The Celestial Empire is a densely populated and largest state on earth. Overpopulation forced the authorities to resort to introducing birth restrictions, which are fixed by federal laws. New cities and towns are constantly being built in China. They are of impressive size, everything is thought out to the smallest detail. But no one lives in them. This is a paradoxical fact of construction. The article will look at ghost towns in China.
What empty cities in China are known about?
Let's get acquainted with the most interesting ghostly areas of the Celestial Empire.
- In the suburbs of Dai there is the city of Xishuan, which is located on an area of over 20 square meters. km. It was built over many years, creating an excellent infrastructure. But for decades, about 70% of the area has been empty. That's why it's called a ghost town. The cost of real estate in this area is 4 times lower than in neighboring Shenzhen. The Chinese purchased real estate, but as an investment in the hope that after some time the prices for apartments would rise significantly. The apartment owners themselves do not go there to live, they only sometimes stop by to check if everything is in order with their property.
In recent years, prices have almost doubled. One square meter will cost 5,000 yuan, which is about $714. The area resembles an area that has experienced an epidemic, with only a small number of the population remaining alive. Occasionally, light can be seen in the windows of high-rise buildings.
- There is the largest ghost district in the city of Shenzhou. Construction began in 2003. The occupied area is 150 square meters. This is not the first year that it has been less than 40% populated.
“The data was leaked to the media. A representative of the local government denied this information, saying that the city's population is 300 thousand. Which is 7.5% of the planned number by 2020. According to the project, at least 4 million people should live there.”
- Kangbashi could accommodate more than a million Chinese residents. It was planned that it would serve as an urbanization zone for peasants. But, having no prospects, the Chinese moved to other areas. It is unknown when the city will be populated.
- Tianducheng contains a replica of the Eiffel Tower. But it was not even remotely possible to make Paris. The cost of real estate is high. There is no infrastructure. A few Chinese are trying to survive here by planting plantations right next to the monuments.
- Thames Town was intended to expand Shanghai. But due to a designer’s mistake, many buildings were built as one-story buildings. This contradicted the main idea of the authorities, who intended to settle a large number of residents in the city. Now only 10% of the area is inhabited. In the photo the area looks monotonous.
Why are dead cities created?
Satellite dishes record ghost towns being built every year. They include office buildings, government buildings, stadiums, high-rise buildings, towers, and parks. They all have one thing in common – the absence of people. Only construction crews and officials move on the roads. At first glance, the situation is reminiscent of the Pripyat nuclear disaster, when citizens had to leave all their houses. But you can live in these places. All the necessary infrastructure is available here. The houses are built according to a modern design and equipped with everything necessary for living.
The development of the project and the construction of the city cost large sums - billions of dollars. It looks suspicious that such settlements are located far from trade routes, enterprises, in the most unfavorable and poorly developed areas of the People's Republic of China.
Local journalists share information that there are now 20 ghost towns and 70 million empty new houses in the country. Let's look at the most popular versions of why China is building empty cities.
One of the assumptions is that the points were created as a reserve fund for China in the event of a nuclear war. Existing residential buildings will be targeted. Restoring them later is difficult, problematic and too expensive. It’s easier to build new cities with all amenities in advance and place people there if necessary.
Residents of China say that the construction of such cities is a mistake by local authorities in forecasting. The reason for this was total urbanization. The state offers favorable conditions, but why the majority of the population does not agree to move there is unknown.
Some political scientists are confident that such Chinese ghost towns are part of a grand plan for the future development of the country. The number of residents is growing rapidly, so the authorities decided to build residential centers for the future. Experts say that the country's government is investing its investments profitably - it takes care of citizens and will receive financial benefits in the future after the sale of real estate.
The next version indicates that the construction of cities is an anti-crisis measure by the Chinese authorities. In the 1930s, Roosevelt saved the United States from the Great Depression by building new schools, houses, prisons, hospitals and roads. This helped avoid unemployment and bring the country out of the crisis. But the Chinese did not wait for the plight.
China is home to tens of millions of construction workers who need to feed their families. The country's GDP stops growing, the economy is based on borrowed funds. A crisis can come at any moment. Ghost towns will be populated by residents on alarm.
