Inside China’s ‘ghost cities’, the debt-fuelled metropolises trying to build living, breathing communities – with varying success
- They were built to grease the wheels of urbanisation, but while some succeed in attracting sufficient populations, others remain haunted by overambition
Conjured out of nothing and lived in by seemingly no one, China’s so-called ghost cities became the subject of Western media fascination a decade ago. Photos of these huge urban developments went viral online, presenting scenes of compelling weirdness: empty residential tower blocks stranded in a sea of mud; broad boulevards devoid of cars or people; over-the-top architectural showpieces with no apparent function.
“In places called ghost cities you find massive, ambitious urbanising projects that spark investment but don’t draw population all at once,” says Max Woodworth, an associate professor of geography at Ohio State University, in the US, who has written extensively on the topic. “The result is a landscape that appears very citylike but without much action in it.”
China was under-urbanised for many years, Woodworth says, and has raced to correct that. But the pace of building often outstrips the rate at which newcomers move in, even with investors snapping up flats as Chinese home prices rise.
As the economy continues its long shift away from agriculture, urbanisation and construction have become twin catalysts of China’s unparalleled growth. In 1978, just 18 per cent of its population lived in cities; by last year that figure had reached 64 per cent. The country now has at least 10 megacities with more than 10 million residents each, and more than one-tenth of the world’s population lives in Chinese cities.
To accommodate this massive influx, the country embarked on a vast scheme of building – and at times, overbuilding. All the construction juices economic growth. It can also boost local government finances through land sales to developers and – when everything goes to plan – with new taxpaying businesses.
The power of the state in China gives the cities an initial push towards vitality. Typically, government offices and state-owned enterprises are the first to move in. Public buildings such as conference centres, sports stadiums, and museums follow, sometimes in tandem with speculative residential development, as well as schools and perhaps a high-speed rail station. After that, these districts are meant to attract private investment.
