The past month here on the ground in the Yangtze River Delta has seen activity that runs counter to macroeconomic measures in the property development sector. By all accounts, construction sites are supposed to be grinding to a halt and new projects deferred indefinitely. Instead, what I and Western friends are seeing is an acceleration of construction activity. Where for the last two years we’ve only had to bear incessant noise, dirt and dust from sunrise to sunset, now we are hearing construction activity 24/7 the past three weeks (whenever I became conscious in the shift of pace of construction). And new development projects are continuing to sprout up around us in a region that theoretically is economically mature. It seems a near-impossibility to escape the din of construction machines punching the ground or stamping steel or crunching concrete.

One building that friends and I were talking about in the Suzhou Industrial Park is still having floors stacked on its skeleton frame of concrete and steel while construction workers fix mirrored-windows to lower levels of the same structure.

We’re not entirely sure of why construction activity has accelerated recently; however, we’re sure it has to do as much with uncertainty about what the government will do next with the property sector as much as uncertainty about the Chinese economy in general. Some of the questions likely at the forefront of the minds of developers include: will the government end bank loans to developers completely at the end of the year? will they end all construction projects for and indefinite period of time? and will they be able to find buyers for their residential projects and renters for their office property?

One thing, however, is certain: the accelerated pace of construction does not fill me with any greater sense of security in the integrity of the finished structures.

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