The “Life in Venice” housing development, a multibillion-dollar replica of the Italian city on the Chinese coast, stands silent. Many of the tens of thousands of homes are hollow husks of concrete and alabaster.
But in recent years, the remote, partially abandoned complex has drawn unlikely new residents like Sasa Chen, a burned-out young Chinese woman who until recently worked a high-earning finance job in Shanghai.
Chen pays just 1200 RMB, or $168, a month for her apartment in faux Venice in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangsu. It’s so cheap that it’s allowed Chen to retire at the tender age of 28.
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 pandemic.
Most large Chinese companies, especially high-paying tech firms, require a work schedule of 9 am to 9 pm from Monday to Saturday, a gruelling lifestyle known as the 996 culture. Some are redefining their dreams to focus on rest and relaxation, much like what some young adults in the West are doing under what they call FIRE: “Financial Independence, Retire Early.”
It’s a stark reversal from previous generations that prized upward mobility. But as the once red-hot economy cooled, expectations have soared, opportunities have dwindled, and competition has grown fierce.
Home prices at the massive ‘Life in Venice’ development have more than halved since the downturn in China’s property market a few years ago. The developer, realty mogul Evergrande, went bankrupt in 2024.
The bargain prices have benefited young people like Chen willing to live in remote but affordable housing now available across the country. Chen describes it as the perfect life: sea view, clean air, and cheap rent.
Her plan was to save up and find somewhere to live with rent so low she could live off returns on her investments.
Last year, her dream came true: Chen saved 2 million yuan ($290,000) and found a spacious apartment at “Life in Venice”. With such low rent, she calculates she can live there for the rest of her life without ever having to work again.
Chen used to dread the grind of her job. Now, she wakes at 10 am every day, filling her days with cooking, chilling, and long walks on the beach.
“I never believed that work is the meaning of life. My ideal state of life is not to work and stay at places I like,” she said.
Quitting the rat race
Like Chen, scores of young Chinese people have left big cities.
While there’s no available data about how many have left the Chinese workforce in recent years, figures show that from 2019 to 2024, Beijing lost 1.6 million people in their twenties and early thirties, according to China’s capital statistic office.
“People are quitting this competition, this very clear, linear, upward career track,” said Xiang Biao, director of the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Germany. “It’s a broader trend.”
China’s economy has cooled in recent years, growing just 5% in 2025.
As the economy slows, young Chinese are struggling to find jobs. As of December, 16.5% of 16-24 year-olds who aren’t in school were unemployed. Apartments cheaper than cars Some are flocking to places like Hegang, a cold and remote coal mining city in northeastern China, famous for shockingly cheap housing prices. As resources dried up and mines closed, young people left, turning Hegang into a city with far more homes than people.
Apartments there are now cheaper than cars, making sales easy for realtor Yang Xuewei.
Yang has sold more than 100 bargain-priced apartments to clients across the country — and even to some foreigners.. A one-bedroom apartment can be bought for $3,000, and $13,000 can buy a roomy four-bedroom place.
Chen Zhiwu, a University of Hong Kong finance professor, said higher living costs and fewer job opportunities in bigger cities are driving people to move to cheaper places.
“It’s natural,” Chen said. “Young people are facing reality and thinking hard about their futures.”