Replacement Ratio

A year later, in the autumn, a ring of buildings rose up around Qing City. From a distance, Sky City looked like the rings of a giant tree.

At the heart of the city stands the Qing City High-tech Industrial Park, its glass curtain wall reflecting a cool, silvery-blue light under the sunlight.

The outer ring is separated by a wide green belt and a circular water system, which shimmers in the sunlight.

On the day of the inauguration ceremony, the official resettlement plan was broadcast simultaneously on radio, mobile phone videos, and television throughout the city.

A female anchor dressed in a dark gray suit sat in the studio, with a panoramic 3D model of Sky City in the background.

The circular buildings slowly rotated behind her, each section marked with a different colored light strip.

Pedestrians on the street stopped and looked up at the loudspeakers on the utility poles that had started ringing again.

These loudspeakers had been silent for more than half a year, and no one expected them to start making noise again on such an autumn morning.

The owner of the breakfast shop turned down the heat of the oil pan and listened intently.

At the vegetable market, middle-aged women carrying bamboo baskets gathered in front of the meat stalls. The butcher's cleaver hung in mid-air, and blood dripped from the tip of the blade onto the cutting board.

Xu Xiaoyan sat in the living room on the second floor of her house, and the outline of Sky City could be seen in the distance through the window.

The original residential area of ​​Satellite City 5 was temporarily preserved as a transitional resettlement site, but she knew that eventually everyone would move into those new ring-shaped buildings.

A clear and steady female voice came from the loudspeaker on the utility pole, announcing the land exchange details for the residents of the Fifth Satellite City.

In short, residents who own land in the city can exchange it for land in the southern part of the Second Ring Road at a ratio of two to one.

The area within the original satellite city planning boundary is referred to as "within the city." Those with valid land use certificates have priority in this land exchange.

Residents who own land outside the city will exchange their land for land at a ratio of four to one. All the exchanged land will be uniformly planned into four major areas:

South Zone 1 is a villa area, with two and a half stories and uniform sizes of 200 square meters.

This area is adjacent to the water system within the Second Ring Road and boasts the best views in the entire South District. From the second-floor terrace, you can enjoy a panoramic view of the core science and technology city.

The South Second District is a row house area, with three and a half stories and a uniform size of 150 square meters. The row of buildings extends along the circular road, and each household has an independent entrance door and a small courtyard.

The South Third District is a large-unit area, offering three unit types: 120 square meters, 100 square meters, and 80 square meters. This part consists of apartment-style residences with relatively spacious building spacing.

The South Fourth District is a small-unit area, offering two types of units: 60 square meters and 40 square meters, mostly studio apartments.

Xu Xiaoyan quickly calculated in her mind that her house fell within the scope of land ownership in the city.

If calculated at a ratio of 2 to 1, her 400 square meters of land area could be exchanged for 200 square meters of land within the Second Ring Road.

The broadcast then uttered another sentence that made her heart skip a beat:

"Owning land does not mean you can move in immediately; you need to pay a construction fee of ten yuan per square meter."

Ten yuan per square meter? Xu Xiaoyan quickly thought about it. If she were to exchange her property for a 200-square-meter villa in the South District 1, the construction cost would be five thousand yuan.

To be honest, this amount of money is still within her means; a year ago, she might have hesitated.

But after a year of operation, she had accumulated a fairly comfortable amount of savings, thanks to her savings and the income from the crops that were produced in the space.

She has the money, and she can directly exchange it for a new house, saving time and effort. At most, she'll have to spend some money on renovations. No matter how you look at it, it's a win-win situation.

Xu Xiaoyan had even started planning in her mind how to allocate that 200-square-meter space.

The first floor can be used as a living room, kitchen, and a south-facing planting room. The second floor is divided into two bedrooms and a study. A semi-transparent shed can also be built on the terrace for seedling cultivation.

The more she thought about it, the more she felt that this choice was right. The location of South Zone 1 was next to the water system, and the air humidity was higher than in other places, which was a natural breeding ground for her leafy vegetables that needed a humid environment.

Moreover, the villa is detached with no shared walls on either side, so no one will know what she does inside. For someone who has a secret space, this is a more important consideration than any architectural parameter.

The loudspeaker continued: "If you don't want to pay, you can deduct the land area at a ratio of one to three."

She paused for a second, then gently tapped the armrest of the sofa with her finger. At this moment, would anyone be foolish enough to exchange land area for building area?

It's obvious that this is a huge loss, even without doing the math. Land is permanent private property, while construction costs are a one-time investment. Anyone who does the math knows the difference.

"In addition, the newly opened Satellite City 5 Bank offers low-interest loans; interested individuals can inquire there."

Loans? She herself didn't need them, but she could understand why banks would open at this time; she figured some residents were short of money and couldn't afford the construction fees.

She had seen on the forum that some people had lost almost all their savings after the typhoon a year ago and were now living on odd jobs and receiving relief supplies. Let alone five thousand yuan, it would take them several months to save up even five hundred yuan.

The government's decision to introduce banks and low-interest loans together demonstrates that they have considered the economic circumstances of different groups, rather than requiring everyone to pay in full at once.

She felt the arrangement was quite fair, at least much more reliable than those private lenders who suddenly appeared six months ago.

Those people lend out 1,000 yuan, and a month later they want you to pay back 1,200 yuan. The interest is shockingly high, and they often require real estate certificates as collateral. Many people are getting deeper and deeper into that cycle of usury.

Xu Xiaoyan leaned back on the sofa, her gaze falling on the row of cement flower pots in the corridor.

After comparing multiple times, she confirmed that her space could only store live plants and could not promote plant growth. It would be a lie to say she wasn't disappointed when the results came out.

She had fantasized countless times that if the space could accelerate plant growth, she could harvest a large amount of fruits and vegetables in a short period of time.

But the fact is the fact: the space is like a freezer. Plants placed inside won't die, but they won't grow either; they're just frozen in place the moment they enter the space.

She could only accept reality and worked even harder to grow fruits and vegetables. Not only did she stock up on a huge amount in her space, but she would also sell some at the free market when the market was good.