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"The latest housing numbers reflect an uptick in Americans abandoning their white-picket fences and two-car garages for a sky-high abode with a downtown view, but the question is how long the shift away from suburbia will last"

"the total clearance of parts of old inner city areas and starting afresh with new houses, especially high-rise flats"

Fortune favours the big Jul 12th 2012, 15:45 by The Economist online Where are the biggest companies in the world WHEN RANKED by revenue America has almost twice as many companies in the biggest 500 than any other country, according to Fortune. This is not solely down to its size; America's ratio of companies to people is also striking. It has one company on Fortune's list for every 2.4m people, only a handful of European economies do better. China is moving in on America's spot though. In 2005 the Middle Kingdom housed only 16 of the biggest firms. This year it has 73-more than Japan. In contrast to the American way, China's government has a hand in most of its biggest firms. The highest ranked is Sinopec, an oil producer, which came in fifth. A look at the ratio of big firms to GDP highlights the places where tax is low and business is easy to do. Luxembourg (not shown) does best with 34 companies per trillion dollars, followed by Switzerland and Taiwan. All 500 firms on the list racked up combined revenue of $29trn. From this $1.6trn was profit, about the same as Australia's GDP.

"The Chinese factory that manufactures shoes for Nike, Kenneth Cole, Timberland and other top-line bands saw over 5,000 of their employees walk out this week, demanding that the company pays for their housing and improved conditions in the factories."

"The growth will be driven by mass-transit lines that are due to start running in the next few years."

"China will loosen its stringent regulations on urban residency to allow more people to enjoy public services such as housing, education and healthcare beginning next year."