Abandoned cities of China
New cities are being built all over the country where no one lives. Some of them are not completed, others are ready to move in, but are empty. List of ghost towns:
- Kangbashi is located in Inner Mongolia. The project was drawn up from scratch, it was planned that it would be the largest city. They wanted to settle about a million Chinese here. But about 5% live.
This city is the largest. No expense was spared for its construction. Huge amounts of money have been invested, imagination. They built public gardens, fountains, parks, museums, 10 residential areas, and underground roads. But almost everywhere there is emptiness and silence.
- Ordos amazes with its purity. Instead of citizens, there are street cleaners who clean roads and sidewalks. The city was founded in 2001 on an area rich in mineral resources. Now it is home to several thousand Chinese citizens. The metropolis has many empty supermarkets, libraries, and buses.
“A local resident jokes: “What if... this is the officials’ dream. A city without people."
There are no traffic jams in this area. Buses pass along the roads, but there is no one at the stops. Nothing is known about the population; there are no official data. This place is where Mongolian Disneyland is located. There is a travel agency where employees play Angry Birds and receive a salary.
- The administration of the millionaire city of Kunming is located in Chenggong. But the area is dead. The people of China don't want to live there.
- The New City of Kilamba was designed for 500 thousand people. There is a developed infrastructure and interesting colorful houses. But no one lives in them.
- New Hebi was rebuilt thanks to the discovery of underground coal mines. But within a few years the city became populated.
- Caofeidian was planned to become a super-eco-friendly city. It was erected just a few hundred kilometers from the capital of China. The point was to use only renewable energy. Citizens must show how wonderful it is to live in an area with a clean environment. 90 billion were invested in construction. But it is still empty. In residential buildings there are empty apartments with rough finishing. The rooms are warm, the heating is on.
Conclusion
Summarizing the above, it should be noted that huge amounts of money and human resources were invested in all the abandoned and empty cities of the PRC. Therefore, they are abandoned for a short period of time. It is difficult to guess what will motivate residents to settle in these places. Will the government build more ghost towns, presumably yes.
Satellite images show cities as vast apocalyptic movie sets, where nuclear war, flood or other cataclysm has wiped out all the inhabitants. All that remains are high-rise buildings, stadiums, and parks. It is also noticeable in the photo that there are almost no cars. Only 100 of them parked near the government building. There are about 64 million unoccupied houses in China.
Why does China build large, well-designed ghost cities that sit completely empty?
Photos from Google Earth of city after city show huge complexes consisting of office skyscrapers, government buildings, residential buildings, residential towers and houses, all connected by a network of empty roads, and some of the cities are located in some of the most inhospitable places in China.
Images of these ghost towns (after countless billions of dollars spent on design and construction) show that no one lives in them.
The photos look like a giant film set, set up for the filming of some apocalyptic film in which a neutron strike or unknown natural disaster has wiped out people, leaving skyscrapers, sports stadiums, parks and roads completely untouched. One of these cities was actually built in the middle of the desert, in inner Monogolia."
Business Insider published a series of photos of these Chinese ghost towns. None of them show cars, with the exception of about 100 parked in a large vacant lot near the government building, and another one, which depicts a beautiful park, and people added in a photo editor.
According to some estimates, there are now about 64 million empty houses in China. China is building up to 20 new ghost towns a year in its “vast areas of free land.”
Everything would be fine, but then I came across some kind of crazy explanation for this circumstance. Listen here!
At the moment, there are about 100 million-plus cities in China. And these newly built ghost towns are a reserve fund for the population. In case of war. There is no point in bombing them; there are many more important targets. And existing residential cities will definitely be struck, and most likely nuclear. It is expensive to restore them during the war, and such gigantic masses of people cannot be shoved through the cracks. It is much more profitable and easier to rebuild entire cities with ready-made infrastructure in advance, and at the right time to evacuate the remaining population and surviving equipment from factories and factories.
But there is one very unpleasant moment here. Keep in order.
Let's still read the real version.
Dai District, Huizhou City, Guangdong Province, covers an area of more than 20 square meters. km. Over the course of several years, it has been actively developed and has a fully formed infrastructure. However, for several years now about 70% of the living space there has been empty, which has turned it into a real “ghost town.”
According to the Chinese newspaper Daily Economic Bulletin, the new Dai district is located 70 km from the Shenzhen metropolis; literally in a matter of years it was completely built up with both residential, administrative and business buildings. However, on the wide streets between high-rise buildings it is very rare to see passers-by.
