Chinese ghost towns: why no one lives in them? Chinese ghost towns. We built, we built...

The Celestial Empire is a densely populated and largest state in the world. Overpopulation forced the authorities to resort to the introduction of restrictions on the birth rate, which is fixed federal laws. New cities and towns are constantly being built in China. They have impressive dimensions, everything is thought out to the smallest detail. But no one lives in them. This is a paradoxical fact of construction. The article will consider ghost towns in China.

What empty cities in China are known

Let's get acquainted with the most interesting ghostly places of the Middle Kingdom.

• 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 long years with an excellent infrastructure. But for more than a dozen years, about 70% of the area has been empty. Therefore, it is called a ghost town. The cost of real estate in this area is 4 times lower than in neighboring Shenzhen. The Chinese bought real estate, but as an investment in the hope that after some time apartment prices will skyrocket. The apartment owners themselves do not go there to live, only sometimes they stop by to check if everything is in order with their property.

AT last years prices have nearly doubled. One square meter will cost 5,000 yuan, which is about 714 dollars. The area is similar to an area that survived an epidemic, where a small number of the population remained alive. Occasionally, light can be observed in the windows of high-rise buildings.

• The city of Shenzhou has the largest ghost district. Construction began in 2003. The occupied area is 150 square meters. Not the first year it is populated by less than 40%.

“The data was leaked to the media. A representative of the local authorities denied this information, saying that the number of inhabitants of the city is 300,000. 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 people in China. It was planned that it would serve as an urbanization zone for the peasants. But, having no prospects, the Chinese moved to other areas. It is not known when the city will be settled.

• Tianducheng contains a copy eiffel tower. But to make Paris at least remotely failed. The value of real estate is high. There is no infrastructure. A few Chinese are trying to survive here by sowing plantations right next to the monuments.

• Thames Town was meant to expand Shanghai. But due to a designer's mistake, many buildings were built one-story. This was contrary to the main idea of ​​the authorities, who intended to settle in the city a large number of residents. Now only 10% of the area is inhabited here. In the photo, the area looks monotonous.

Why create dead cities

Satellite dishes record ghost towns being built every year. They include offices, government buildings, stadiums, high-rise buildings, towers, parks. All of them are connected by one thing - the absence of people. Only construction crews and officials move along the roads. At first glance, the situation resembles the nuclear disaster in Pripyat, when citizens had to leave all their homes. But you can live in these points. It has all the necessary infrastructure. The houses are built according to modern design and equipped with everything you need for living.

The development of the project, 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 in the country and 70 million empty new houses. Consider 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 case of a nuclear war. The strike will be on existing residential buildings. Restoring them later is difficult, problematic and too expensive. It is easier to rebuild new cities with all amenities in advance and place people there if necessary.

Chinese people say building such cities is a mistake local authorities in forecasting. The reason for this was the total urbanization. State offers profitable terms, but why the majority of the population does not agree to move there is unknown.

Some political scientists believe 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 areas for the future. Experts say that the country's government makes a profitable investment - it takes care of citizens and will further receive financial benefits after the sale of real estate.

Another version indicates that the construction of cities is an anti-crisis measure of 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 to 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 builders who need to feed their families. The country's GDP stops growing, the economy rests on borrowed funds. A crisis can come at any moment. Ghost towns will be populated by residents on alert.

Abandoned cities of China

New cities are being built everywhere in 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 made from scratch, it was planned that it would be the most Big City. About a million Chinese people wanted to settle here. But about 5% live.

This city is the largest. No funds were spared for its construction. Huge sums invested, fantasy. They built squares, fountains, parks, museums, 10 sleeping areas, underground roads. But almost everywhere there is emptiness and silence.

• Ordos impresses with its purity. Instead of citizens, there are janitors who clean roads and sidewalks. The city was founded in 2001 on a territory rich in minerals. Now it is home to several thousand Chinese citizens. The metropolis has many empty supermarkets, libraries, buses.

