[tomkarlo]

It's not unique to China. There's a long tradition of powerful families creating wealth from the growth of a city or economy by buying up real estate, promoting the growth of a city, then benefitting from the radical increase in real estate value that results as land transitions from agrarian to urban.

The SF peninsula is an example of this - families that made money in mining bought up land south of the city in the 1800s, then actively worked to promote policies that would lead to growth of the city in that direction.