Since real estate prices in this area are 4-5 times lower than in neighboring Shenzhen, residents of the metropolis bought apartments here. But they did this solely as an investment, hoping that over time the prices for this property would rise. They themselves do not live there, they only visit occasionally.
Their assumptions turned out to be correct; over the past few years, property prices in the area have more than doubled. On average, a square meter now costs 5,000 yuan ($714).
The new city is like an area after an epidemic in which a small part of the population has survived. You can rarely see light in the windows of high-rise buildings.
“All the apartments here have been sold a long time ago, but most of the owners do not live in them. Less than 20% of the residents live here permanently,” says a security guard at one of the neighborhoods.
Local residents joke: “Nothing grows here except empty houses.”
Forensic Asia Limited in its report points out the existence of numerous empty areas, so-called “ghost towns” in China.
The Zhengdong New Area of Shenzhou, Henan Province has been named the largest "ghost town" and a landmark area of the real estate bubble in China. The area began to be built in 2003, it covers an area of 150 square meters. km. For several years now it has been less than 40% occupied.
After this information was widely publicized in the media, a local official completely rejected it in an interview with the Chinese Business newspaper. In turn, he stated that the current occupancy rate of new buildings is 90%, and the number of residents of the Zhengdong region has already exceeded 300 thousand people.
However, according to the same authorities, more than 30% of the planned development of the area has already been built, and the population level given by the official is only 7.5% of the planned number of residents, which by 2020, according to the project, should be 4 million people .
Last year, Chinese media reported that the State Grid Company of China conducted a study in 660 cities. As a result, it was discovered that the electric meters of 65.4 million apartments had zero readings for six months. This suggests that no one lives in the apartments. These apartments are enough to accommodate 200 million people.
Chinese economist Xie Guozhong believes that 25% - 30% of new buildings in China remain empty. According to him, the area of residential premises in Chinese cities is 17 billion square meters. m, which is enough to accommodate all the inhabitants of China.
When the financial crisis began, many Chinese businessmen began to transfer their capital from production to real estate in order to somehow avoid bankruptcy. Thus, many houses and apartments in the country were bought just for the sake of investing money. But this was also the main reason for the sharp increase in real estate prices, which the authorities still cannot bring under control.
The fact is that for some time, due to the construction boom and the global economic crisis that reduced the appetites and opportunities of developers, a hitherto unprecedented type of ghost towns arose in China. This is a comfortable residential property, with all the infrastructure necessary for a modern person, in which no one lives. And if we don’t settle in it, everything will be overgrown with weeds, like in Pripyat.
The truly phenomenal construction boom that swept China at the beginning of the 21st century gave rise to an amazing phenomenon in the real estate market - ghost towns built “in reserve.”
Empty blocks of high-rise buildings and huge complexes of office skyscrapers, deserted streets with blinking traffic lights, hypermarkets without goods and customers, kindergartens without children, universities without students, wide avenues without cars, abandoned amusement parks, theaters and museums without visitors - no, this not the setting of another post-apocalyptic blockbuster. These are the realities of modern China - ghost towns, the number of which has exceeded two dozen, millions of comfortable square meters, where no one lives.
At one time, China set itself a number of strategic tasks, the solution of which is the key to the existence of the state: maintaining high rates of economic growth; providing the population with work; large-scale urbanization; industrialization and multifaceted modernization of the economy; utilization of free finances flooding the country due to trade surpluses, the undervalued yuan and foreign investment.
Construction turned out to be the panacea that allows us to simultaneously solve all these problems. John Maynard Keynes once proposed “digging holes and then filling them in again” as a cure for recession. China developed this idea a little and, in addition to digging holes, began to build cities, bridges, roads, factories, turning the construction industry into one of the main engines of the economy.
However, the generous “pumping” of construction investments and gigantic volumes of free financial resources ultimately led to the formation of a huge oversupply of real estate on the Chinese market. In 2011, the State Grid Company of China released data for 660 cities. And it turned out that in 65 million apartments no one used electricity, in other words, they were empty. This amount of housing would be enough to resettle at least 200 million people there - all residents of Moscow, St. Petersburg, Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine, France and the UK combined.
New areas of the Suzhou metropolis in the east of the country in the lower reaches of the Yangtze. Even Soviet architects who knew a lot about building new cities would envy the scope of the urban planning plan, but pay attention to the number of cars on these wide and completely deserted avenues.
