The philosopher(name escapes me). who is responsible for that famous quote would have to rethink that thought if he were able to see this picture/situation. As for me; all I can say is, wow! That is one stubborn/and or greedy dude.
[Photo and Story courtesy of Ananova]
The copy to go with the story was very brief, here it is . . . in it’s entirety. I can only laugh looking at this picture:
Developers have turned a house into an island in China after the owner refused to move out. The villa now stands alone in a 30ft deep man-made pit in Chongqing city, reports Jinbao Daily.
The Chongqing Zhengsheng Real Estate Company wants to turn the area into a £40m ‘Broadway’ square, including apartments and a shopping mall.
But the owner of the villa says he won’t move out unless the company pays his price – the equivalent of £1.3 million.
“The villa owner refuses to move, so the real-estate developer has had to dig out all around it to force him to,” says a saleswoman at Weilian Real Estate Sales Company.
“He wants 20 million yuan, or he’ll stay till the end of the world.”
This Blog’s main focus is Landscape Design so normally we would discuss how he is going to landscape his little plot. Forget that, how in the hell does he get in and out of there, and surely he’s not living in there . . . is he?
We could go on and on, forget about the vegetable patch . . . where does he park?
Now that the developer has completely engulfed him is his property actually worth anything? I mean other than the developer who’s going to buy it? The poor fella, what is he going to do?
Guy says he’s staying until the end of the World, well that may be, but how’s he gonna go shopping-that 1st step is a doozy. I remember seeing the picture of the little house in Atlantic City surrounded by a large casino, and a few images with roads going around the house or a parking lot, but this takes the fried dumpling.
Finally; what happens when it rains(the remaining Earth will no doubt give way), surely someone has pointed this out . . the end of the World is going to come sooner than later for this fella.
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Addendum:
I’ve been to Chongqing and without a doubt the absolute hottest food I have EVER put to my lips. I mean unbelievable . . . WOW! The Hot-Pot dishes are beyond any human description I can give. I’ll say this . . . the food was so hot you could literally smell the heat, made most Mexican dishes I’ve had seem like a bowl of Sherbert.
The Whispering Crane Institute 
That is wild. I’m thinking it would never be allowed in the west…I mean his property came with access to it…and it has now been taken away. I don’t know, I have a bit of sympathy…maybe the home has been in the family for a long time or something…maybe it’s not all about greed, or at least I hope not.
As a child in the 60s, our pediatrician operated out of a quaint, old two-story converted house in Washington DC near the National Geographic Society building. I remember thinking how cool it was that this old guy hung on to his little house while being surrounded by high-rise buildings. Tried to find it on google maps satellite images, but my recollection exactly where it was located (within a few blocks, I think) escapes me.
All that excavation will be foundations, basements and sub-basements bringing everything back up to street level. If the guy stays, he’ll be able to walk outside at some point. But he won’t stay. First: The developer is spending SERIOUS money… and that money is coming from somewhere: investors, municipalities, whatever. This guy is gonna have an accident soon… or an unsuspected heart attack. Second: Cities can’t allow people to do this. Every government in the world has eminent domain. If the developer has enough umphh, the home owner will get nothing. There must be more to this.
GREAT photo though.
We have a similar urban myth here in Yorkshire, UK.
In the 1970’s a six lane motorway was built over the hills between Yorkshire and Lancashire – the highest altitude motorway in the UK – and right in the middle at its highest most desolate part was a farmhouse which the farmer refused to sell to HM Government – the solution was to split both sides of the carriageway around the farm so now when you drive over the hills you reach a point where the central reservation widens to a hundred yards or so and right there in the middle of the motorway is the farm.
The truth of the matter is more geological actually, the land there is very unstable and lies on a slope and it was technically not possible to lay six lanes on level ground, the carriageways had to be seperated and by coincidence the farm survived !
Link here … http://www.bbc.co.uk/bradford/features/2003/m62.shtml
“No man is an island” is from one of Donne’s meditations
on the occasion of hearing church bells announcing a death.
The real estate in question was also addressed some 350
later by Ralph McTell in “The Streets of London”.
If anybody has to “rethink” here, it’s not Donne.
>Perchance he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill
>as that he knows not it tolls for him; and perchance
>I may think myself so much better than I am, as that
>they who are about me and see my state may have
> caused it to toll for me, and I know not that.
> …
>No man is an island, entire of itself; every man
>is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.
>If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is
>the less, as well as if promontory were, as well
>as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were.
>Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved
>in mankind; and therefore never send to know
>for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.