![\"Finding](\"https:\/\/apicms.thestar.com.my\/uploads\/images\/2026\/06\/12\/3954399.jpg\")
Finding a home: A delivery driver idling away by watching videos on his phone on his scooter. \u2014 AP<\/p>\nThe \u201cLife in Venice\u201d housing development, a multibillion-dollar replica of the Italian city on the coast, stands silent. Many of the tens of thousands of homes are hollow husks of concrete and alabaster.<\/p>\n
But in recent years, the remote, partially-abandoned complex has drawn unlikely new residents like Sasa Chen, a burnt-out young Chinese woman who, until recently, worked a high-earning finance job in Shanghai, China\u2019s bustling commerce hub.<\/p>\n
The appeal?<\/p>\n
Chen pays just 1,200 yuan (RM732), a month for her apartment in faux Venice in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangsu. It\u2019s so cheap that it\u2019s allowed Chen to retire at the tender age of 28.<\/p>\n
Experts say Chen is part of a broader trend that has seen a growing number of young people across China migrating to small towns and cities, taking advantage of cheap real estate prices that have been plummeting since the Covid-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n
In decades past, China\u2019s ascendent middle class flocked to booming megacities to chase jobs and dreams, once abundant as the country went from rags to riches.<\/p>\n
Finding a home: A delivery driver idling away by watching videos on his phone on his scooter. \u2014 AP<\/p>\n
But as the red-hot economy cooled, expectations have soared, opportunities have dwindled and competition has grown fierce.<\/p>\n
Most large Chinese companies, especially high-paying tech firms, require a work schedule of 9am to 9pm from Monday to Saturday, a gruelling lifestyle popularly known as the \u201c996 culture\u201d.<\/p>\n
Under pressure, some young professionals have called it quits altogether and joined a resistance movement called \u201clying flat\u201d \u2013 shunning careers and capitalism for a \u201clow-desire life\u201d. Some are redefining their dreams to focus on rest and relaxation.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s much more achievable in China because the cost of living in some places can be so low compared to prices in the West.<\/p>\n
Home prices at the massive \u201cLife in Venice\u201d development have more than halved since the downturn in China\u2019s property market a few years ago, and a lunch of noodles or a rice dish costs under US$3 (RM12.20) at the neighbourhood\u2019s restaurants.<\/p>\n
The bargain prices have benefited young people like Chen, who is willing to live in remote but affordable housing now available across the country.<\/p>\n
Chen describes it as the perfect life: sea view, clean air and cheap rent.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have all the time in the world, the freedom of doing whatever I want,\u201d said Chen. \u201cI am living the life that I want.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLife in Venice\u201d was envisioned in the early 2010s as a weekend resort for wealthy residents from nearby Shanghai, providing a luxurious yet peaceful life by the sea.<\/p>\n
But demand for the vast complex\u2019s 46,000 units cratered after China\u2019s debt-fuelled property mar\u00ad\u00adket popped. The developer, real estate giant Evergrande, went bankrupt in 2024.<\/p>\n
![\"Residents](\"https:\/\/apicms.thestar.com.my\/uploads\/images\/2026\/06\/12\/3954396.jpg\")
Residents playing with their children in a playground. – AP<\/p>\n
Today, the site is a ghost town, with many villas just empty shells.<\/p>\n
Less than one in five apartments is occupied. Abandoned boats founder off its rundown pier, and \u201cFor Sale\u201d signs and empty storefronts line its streets.<\/p>\n
Chen used to work in a glossy high-rise in Shanghai, making up to 700,000 yuan (RM420,400) a year at a large finance firm.<\/p>\n
After three years, she began plotting her escape from the drud\u00adgery of China\u2019s white-collar workforce.<\/p>\n
Her plan was to save up and find somewhere to live with rent so low she could live off returns on her investments.<\/p>\n
Last year, her dream came true: Chen saved two million yuan (RM1.2mil) and found a spacious apartment at \u201cLife in Venice\u201d.<\/p>\n
With such low rent, she calculates she can live there for the rest of her life without ever having to work again.<\/p>\n
Though \u201cLife in Venice\u201d doesn\u2019t have a branch of her favourite sour soup hotpot restaurant, door-to-door delivery, or proxi\u00admity to major hospitals, her new residence has plenty of conve\u00adniences like a grocery store and eateries.<\/p>\n
Chen used to dread the grind of her nine-to-six job, which she said \u201cfelt like marching to my own death\u201d. Now, she wakes up at 10am every day, filling her days with cooking, chilling and long walks on the beach.<\/p>\n
Like Chen, scores of young Chinese people have left big cities.<\/p>\n
While there\u2019s no available data about how many have left the Chinese workforce, figures show that from 2019 to 2024, Beijing lost 1.6 million people in their twenties and early thirties, according to China\u2019s capital statistics office.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/apicms.thestar.com.my\/uploads\/images\/2026\/06\/12\/3954398.jpg\")
A man swinging on an empty beach at the semi-abandoned \u2018Life in Venice\u2019 housing complex. \u2014 AP<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople are quitting this competition, this very clear, linear, upward career track,\u201d said Xiang Biao, director of the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Germany. \u201cIt\u2019s a broader trend.\u201d<\/p>\n
China\u2019s economy has cooled in recent years, growing just 5% in 2025 \u2013 still higher than the US and other rich countries, but a far cry from the double-digit growth the country saw in past decades.<\/p>\n
As the economy slows, young Chinese are struggling to find jobs. As of December, 16.5% of 16-24-year-olds who aren\u2019t in school were unemployed.<\/p>\n
Some, like 29-year-old Ban Zhao, are rejecting the corporate rat race altogether.<\/p>\n
Last summer, Ban moved from a bustling commercial city to a small town in China\u2019s southwestern Yunnan province.<\/p>\n
Tucked away in a lush valley, the town is famed for fresh, clean air and healing hot springs. There, for just 800 yuan a month (RM480) Ban rents an apartment with three bedrooms, one of which she converted to a yoga studio.<\/p>\n
She and her boyfriend work less than 20 hours a week, offering yoga classes online to make ends meet.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can do whatever I want and not do whatever I don\u2019t want,\u201d Ban said. \u201cI live in heaven.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some are flocking to places like Hegang, a cold and remote coal mining city in north-eastern China famous for shockingly cheap housing prices.<\/p>\n
As resources dried up and mines closed, young people left, turning Hegang into a city with far more homes than people.<\/p>\n
Chen Zhiwu, a University of Hong Kong finance professor, said higher living costs and fewer job opportunities in bigger cities are driving people away.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s natural,\u201d Chen said. \u201cYoung people are facing reality and thin\u00adking hard about their futures.\u201d \u2014 AP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The \u201cLife in Venice\u201d housing development, a multibillion-dollar replica of the Italian city on the coast, stands silent.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":497880,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,114,61,60],"class_list":["post-497879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-china","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=497879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497879\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/497880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=497879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=497879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=497879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}