“A local resident jokes: “What if ... this is the dream of officials. City without people.

There are no traffic jams in this area. Buses pass along the roads, no one is at the stops. Nothing is known about the population, there are no official data. In this place is the "Mongolian Disneyland". There is a travel agency where employees play Angry Birds and get paid.

• In Chenggong, the administration of the millionaire city of Kunming is located. But the area is dead. People in China don't want to live there.

• The new City of Kilamba was designed for 500,000 people. There is a developed infrastructure and interesting multi-colored houses. But no one lives in them.

• New Hebi was rebuilt thanks to the discovery of underground coal mines. But in a few years the city became populated.

• Caofeidian was planned to become a super-ecological city. It was erected just a few hundred kilometers from the capital of China. The point was to use only renewable energy. Citizens should show how great it is to live in an area with a clean environment. 90 billion was invested in the construction. But it is still empty. In residential buildings, empty apartments with a rough finish. The rooms are warm and the heating is on.

Conclusion

Summing up the above, it should be noted that huge investments were invested in all the abandoned and empty cities of the PRC. cash, human resources. Therefore, they are abandoned for a short period of time. It is difficult to guess what will inspire residents to populate these places. Will the government build other ghost towns, presumably yes.

Satellite images show cities as huge sites for creating apocalyptic films, where a nuclear war, flood or other cataclysm wiped out all the inhabitants. Only skyscrapers, stadiums, parks remained. It is also noticeable in the photo that there are almost no cars. Only 100 parked near the government building. There are about 64 million uninhabited houses in China.

Why is China building large, well-designed ghost towns that stand completely empty?
Photos from Google Earth City after city depicts vast complexes of office skyscrapers, government buildings, residential buildings, residential towers and homes, all connected by a network of empty roads, with some cities located in some of China's most inhospitable places.

Images of these ghost towns (after countless billions of dollars spent on design and construction) show that no one lives in them.

Photos look like giant set, prepared for the filming of some apocalyptic film in which a neutron strike or an unknown disaster destroyed 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 Mongolia."

Business Insider has published a series of photos of these Chinese ghost towns. None of them shows cars, except for about 100 parked in a large vacant lot near the government building, and another, which depicts beautiful park, and people added in the photo editor.

China now has an estimated 64 million empty houses. In its "vast tracts of free land," China is building up to 20 new ghost towns a year.

Everything would be fine, but here I came across some crazy explanation of this circumstance. Here listen!

AT this 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 according to the existing residential cities there will definitely be a strike, and most likely a nuclear one. It is expensive to restore them during the war, and you cannot stuff such gigantic masses of people 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 remnants of the population and the surviving equipment from factories and plants.
But there is one very unpleasant moment. Keep in order.
Let's still read the real version.
The Dai District of Huizhou City, Guangdong Province covers an area of ​​more than 20 square meters. km. For several years it has been actively built up and has a fully formed infrastructure. However, for several years now, about 70% of the living space has been empty there, which has turned it into a real “ghost town”.
According to the Chinese Daily Economic Bulletin, new area Daya is located 70 km from the metropolis of Shenzhen, literally in a matter of years it was completely built up with both residential and administrative and business buildings. However, on the wide streets between high-rise buildings, it is very rare to meet 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 it solely as an investment, hoping that after a while the prices for this property will rise. They themselves do not live there, only occasionally visit.
Their guess turned out to be correct, with real estate prices in the area more than doubling over the past few years. On average, a square meter now costs 5,000 yuan ($714).

The new city is similar to the area after the epidemic, in which a small part of the population survived. It is rare to see light in the windows of high-rise buildings.