Xinyang city in Henan province. Central square with the city administration building. The territory is completely landscaped, but there is no one to use it.
Dongguan city in southern China. In 2005, the New South China Mall opened here, the second largest shopping and entertainment complex in the world by total area after the famous DubaiMall. The huge building, designed for 2,350 stores, has been virtually completely empty since its opening. However, the complex is not closed and continues to be maintained in working condition.
The city of Qianducheng near Shanghai. Built in 2007, it is a smaller copy of Paris, even with its own Eiffel Tower. Despite the picturesque architectural surroundings, so unusual for the residents of the country, the area, designed for 100,000 inhabitants, is popular only with newlyweds who are greedy for a beautiful picture for their wedding photographs. Most of the apartments in the “Parisian” residential buildings of the Shanghai suburbs did not find their owners.
Chenggong, a satellite city of 6 million Kunming. It is considered as the main reserve for the expansion of the neighboring metropolis. Huge funds have been successfully mastered here, but the residential high-rises gaping with window openings have not yet found their “beneficiaries”.
Kanbashi, Ordos city district. The most famous of Chinese ghost towns. It grew up over 6-7 years right in the middle of the desert in Inner Mongolia, standing on very large deposits of coal and natural gas. Capable of accommodating up to 1 million inhabitants, but is now barely 20% occupied.
Of course, in the Celestial Empire with its countless population there are many who want to improve their living conditions. So why are ghost towns empty? Firstly, many of them were built far from busy trade routes and large enterprises, far from civilization. Secondly, not every Chinese is able to “raise” a loan to buy an apartment. Thirdly, decisions on construction projects are often made to the detriment of economic and environmental feasibility. One such example is Qingshuihe, a village near the administrative center of Inner Mongolia. Construction of Qingshuihe began in 1998 and was finally abandoned in 2008 due to lack of funds. Local officials were prosecuted, and the village was left unfinished and completely uninhabitable. There are also examples of cities built in close proximity to mountains of phosphogypsum, a highly toxic waste.
Some experts suggest that the presence of such a frightening number of empty square meters is a dangerous anomaly, a soap bubble that is bound to burst, leading to a severe economic crisis. However, in China, where the annual growth of the urban population is 10-12 million people, they firmly believe that ghost towns will sooner or later be populated, even if in some places they will stand empty for several years. “This is a huge loss!” - you say. Yes, but the Celestial Empire has so much money today that it can afford it. In addition, in China there are already examples of how insane expenses that seemed to go “nowhere” after some time brought impressive returns. In particular, the Shanghai Pundong district 10 years ago resembled a lifeless desert dotted with skyscrapers, but today it is a thriving and prestigious corner of the metropolis, accommodating 5.5 million people.
Endless blocks of high-rise buildings in which no one ever lived, abandoned amusement parks in which no one had fun, empty giant shopping malls where nothing was ever bought, deserted avant-garde theaters and museums in which there were no spectators, wide avenues along which cars are driving.
In the Google Earth photo - huge EMPTY CITIES are connected by a network of EMPTY roads. Some cities are built in the harshest weather areas of China (Sishuan was built IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DESERT in Inner Mongolia)!
What is this? A strategic mistake by the country’s authorities, who inflated a huge “bubble” in the real estate market, or secret plans calculated several years in advance, known only to China.
It all looks like a giant film set for a science fiction movie in which a neutron bomb explosion or a virus COMPLETELY DESTROYED PEOPLE! But skyscrapers, stadiums, parks and roads remained completely untouched.
Since 2000, China has been building more than 20 new modern cities EVERY YEAR, but they remain UNPOPULATED!
Today that is more than 64 million EMPTY HOUSES (not apartments)!
These apartments are enough to accommodate more than 200 million people.
Every year, China is increasing its military budget; now it is equal to 78 billion dollars, and “the hidden part of it may be another 30-40 percent of this amount.” The Chinese army and navy are equipped with the most modern weapons.
For several years now, China has been building broadband roads on a concrete basis towards the borders of Russia; they can withstand the load of heavy military equipment,
According to military experts, when hostilities begin, the Chinese army will be in Khabarovsk in two to three hours.
