the city and it was ridiculously run-down) but hutongs often consist of people living in houses their grandparents' grandparents once lived in, so they're usually reasonably well kept.

The qualities will vary, of course, but the bad hutongs can mean 1.) shared outhouse (no indoor toilet) 2.) dilapidated building 3.) communal politics from what I've heard (hutong grudges and fights for example) 4.) poor immigrant families stuffed into a small room

I don't know much about Beijing, but I found a good article on it: http://designhotpot.com/infographic-four-perspectives-to-und...

basically recreating criminal "hoods" but in the megablock style of judge dredd

Excuse me, I've seen many dead bodies in shanghai, lying out on the streets for everyone to see. One of the most memorable one is there was a guy laying face down lifeless, his legs covered in gangrene, about a block away from a busy metro station construction. He must have been there for days.

I bet you have illusion. But most readers don't know and believe what you said. Trust me, there's NO dead people on street in big cities. The only time I've seen was in a small town an old homeless people died overnight very close to a bus station. But covered with some bed sheet quickly. Any rational person will tell me: "You haven't seen doesn't mean there's NONE". Let me tell you why that can not happen: All the Chinese government officials are desperately avoid losing face. So that can not happen.

What I said that's your illusion is based on an naive assumption that you didn't fabricate a story. There are many readers familiar with Chinese society and how it works here in HN.

update: for some typos and errors

http://www.virtualshanghai.net/Texts/Articles?ID=76 here's a paper from 2009 that directly contradicts you. why do you feel the need to bring nationality into the discussion? you think mentioning that there are a lot of chinese on hackernews will silence the facts? your data is as anecdotal as his but i've found a paper that contradicts you

I guess you didn't read the paper. All the artical is about the era of republican-China (i.e before 1949) except only one partial data (total death number) of 50-51. The data about "Number of exposed corpses and abandoned coffins" even only before 1938.

What doesn't that mean? That means you provide some evidence that inderectly support the idea that a govenment of "None-Regime" with less control over its citizen's life similar to India could cause many abandoned dead people. The republican-China before 1949 was the one that overthrowned by currrent "regime". The one that was thrown happened to be more like India in many ways excpet at that time there was no real election yet.

The same "Republic of China" still exist today. It's formal name of Taiwan. There are NO long time exposed dead people in normal place in China. I mean NONE, not few vs many. The story of above ID is totally fake.

I believe there are NO long exposed dead people in Taiwan today either. But before 1949 it was a weak government managed a much larger population with much much less control compare to today's "Regime-China"

Here's a paper from 2009 about 1950s and earlier China long before economic reforms that totally contradicts you... not...

Try harder bro...

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lol what?

This is totally false. You will not see "many", let alone "one" dead body near any sort of "busy" area in Shanghai "for days".

Troll account.

Really? What year was it and what neighborhood?

I admit this is anecdotal but I’ve been to Shanghai several times and never seen any dead bodies in the streets? China has some huge social problems and I did see some homeless people and beggars but no bodies.

Pudong, 2013.

Yeah, but Shanghai has nice public toilets. Dead bodies around are bad, but properly working public toilets are a very, very big, unthinkably big advancement over other Chinese cities.

Idk where you have been but in second tier cities I have seen public toilets as well. Maybe not on the outskirts but in central areas for sure.

Good for them! They advance leg in leg with big cities. What those towns were?

As I know, the story with pristinely clean public toilets in Shanghai is such. Once upon a time Jiang came to SH with an official visit and was misfortuned to have to use one of the very few public toilets. Once he went there, something horrid allegedly happened.

Since then, Shanghai got reputation for well kept public toilets and them being supervised by the ministry of interior