“Here all the apartments have long been sold, but most of the owners do not live in them. Less than 20% of residents live here permanently,” says a security guard in one of the microdistricts.
The locals joke: “Nothing grows here, except for empty houses.”
Forensic Asia Limited, in its report, points to the existence of numerous empty areas in China, the so-called "ghost cities".
Zhengdong New Area, Shenzhou City, Henan Province, has been named the largest "ghost town" and an iconic real estate bubble area in China. The area began to be built in 2003, it covers an area of ​​150 square meters. km. For several years it has been inhabited by less than 40%.
After this information was widely publicized in the media, a local official in an interview with the Chinese Business newspaper completely rejected it. In turn, he said that at present, the 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 settlement level given by the official is only 7.5% of the planned number of inhabitants, which by 2020, according to the project, should be 4 million people. .

Last year, Chinese media reported that the State Grid Company of the People's Republic of China conducted a study in 660 cities. As a result, it was found that electric meters 65.4 million apartments for six months zero readings. 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 remain empty in China. 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 did it start financial crisis, 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 it also became main reason a sharp increase in real estate prices, which the authorities still cannot 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, an unprecedented type of ghost towns arose in China. This is a well-maintained residential property, with all the necessary modern man infrastructure in which no one lives. And if we do not settle in it, everything will be overgrown with weeds, as in Pripyat.

08.08.2013

A truly phenomenal construction boom that has swept China in early XXI century, spawned 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 flashing 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 is not the entourage 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 objectives, 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 the free finance flooding the country with trade surplus, undervalued yuan and foreign investment.

Construction turned out to be the panacea that allows you to simultaneously solve all these problems. At one time, John Maynard Keynes suggested "digging holes and then filling them in again" as a cure for a 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 locomotives of the economy.

However, the generous “pumping up” of construction investments, gigantic volumes of free financial resources eventually led to the fact that the Chinese market formed a huge oversupply of real estate. In 2011, the State Grid Company of the People's Republic of China released data for 660 cities. And it turned out that no one used electricity in 65 million apartments, in other words, they are empty. This amount of housing would be enough to relocate 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. Soviet architects who knew a lot about the construction of new cities would envy the scope of the city-planning plan, but pay attention to the number of cars on these wide and completely deserted avenues.

Xinyang city in Henan province. The 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 total area shopping and entertainment complex in the world after the famous DubaiMall. The huge building, designed for 2,350 stores, has been virtually empty since its opening. However, the complex is not closed and continues to be maintained in working condition.

Qianduchen city near Shanghai. Erected in 2007, it is a miniature copy of Paris, even with its own Eiffel Tower. Despite the picturesque architectural surroundings, so unusual for the inhabitants of the country, the area designed for 100,000 inhabitants is popular only among newlyweds who are greedy for beautiful picture for wedding photos. Most of 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. Gigantic funds have been successfully used here, but residential skyscrapers gaping with window openings have not yet found their “beneficiaries”.

Kanbashi, district of the city of Ordos. The most famous of China's ghost towns. Grown in 6-7 years right in the middle of the desert in Inner Mongolia, stands on very large coal deposits and natural gas. Capable of accommodating up to 1 million inhabitants, but is now barely 20% populated.

Of course, in China, with its countless population, there are many who want to improve their living conditions. So why are ghost towns empty? First, many of them were built away from busy trade routes and large enterprises away 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 as well as environmental feasibility. One such example is Qingshuihe, a village near the administrative center of Inner Mongolia. The construction of Qingshuihe was started in 1998 and finally abandoned in 2008 due to lack of funds. Local officials were prosecuted, and the village remained unfinished and completely uninhabitable. There are also examples of cities built in close proximity to mountains of phosphogypsum - highly toxic waste.

Some experts suggest that the presence of such a frightening amount of empty square meters is the most dangerous anomaly, which soap bubble, which 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 are firmly convinced that ghost towns will sooner or later be populated, even if in some places they will stand empty for several years. “After all, this is a huge loss!” - you say. Yes, but the Celestial Empire has so much money today that it can afford it. In addition, there are already examples in China of how insane spending, it would seem, “to nowhere” brought impressive returns after a while. In particular, Shanghai's Pundong district 10 years ago resembled a lifeless desert studded with skyscrapers, and today it is a flourishing and prestigious corner of the metropolis, accommodating 5.5 million people.