“The start of large-scale offensive operations along the entire land border and the landing of troops in the north of Russia will end with a complete, quick victory for China and the seizure of Russian territory up to the Urals. After the entire territory up to the Urals is captured, the Russians will be deported beyond the Urals or exterminated. The winners are not judged,” prophesies Alexander Aladdin.
The People's Liberation Army of China (PLA) has 2.25 million soldiers; in the event of hostilities, it can put up to 208.1 million soldiers, well armed and trained, under arms.
So what are empty cities for? Beijing is openly demonstrating that it is not afraid of nuclear war. Nuclear warheads are the only weapons modern Russia has left over from the USSR, which can somehow deter China’s aggression.
Under all these cities, underground shelters have been built, designed to accommodate hundreds of millions of people. Beijing is making it clear to both Moscow and Washington that it is fully prepared for a nuclear war. Underground shelters are known to be the most effective protection against nuclear explosions and their damaging factors (shock wave, penetrating radiation, light radiation, radioactive contamination).
Today China is the only country seriously ready to wage any war, both conventional and nuclear, and we pretend that this does not concern us.
An ear on the patient's arm - so that the organ can then be transplanted where it is supposed to be.
Cities for the future
French photographer Raphael Olivier has returned from China's largest ghost town, Kanbashi. And he brought with him disturbing and hypnotic photographs of a sterile, modern, but deserted city of a million people.
Photo by Raphael Olivier from the series “Failed Utopia”
For the first time, information about the mass construction of such cities appeared in the press in 2010. The Chinese authorities do not name the exact number, but according to various estimates there are from 20 to 50. In search of “ghosts”, enthusiasts examine satellite images, Google Earth photographs, Internet activity in the Chinese search engine Baidu and reports on electricity consumption.
One could only guess at the reasons and the impressive pace of mass development that began about ten years ago. Among conspiracy lovers, there is an opinion that China is preparing for World War III, and empty cities are needed in order to settle there the remaining residents from bombed megacities. No less popular versions: China, in anticipation of the collapse of the United States, is creating housing for a multimillion-dollar diaspora in the States - or is preparing for mass relocation from regions at risk.
Whatever the true reasons, the construction of new cities throws gasoline on the fire of Chinese urbanization and stimulates economic growth. In 2014, China published a report with a plan to create new cities of about 250 million inhabitants (!) by 2026.
Please note that grandiose construction began at the dawn of the Chinese miracle - the technological and economic breakthrough of the Celestial Empire, when the country turned from a cheap copying machine into a creator of technology. These cities were built in dreams of change. Add to this a fantastic medley of architectural styles, fakes that are in no way inferior to the originals, and incredible budgets that have gone into the emptiness of these streets - and you get Chinese ghost towns.
Cities whose future is unknown, and whose past simply does not exist.
“When you are in a metropolis, you can easily tell its approximate age based on architectural styles, the state of the landscape and other details,” says American photographer Kai Kaemmerer, who also previously returned from China with a “ghost” photo series. “But Chinese cities built in the last five or six years are completely devoid of these clues.”
Photo by Kai Kaemmerer from the series “Unborn Cities”
Words we deserve
Earlier, the British Collins dictionary also chose the leaders of 2016. The word “Brexit” topped the list, being used 3,400% more than the previous year. Plus: “Trumpism” (meaning Trump’s glib polemics), again “hugge” and “uberization” (derived from Uber; implies a business model based on mobile technology and the elimination of intermediaries).
Tumbleweed
In the meantime, while we are dreaming about flying cars and , students from the Barletta School of Architecture in London, William Victor Camilleri and Danilo Sampaio, are trying to rethink the role of plants in the city. This is how the Hortum Machina B robotic garden project was born.
The creators call the garden “the nervous system of plants.” In the center of the sphere there are twelve modules attached to cables. The structure is equipped with solar panels, water tanks and sensors that monitor the condition of the plants - their reaction to light and moisture. If the performance deteriorates, the system moves the modules, the center of gravity shifts, and the ball, without outside help, goes in search of a new habitat.
“In the near future, we will live surrounded by self-driving electric vehicles, flying vehicles and many other robotic forms. Among them there will certainly be a place for the cyber-gardener Hortum Machina B.”
The shell of Hortum Machina B is constructed from aluminum tubes on the principle of a geodesic dome. This structure of simple triangles was first used in architecture by an American engineer.
