China's Empty Cities
Why are so many uninhabited cities still being built in China? Dateline returns to update one of its most watched stories, China's Ghost Cities, to find out.
Why are so many uninhabited cities still being built in China? Dateline returns to update one of its most watched stories, China's Ghost Cities, to find out.
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Ironic. Not even half century ago, Mao was emptying cities and sending the people to the countryside to work communes, especially the bureaucrats and technocrats lingering on after the collapse of the final dynasty. Now we got China keeps building ghost cities, trying to coax people off the land.
Sometimes, even if you build it, they won't come.
Those are some seriously big investments to make on something that can fail so spectacularly.