Endless blocks of high-rise buildings in which no one has ever lived, abandoned amusement parks in which no one has fun, empty giant shopping malls where nothing has ever been bought, deserted avant-garde theaters and museums in which there were no spectators, wide avenues along which no one 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 most severe weather conditions areas of China (Sishuan is built IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DESERT in Inner Mongolia)!

What's this? The strategic mistake of the country's authorities, who inflated a grandiose "bubble" in the real estate market, or calculated for several years in advance, known only to China, are secret plans.

It all looks like a gigantic film set for a science fiction film 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 it is more than 64 million EMPTY HOUSES (not apartments)!

In 2010, the Chinese media reported that the State Electricity Grid of the People's Republic of China controlled electricity consumption in 660 cities for six months, and found ZERO READINGS on the electricity meters of 65.4 million apartments - that means NOBODY LIVES HERE!

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 can be another 30-40 percent of this amount." The army and navy of the People's Republic of China are equipped with the most modern weapons.

In the direction to the borders of Russia, China has been building concrete-based broadband roads for several years, 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 a large-scale offensive operations along the entire land border and landing in the north of Russia will end with a complete, quick victory for China and the rejection of Russian territory as far as the Urals. After the entire territory up to the Urals is captured, the Russians will be deported beyond the Urals or destroyed. Winners are not judged,” Alexander Aladdin prophesies.

The People's Liberation Army of China (PLA) has 2.25 million soldiers, in case of hostilities it can put under arms up to 208.1 million soldiers, well-armed and trained.

So what are empty cities for - this way Beijing frankly demonstrates that it is not afraid of nuclear war. nuclear warheads this is the only one modern Russia weapons left over from the USSR, which somehow can deter China's aggression.

Under all these cities, underground shelters have been built, designed to receive hundreds of millions of people. Beijing is making it clear to both Moscow and Washington that it is quite ready for nuclear war. Underground shelters are known to be the most effective protection against nuclear explosions and them damaging factors(shock wave, penetrating radiation, light radiation, radioactive contamination).

Today, China is the only country that is seriously ready to fight any war, both conventional and nuclear, and we pretend that this does not concern us.

The vision of China's territorial policy towards neighboring countries is difficult to understand at first glance. Over the past decade, the country has outstripped many competitors in the development of the industrial industry and economic potential. Implemented latest developments scientific, technical and engineering thought in all spheres of their life. What is confusing, however, is the fact that, despite the apparent success of development, over time, dead cities of china. Having been studying this issue for many years, the Institute Far East The Russian Academy of Sciences asks the question: why does China want to expand its territories? After all, he has already received some islands for the free economic zone, the so-called "resettlement programs" and has a prolongation of the development of backward regions of Russia.

What empty cities in China are known about?

The "Celestial Empire" itself has in reserve over 60 million newly built apartments and houses with all amenities and infrastructure "according to last word technology” (parks, stadiums), which, if necessary, can accommodate half of the inhabitants of the post-Soviet space. They are distributed among more than 15 uninhabited cities, among which are the main ones:

• Xishuan;
• Ordos;
• Kangbashi;
• Tianducheng;
• Thames Town.

Xishuan City built in one of the harshest weather conditions in the middle of the desert in Inner Mongolia. It has external similarities with the tragically famous city of Pripyat. With rare exceptions, in any apartment you can see the light - there are only a few people here. But the abandoned dwellings were not looted - in many respects this is the merit of the law on the death penalty in force in the country.

highly developed ghost town of Ordos built in 2001 on land rich in minerals. This is not a previously abandoned village, but huge areas of empty square meters of completely livable housing. Most of this real estate is sold out even at the start of construction, however, the Chinese themselves are not eager to settle there. They know better places to live, such as Bama village in southern China, where natural and climatic conditions together with infrared sunbeams, whose activity is the highest on the planet, allow you to live over 100 years without disease, spending your time in the desired way.

