
China's Empty Cities - BrandonMarc
http://www.sbs.com.au/dateline/story/about/id/601729/n/China-s-Empty-Cities
======
clicks
The casual dismissal of their sincerity is annoying ("don't know if they're
telling the truth, or just saying government-friendly things because the
governmental people are here right now!"). At least do the due research if
such claims are going to be made by trying to get interviews from these folks
without governmental people's presence, or just don't doubt their sincerity.
But please don't just sprinkle in the there's-no-freedom-in-China FUD willy-
nilly that we've all heard enough of already. This is like how when the hacker
faction of PLA is talked about there's an ominous music in the background and
serious faces of reporters looking at you to set the tone of the piece as if
China is this mysterious and strange entity that is going to bring us down,
all the while America's Olymic Games programs hardly even ever get a mention.

Anyway, I think we might be looking too hard for large problems where there
might not be any. Don't forget that we have a similarly ridiculous situation
in America: for every homeless person there are 26 houses that are vacant.
Considering that China's population is a 1.35 billion (about a billion more
than America's), at least in one respect it would seem like a prudent choice
to build high-rises in place of crudely-made one or two-storey building houses
in anticipation of future housing issues.

~~~
r0h1n
To add further, doesn't America have its own share of "ghost cities" that were
once booming but are now decrepit?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ghost_towns_in_the_Uni...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ghost_towns_in_the_United_States)

I'd be more interested in why two such different countries as the US and China
seem to have independently arrived at the same problem of ghost cities. We
know that China's problems arise from a top-down, state-directed model of
development under a one-party rule. But that was never the case in the US,
right?

Conversely, there are very few instances of such ghost cities in India (at
least that I know of). Possibly because India's urban development has up till
now (though today many new cities are currently being proposed as urbanization
becomes the need of the hour in India) been much more organic and bottom-up,
largely because we couldn't afford otherwise.

~~~
justinschuh
Is my sarcasm filter off here? The ghost towns in the US are dramatically
smaller, were pretty much all the result of organic growth, and were actually
populated at some point. They're ghost towns now because the populations moved
away for any number of reasons (the end of a boom, economic shift, major
catastrophe, eminent domain).

The situation in China is completely different. Regional governments are
naively trying to stimulate their economies with these huge construction
projects. So, they're building giant cities without proper planning or
consideration for population shifts. These cities have never been occupied and
it looks like they never will. Worse, they're being paid for by highly rated
bonds issued from the central government. The whole thing looks like a real
estate bubble that could tank the Chinese economy.

~~~
r0h1n
Not all US ghost towns are are dramatically smaller. There seem to be many
with peak population in the (low) tens of thousands.

\-
[http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-03-01-townha...](http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-03-01-townhangingon_N.htm)

\- [http://finance.yahoo.com/news/american-ghost-towns-21st-
cent...](http://finance.yahoo.com/news/american-ghost-towns-21st-
century-070000805.html)

And while I agree with you that they weren't unoccupied to begin with, unlike
the case with many of China's ghost cities, I beg to disagree on the rest of
your argument - namely that the US model was appropriate for its time (we have
_decades of hindsight_ ) and that the Chinese model isn't appropriate for the
present (we don't know).

Many experts have been prophesying a crash for China's investment driven
economy for years now, and a dramatic correction in real estate prices. Yet,
after a small correction prices are still rising -
[http://www.economist.com/news/china/21577118-soaring-
house-p...](http://www.economist.com/news/china/21577118-soaring-house-prices-
continue-pose-political-problem-chinas-leaders-cat-and-house)

We may only know a decade or two later whether a few dozen ghost cities was a
small price China paid for continuing to power ahead economically.

~~~
jebblue
>> namely that the US model was appropriate for its time

There was no model other than freedom. Freedom to invent, create, build, farm
all as we saw fit. This is completely different and perhaps antithetical to
what the Chinese are doing now. Their government is trying to will the result
of prosperity into existence rather than allow it to culminate on its own as
it does in a truly free society.

~~~
r0h1n
Without defending the Chinese model (which for the record I despise), let us
also not forget that "freedom" is relative and defined from the POV of the
winners/majority.

In the case of the "building" of America, so to speak, were there not people
who did not quite enjoy the same freedom you speak of? In fact millions would
have _forfeited_ their freedom so the rest could "invent, create, build and
farm as they saw fit".

~~~
jebblue
America isn't a perfect country but it's the best one I know of.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Ehhhh, lets not get crazy. I'm a US citizen and have lived in the US all my
life, and I could name a handful of countries much better, based on GDP,
happiness, or the accessibility of affordable housing and healthcare.

