Chinese Ghost Towns

[Syn7]

so people sleep in the streets and starve when whole cities like this are just empty??? very rich people own it and they will just hold onto it empty till they can sell it???





maaaan, all these public buildings just empty... so hows that booming economy really working out for em??? what happens when americans and europeans decide they dont need dollar store plastic items anymore???

[Syn7]

why dont peasants just move into the cities and just start living???

[Hardwork108]

why dont peasants just move into the cities and just start living???

Who would grow the tomatos then?

[Syn7]

china grows tomatos???

[David Jamieson]

so people sleep in the streets and starve when whole cities like this are just empty??? very rich people own it and they will just hold onto it empty till they can sell it???





maaaan, all these public buildings just empty... so hows that booming economy really working out for em??? what happens when americans and europeans decide they dont need dollar store plastic items anymore???

why do you think there are no people here? There appears to be people in the harbour, at the harbour front area and it looks like some cars parked there as well? I've hear of this, but I'm not actually sure if it is the case.

[Brule]

I smell a solution to homelessness.....

[GeneChing]

Check out TIME's photo essay:

Ordos, China: A Modern Ghost Town

Meant as home for one million people, the Kangbashi district remains nearly empty five years after construction began

Photographs by Michael Christopher Brown for TIME

The Treasure Palace is stunning

[KC Elbows]

I don't know about Inner Mongolia, but for a long time, China was focused on building cities in Xinjiang and other areas and expected modernization of farming to yeild a lot more in those areas than it did, I wonder if that happened here, the cities are there, but built on the assumption that a lot of the city's foods needs were to come from farming in the region that isn't currently possible.

[Lucas]

if they're smart they'll start renting out these empty cities to hollywood to make cool movies in.

but only im that smart.

[GeneChing]

This would make a great movie set...

Shanghai's largest vacant building? A shanzhai Pentagon that is even bigger than the real thing



In a particularly embarrassing instance of Chinese over-investment, this replica of the Pentagon remains the largest unoccupied building in Shanghai. However, with the opening of Shanghai Disneyland later this year, officials are hoping that a little fairytale magic will finally bring the Pentagonal Mart to life.



Located in the southeastern Nanhui district, the Pentagonal Mart spans out a massive 70 acres (compared to a measly 34 acres for the Department of Defense headquarters), most of which has been devoid of life since construction mostly wrapped up in 2009. Apparently its confusing interiors are to blame.



"The place was originally targeted at becoming a small-commodities market, but failed to attract retailers," one government official revealed. "Later, the local government tried to set up outlet centers of imported products, but failed to be appealing to customers."



However, hope remains alive in the form of the Shanghai Disney Resort, located just 8km away from the Pentagonal Mart and set to finally open in June. "We hope the opening of the Shanghai Disney Resort this year will help garner some business," said the official.
When you wish upon a star...



Take a drone tour of the copycat Pentagon accompanied by some appropriately epic music below:

By Pinky Latt
[Images via Xinhua // Video via Tencent]
Contact the author of this article or email tips@shanghaiist.com with further questions, comments or tips.
By Shanghaiist in News on Jan 18, 2016 12:00 PM

[Jimbo]

And yet...

http://ecowatch.com/2014/06/09/china...zes-mountains/

[David Jamieson]

I have recently heard these cities will be filling in rather quickly as the PRC Government gets it's great urbanization plan rolling. they are essentially going to take the rural folks and stick them into cities. Thereby freeing up the land for resources development etc.

I imagine there will be some resistance, some violence, some arrests etc, but eventually, the government will have it's way by crook or by nook such as is their way.

And before we go off about freedom and such, that doesn't actually exist under the auspices of any government anywhere. Sadly, considering how stupid and violent and thoughtless great portions of humanity are, it's probably a good thing to not allow total and unrestricted freedom. So many people take that as a call to do what you like regardless of who is harmed.

Anyway, I digress...

[GeneChing]

Slightly OT. I want to see this dragon slide.

ATTENTION SHOPPER. PHOTOGRAPHER: GREG BAKER/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

China's Empty Malls Get Weirder
44 FEB 17, 2016 5:00 PM EST
By Adam Minter

The Printemps department store outlet in Shanghai's Pudong District would seem to have all the amenities necessary to succeed in modern Chinese retail: luxury brands, a venerable 150-year Parisian retailing history and an exclusive location.

Despite these advantages, however, the store's management thought it was still missing something to attract customers. So next week they're unveiling a gigantic, twisting, dragon-shaped slide that shoppers can use to drop from fifth-floor luxury boutiques to first-floor luxury boutiques in death-defying seconds.

Social media users are wondering, half-jokingly, whether the slide will kill anyone. But Printemps has a different concern. Chinese shoppers, once seemingly in endless supply, are no longer turning up at brick-and-mortar outlets. In August, Dalian Wanda, the country's biggest mall developer, announced it was shutting 40 of its 600 malls, sounding an ominous note for a once-buoyant sector.

That's a global trend, of course. But China's urban planners have long made malls central to their designs, both to meet growing demand and to symbolize the aspirations of a rapidly urbanizing middle class. In 2009, planners in Shanghai set aside 70 acres for a $200 million mall modeled after, and slightly bigger than, the Pentagon (it currently stands empty). In 2014, 44 percent of the world's newly completed malls, and nine of the 10 top cities for mall space under construction, were in China, according to real-estate consultancy CBRE. Deloitte still predicts that China will have 10,000 malls by 2025, up from 4,000 today.

