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Beijing now has more billionaires than any city (bbc.com)
28 points by seriousquestion on April 12, 2021 | hide | past | favorite | 13 comments



Does "Beijing" refer to a conurbation or larger division than a city? If so, greater New York surely has more as it would include Westchester and chunks of NJ as well.

If the BBC means the municipality itself, then their headline contains a Russell's Paradox (BR himself used a barber, not billionaire). In this case, regardless of the BBC's title, HN should insert "other" between "any" and "city".


> Does "Beijing" refer to a conurbation or larger division than a city?

Bejing is a province-level municipality: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct-administered_municipali...

> A municipality is often not a "city" in the usual sense of the term (i.e., a large continuous urban settlement), but instead an administrative unit comprising, typically, a main central urban area (a city in the usual sense, usually with the same name as the municipality), and its much larger surrounding rural area containing many smaller cities (districts and subdistricts), towns and villages. The larger municipality spans over 100 kilometres (62 mi). To distinguish a "municipality" from its actual urban area (the traditional meaning of the word city), the term "urban area" (Chinese: 市区) is used.


Thanks! So the article is talking about what is called in the US an "MSA"(Metropolitan Statistical Area), with NY's MSA having roughly the same population as Beijing.

A like to like would show a much different comparison as the wealthiest parts of New York are outside the city proper.

This is really a shame as there's an interesting story to be told about the recent growth of billionaires in China (and elsewhere) but it's been buried under a glop of poor reporting and wild comparison.


> A like to like would show a much different comparison as the wealthiest parts of New York are outside the city proper.

But do the billionaires live there, or are they in multi-million dollar penthouses in Manhattan? You'd think people like that would concentrate in the most prestigious areas, so trying to adjust the comparison like that may not yield a much different result.


> But do the billionaires live there, or are they in multi-million dollar penthouses in Manhattan?

North Jersey (especially Bergen County), Long Island and Westchester mostly. I'm sure there is some overlap with penthouse owners too.


Scarsdale etc are wealthier than Manhattan. There a lot of course on the upper east side but plenty live elsewhere.

It’s like the Bay Area: not so many billionaires in SF, lots in the ‘burbs.


Till the Party decides that they're not anymore.


The more interesting question is how many of them are not members of the CCP?

https://theprint.in/pageturner/excerpt/china-comrade-billion...


Let me guess, 'all of them'.


I mean, large portions of Chinese citizens are aligned directly with the CCP or members.


I dont think so. I will guess up to 10% of them are member of CCP.


Not sure what you mean, but all billionaires would either be CCP, or under their close direction. Companies over 50 employees have an on-premise staff CCP cell, and Xi is reversing the relative operating independence of existing companies.

The more money you have in China, the more scrutiny you will get at some point. Then you disappear for 3 months like Jack Ma.

It's rumored that each of the Top 100 CCP officials has $2 billion. Pretty impressive savings on a $22,000 annual salary, isn't it?

https://qz.com/329584/does-chinese-president-xi-jinping-real...


I am sure Mao and the Red Guards would be surprised.




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