The US is nice, but perfect it ain't.

------
0x80000000
I'm a Chinese and I'm not feeling strange at all why that old farmer would be
so grateful to the government and Party. Actually there are a large mount of
former-famers around cities attain sudden wealth, through selling their land
to the government. Price varies with the economy situation of that city, but
is generally comparable with dozens of year's income of their families. Also,
there are a lot farmers failed to reach contract with government, then some of
them are violently forced to sell their house and land, though this situation
seems to be better controlled these years. Anyway, land and house are always
big thing for almost everyone and every government, both good and evil will be
stimulated.

------
sridharvembu
In purely economic terms, China has performed a fascinating ongoing
experiment.

The Party looked at the "end state" of an industrialized, prosperous middle-
class nation and then decided to will that end state into existence. In that
end state, China needs to urbanize on a massive scale and these cities are
simply the physical manifestation.

This is the grandest scale human experiment ever, collectivist decision making
at its finest (those farmers who are forced to give up the land don't have
much of a voice).

Will this work? I don't believe we can begin to calculate all the consequences
of this experiment. In any case, it is not obvious the causality runs the way
that is implicit in this experiment: build cities, move people, and forge a
vast urban middle-class out of rural peasants.

This book is a somewhat sympathetic description of that grand experiment
(mildly sympathetic to the Party):

[http://www.amazon.com/Chinas-Urban-Billion-Migration-
Argumen...](http://www.amazon.com/Chinas-Urban-Billion-Migration-
Arguments/dp/1780321414)

~~~
_delirium
Interestingly, this has long been one of the main Marxist criticisms of the
policy of centrally driven industrialization (which Marx didn't believe in,
but Lenin did). The traditional Marxist view is that socialism can only be
instituted _after_ capitalist industrialization, because it's a revolution
driven by the urban proletariat that capitalist industrialization creates, not
something that can be artificially created absent those material conditions.
Hence the view of orthodox Marxists that "socialist" industrialization driven
by a vanguard party would be internally incoherent, or at least non-Marxist.

(One hears less about this today, because the German revolution failed while
the Russian one succeeded, so Lenin won out over Kautsky in dominating 20th-
century leftist discourse.)

------
205guy
Can foreigners buy/rent there? After living in cars, RVs, and the wilderness,
will edgy hackers go for cheap digs and cheap food in the 90% empty Paris
replica in the hinterlands of China? Get a dozen friends together and start
something there. I'm sure you can find some cheap programmers there too. Heck,
you could start a zh-combinator there.

~~~
jfoster
If they were cheap, they wouldn't be ghost cities. They're ghost cities
because poor people got kicked out of their homes to build expensive buildings
that they now won't let go of for low prices. Eventually of course they'll
need to sell it, once China's real estate bubble starts to pop.

~~~
xtqctz
Expensive for farmers who make $2kUSD per annum. Even in the central districts
of tier two Chinese cities[1], rent is only $200-300/month for a decent two
bedroom. In which case, they ought to just move to a functioning city. My
total monthly expenses (rent, food, leisure, taxis, reasonably fast internet)
are often <$800USD.

[1]ie not Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou

~~~
seanmcdirmid
The farmers can't afford it, who can? China also has to reform its hukou
system before these cities can really become viable communities; for a foreign
kid having fun, whatever, but what if you had a family to worry
about...medical care, schooling, and other social welfares become very
important.

~~~
xtqctz
Yes, these issues are major problems for China overall and for the individuals
that make up the working poor (Still literally hundreds of millions of
people.)

The parent comment was about creating cheap hacker spaces.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
If we want to use cheap art space as a guide, like 798, they don't last very
long, or, if generic, are not very intellectually stimulating. Might as well
crash someplace nice like Bali where at least Google+ and Facebook aren't
blocked.

------
verelo
I've been there, in these cities. They exist, they are massive and very much
empty.

A lot of them are still being built, in those ones you find workers and
business people who are part of the process to help sell the massive amounts
of residential and retail space that has been created.

Having said that, people talk about how it has worked before. I dont know,
maybe it will, but for now there are a lot of empty cities waiting for people
to "step up" into the middle class.

------
saosebastiao
About 10 years ago, a friend of mine wanted to lease out an old building on an
old decaying street in Stockton CA, so he could build an indoor soccer field
and start a league. The building was unleased, and the owner was happy to
lease it to him at an excellent rate (it had sat unleased for 4 years). He had
pre-orders for his first league session for almost 80 teams. He had a local
investor that was willing to front the cost of the indoor field. He could
comply with 100% of the local health and safety regulations, and only had one
deterrent: The city planners. They insisted that this entire city block was to
be used for upscale retail...no restaurants, no office space, no mini marts,
no grocery stores, no movie theaters, no coffee shops, no used book stores, no
NGOs, no news stands, and especially no indoor soccer facilities. The owner of
the real estate declared bankruptcy a year or two later (it appears most of
the other owners of property on the block followed suit) because he couldn't
find a single tenant to get past the city planners. I believe the property has
now been seized by the city, where it hasn't sold anything since. The zoning
has still not changed.

This is what American cities would look like if American city planners had
their way. They wouldn't tell you that though...they think they are way better
at playing Sim City than their Chinese counterparts.

------
MichaelTieso
I lived in Xi'an for awhile which is considered a "small" city of over 8
million people. It doesn't take long to see the empty buildings. In less than
30 minutes, there's entire areas of emptiness. It's sad and pretty amazing.

As someone else mentioned, the reason they are empty is because they're too
expensive to move to and there's zero opportunity there. Many of them are
expensive even by US standards for what you get. They are purposely made to be
expensive and ghost town like.

------
thomasd
One thing not mentioned here is how much the Chinese value brand new
properties. By brand new I mean, properties that have never been used/lived
in.

It's a common trend in real estate where investors buy properties and leave it
vacant to brag about the place being brand new to sell at a higher price in
the future.

This is likely to exacerbate the "empty" cities problem in China.

~~~
bane
Interestingly, in Japan, this preference is dealt with by building
"disposable" houses with financing and a 25 year depreciating property
valuation built around this concept.

Here's a great video
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tNpFkdZwpk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tNpFkdZwpk)

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vitno
I just took a train from Shanghai down to 黄山. While I can't confirm there are
entirely empty cities (I don't doubt it though), There were massive modern
housing complexes... with no one in them. It was so surreal.

~~~
vidarh
I'm in London. There are dozens of massive modern housing complexes... with no
one in them. It takes time, and often the builders prefer to sell slowly at
high prices rather than drop the prices enough to sell quickly.

I'm not saying none of these represents a problem, but it's not a given that
large empty developments do. Especially in areas with very rapid growth.

~~~
w1ntermute
There's also the Pieds-à-terre phenomenon:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/12/nyregion/paying-top-
dollar...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/12/nyregion/paying-top-dollar-for-
condos-and-leaving-them-empty.html)

------
visakanv
Wonder why people haven't made movies in these locations yet. Great place for
a gang to operate out of, surely?

------
Volpe
It is really hard to work out the truth of these stories.

They always mention these as "Ghost Cities" but the numbers are always
mentioned like "This city was meant to house upto a million people"... a
million people, is not a city, it's a large suburb. Or a very small city (in
China), given they always build with med-high density housing.

Could the reporters please do there job and ask the farmers out of earshot of
the "government minders" (What exactly are they?). Having spoken to a number
of different government officials in China, there are many who are openly
skeptical of the Communist party (and many who are die hard believers). This
idea that if you say something wrong you'll be thrown away, doesn't seem to
hold true. (Maybe it's different when talking to media).

~~~
seanmcdirmid
In Europe and much of America, any urban area with > 50k is often called a
city. Heck, even around 10k could be called a city under certain
circumstances.

The properties of concern are more like satellite cities. Often in crappy
remote locations outside the original city's outer ring road.

~~~
lucaspiller
In the UK an area has to be granted city status, which traditionally has been
based upon where cathedrals are. This means there are quite a few cities under
50k. St David's in Wales is a city with a population of 1,700 people :D

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retroafroman
In season 1, episode 6 of Vice on HBO, they also went to the ghost cities of
China. [http://hbo.vice.com/episode-six](http://hbo.vice.com/episode-six)

~~~
BinaryBrainz
60 Minutes also produced a segment which originally aired in March which
covers the real estate bubble in China -
[http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50152767n](http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50152767n)

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ttflee
Conceding that there are cases of failure on real-estate investment, for many
of these new towns, it is still far too early to call them ghost town.
Constructions are just too quick that immigration has not caught up(, and some
correspondents did count unfinished projects in). Only time would tell.

The current urbanization would not stop without a huge impact(, in a good, a
bad, or a mixed way). In near future, real ghost villages, from which people
emigrate, are more likely than real ghost town, like what happened in Japan
during urbanization years post-WWII.

------
Kilo-byte
Video -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3XfpYxHKCo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3XfpYxHKCo)

