Beijing's Bomb Shelter-Dwellers May Be Making a Rational Choice About Their Commute

The numbers are undeniably mind-boggling: An estimated two million people in Beijing are said to be living below the earth's surface, in thousands of 100-square-foot spaces located just one or two stories below street level. These figures have been making headlines (and trending upwards) for a couple of years now. Assuming they're accurate, that would mean 10 percent of the city's 20 million people sleep in windowless, subterranean residences.

That they are there speaks to the crushingly expensive housing market in China's bulging top-tier cities. The makeshift conversion of approximately 20,000 antiquated bomb shelters and basements across Beijing has also no doubt led to a rise in dangerous living conditions: it's common to find multiple people sharing these small emergency shelters made only slightly more hospitable with space heaters and hot plates.