China's economic slowdown is destined to pinch that growth. But if the problem was simply tough times, Printemps wouldn't be installing a dragon slide. Far bigger challenges, which should've been evident years ago, are undercutting the long-term case for brick-and-mortar shopping emporiums.

The first is high taxes on imported luxury goods. A 2015 study found that prices on 37 big-ticket items were 40 percent to 68 percent higher in China than in the U.S., France and Germany. Partly as a result, Chinese spent $183 billion abroad in 2015, accounting for an astonishing 46 percent of global luxury sales. Owners of empty malls on the mainland feel the pain.

More consequential is e-commerce. The advent of online shopping has stunted brick-and-mortar retailing around the world. But China offers a unique example, thanks to the pervasive use of social media and the development of apps -- in particular, WeChat -- that seamlessly integrate shopping and messaging. WeChat's 600 million monthly users can easily toggle between a message about a pair of shoes and a mobile store on the same app where those shoes are for sale.

In China, where personal recommendations were crucial to driving commerce even before social media, this kind of retail is transformational. According to a 2015 McKinsey survey, 38 percent of Internet users said they spent more time shopping online after joining a social media service. In Beijing, an extraordinary 82.6 percent of retail sales now occur online, according to the local government. Countrywide, official figures show online sales growing at roughly triple the rate of the in-store variety.

To fix the shopping mall shortfall, China could lower taxes on imported luxury goods. But with so many shoppers going abroad, the impact would likely be limited (there's a cache to buying your Louis Vuitton bag in Paris instead of Shenyang). Even if turning back the tide of e-commerce were possible, it wouldn't be in the interest of rural Chinese consumers, many of whom don't have access to brick-and-mortar retail, or of urbanites who prefer to shop from home rather than fight some of the world's worst traffic and pollution.

Despite its current hardships, the Chinese shopping mall won't ever go away completely. In the country's increasingly cramped cities, malls will still serve as places to eat, be entertained and socialize. But re-purposing these massive spaces for consumers who have other ways to spend their time and money is going to require a lot of creativity.

A five-story dragon slide may not be a bad place to start.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

To contact the author of this story:
Adam Minter at aminter@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Timothy Lavin at tlavin1@bloomberg.net

[GeneChing]

In pictures: exploring China’s mysterious “unborn cities”

These cities have been built as part of the Chinese government’s plan to gradually relocate rural dwellers to urban locations. They are completely devoid of human life – for now.

THROUGHOUT CHINA, THERE are hundreds of cities that have almost everything one needs for a modern, urban lifestyle: high-rise apartment complexes, developed waterfronts, skyscrapers, and even public art. Everything, that is, except one major factor: the people.
These mysterious – and almost completely empty – cities are a part of China’s larger plan to move 250 million citizens currently living in rural areas into urban locations by 2026, and places like the Kangbashi District of Ordos are already prepped and ready to be occupied.
Photographer Kai Caemmerer became fascinated with these urban plans, and in 2015 he traveled to China to explore and document them. His series “Unborn Cities” depicts a completely new type of urban development.
“Unlike in the US, where cities often begin as small developments and grow in accordance to the local industries, these new Chinese cities are built to the point of near completion before introducing people,” he told Business Insider.
Here are 12 eerie images from his series:
When Caemmerer found out about these empty cities, he was immediately fascinated. “As an architectural photographer, I found the notion of a contemporary ghost town to be appealing in a sort of unsettling way,” he said.


Source: Kai Caemmerer
“These new Chinese cities are built to the point of near completion before introducing people,” Caemmerer said. “Because of this, there is an interim period between the final phases of development and when the areas become noticeably populated, during which many of the buildings stand empty.”


Source: Kai Caemmerer
In 2015 Caemmerer photographed the Kangbashi District of Ordos, the Yujiapu Financial District near Tianjin, and the Meixi Lake development near the city of Changsha.


Source: Kai Caemmerer
“It was the uniform newness of these cities that originally piqued my interest,” Caemmerer said.


Source: Kai Caemmerer
“Oftentimes these ‘new areas’ are satellite cities located within the proximity of an older, more established city,” he explained.


Source: Kai Caemmerer
Caemmerer would stay overnight at a neighboring, more populated city.


Source: Kai Caemmerer
He photographed twice a day — before sunrise, and just after sunset – for 80 straight days.

continued next post

[GeneChing]

Source: Kai Caemmerer
Luckily, Caemmerer didn’t run into legal issues while photographing the cities, and in terms of safety he says that “these areas felt very secure”.


Source: Kai Caemmerer
Because of the newness of the places, Caemmerer described the cities as “surreal” and “uncanny”.


Source: Kai Caemmerer
“Oftentimes, when you’re in a city, you can locate yourself within the timeline of that city by identifying different eras of architecture or by interpreting the relative age of the structures and landscape around you. When visiting a city that has been built in just the past five or six years, these indicators of age are not yet visible,” Caemmerer said.


Source: Kai Caemmerer
When Caemmerer did, on the rare occasion, run into people, they were usually intrigued by his archaic-looking, large format film camera.


Source: Kai Caemmerer
These images are documenting a “complex moment in Chinese urbanisation,” Caemmerer said. “Many of these new cities are not expected to be complete or vibrant until 15-25 years after they begin construction. They are built for the distant future, and at present, we can only speculate on what form they will have taken when they reach this point in time.”

Source: Kai Caemmerer
- Sarah Jacobs

I suppose these 'unborn cities' are actually the polar opposite of 'ghost towns' but the effect is the same...eerie.