There are 20-40 million empty apartments in China. These are China's Ghost Cities, its 160 million dollar airport gets no more than five flights a day. Most of the apartments meant for the 300,000 planned residents sit empty, built on land that used to be irrigation ditches for the farmers. Farmers are still around but the water isn't.
There is the City of Ordos in Inner Mongolia. A million people were supposed to live here. But only one in every fifty buildings is filled. But surely there can't be that many of these ghost cities in China.
According to Baidu, they analyzed location data from their 700 million users. And found more than 50 ghost cities across China. So why is this such a common phenomenon? Part of it has to do with the government's massive push for urbanization. According to the "National New-type urbanizaation plan". By 2020, 60% of the Chinese population will be living in the cities. That is more than 800 million people.
Real estate prices are already so high in the top-tier cities that the average worker will never be able to own a home in their lifetime. That is why so many people live in urban areas just outside the major cities. For example, in recently urbanized places like this one near Beijing. It offers lousy hospitals, over crowded schools, no bus terminals, no movie theaters, only two tiny parks, and 700,000 neighbors. But living here with a three-hour commute to central Beijing is still more appealing than living in a beautifully designed city in Shanxi Province that has no jobs.
If you were ghost, which Chinese ghost city would you live in?