
Surveying the Ghost Cities of China - ryan_j_naughton
http://priceonomics.com/surveying-the-ghost-cities-of-china/
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Asbostos
I think western people see ghost cities as bad because for westerners, that's
what happens when a city is shrinking and people are leaving, like Detroit. In
these Chinese cities, it's just the other end of the process. The start of a
city is when it's in the ghost phase and we don't recognize that difference.
Building in anticipation of demand is a quite reasonable thing to do when
demand grows so spectacularly fast. If the government was reactive and waited
for private developers to build as needed, then there would be chronic
overcrowding, homelessness, and even higher house prices. Like San Francisco,
where the government is actively stifling growth and encouraging these
problems.

~~~
ap22213
It's definitely an interesting experiment. The conventional wisdom has been
that governments cannot respond correctly and efficiently to economic demand.
And, I think that's the real reason why most westerners raise an eyebrow.

In some situations, it does seem to make sense for governments to step in and
alter market forces. You see this in the U.S. in cases where there are
inherent monopolistic factors, or when capital requirements are extreme, or
risks are too high, or when market actors cannot coordinate quickly enough.
But, who knows, maybe it will work out in China's favor.

Personally, as an outsider, it seems really crazy what they're doing. I
wouldn't want the government influencing where or how I should live. And, the
scale of what they're doing is causing ripples in the rest of the economy.

~~~
meric
_I wouldn 't want the government influencing where or how I should live._ But
they do, every where, with housing projects, rent controls and public housing
and subsidies for home improvements, from the US to Singapore to Hong Kong.

~~~
ap22213
Sorry, not where I live.

~~~
meric
No zoning either?

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alphonse23
This video says otherwise:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCUSTowpS_c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCUSTowpS_c)

~~~
ryan_j_naughton
This article says differently: [http://qz.com/540571/baidu-found-chinas-ghost-
cities-but-it-...](http://qz.com/540571/baidu-found-chinas-ghost-cities-but-
it-is-keeping-their-locations-mostly-a-secret/)

Conversation on HN about that article:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10506174](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10506174)

By using baidu data, they created a normalized score of how populated an area
is versus what would be expected for such a development.

Ordos Kangbashi is still 20% below the expected level and it drops much
further for parts of the year.