Kangbashi - a large city, which, if there was a population, would have numbered over a million people. It is located near Ordos and was supposed to serve as a zone of urbanization for peasants, however, due to the lack of prospects, the inhabitants were forced to move to more profitable regions. The time after which the city will be at least half populated is unknown.

Tianducheng . The suburb of Guangzhou is famous for its copy of the Eiffel Tower, but attempts to make the region look like Paris have not been successful. Housing prices here are quite high, and the lack of infrastructure completely excludes the possibility of people settling here. A few local residents are trying to survive on a small scale, so vegetable plantations can be seen even near the city's architectural monuments.

Thames Town . Due to the city built in 2006, it was planned to expand the scale of Shanghai, but the designer made a mistake. As a result, the predominant number of buildings were one-story houses, which contradicted the original idea of ​​settling a large number of inhabitants in a new territory. At present, the area is only 10% populated: the Chinese use the erected dwellings only for out-of-town recreation.

China is one of the most densely populated countries and the largest in the globe. This gives him a lot of problems, forcing him to resort even to the legislative level. Therefore, even more paradoxical is the fact of the construction of such a number empty cities in China, some of which claim to be metropolitan areas.

Possible reasons for the creation of dead cities

Why do the Chinese allow huge territories to be empty? Are there really no people among the millions who want to fill these cities? There are several explanations for this phenomenon:

• Most local residents, especially the younger generation, are absent financial resources to purchase your home. In terms of the ratio of the cost of an apartment to the average salary, it will take an ordinary Chinese about 60 years of work to make such a desired purchase. And those wealthy owners who are able to purchase such objects already have enough real estate to afford living in elite regions. Many refute this opinion, saying that the “heavenly empire” (and now also the construction one) has impressive cash reserves, allowing them to wait for full settlement in abandoned cities in china not to the detriment of the country's capital, even if they are empty for 5-10 years. Maybe so, but here we are talking about the majority of the population.
• The policy of the authorities who instructed not to settle anyone in these cities. Millions of tourists will bring new buildings and streets to the state of everyday Beijing and Shanghai, further worsening the sanitary conditions of the metropolis. Indeed, it is precisely because of the misunderstanding of culture, way of life and the manner of behavior inherent only to the Chinese that representatives of the Caucasian race prefer to limit themselves to traveling to this country, and not to live here permanently.
• Some of the cities in the future may be intended for people of non-traditional sexual orientation. The crux of the problem lies in the birth control law. Using methods of early pregnancy detection, the Chinese began to perform abortions in case of a potential birth of a girl. As a result, there was a shortage of women, and then an overflow of the population with men. Therefore, a large number of homosexuals has become commonplace in the country. It is possible that abandoned cities in the future may be intended for just such a territory of people.
• The construction of these cities is an investment accumulated over recent times money supply due to the rapid growth of the economy for the subsequent resettlement of their own citizens there: workers of factories, factories and workshops, who will also not neglect mortgage lending.
• And finally, the theory of the military concept, which characterizes the true face of the “eastern friend” and returns to understanding the motivation for building the Great Wall of China. Tenements and private houses, as well as infrastructure with underground bunkers for shelter, designed for hundreds of thousands of people. Together with wide-lane concrete roads towards Russia bearing the load of heavy equipment, they suggest a possible attack from China, and devastated cities, then, suggest the creation of backup housing for the surviving soldiers after a nuclear counterattack. It is likely that such "threatening" buildings could serve as a lesson on someone else's mistake - the experience of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Summing up this topic, you need to learn one thing: all these cities are multi-billion dollar investments, so they are abandoned only for a while. It is difficult to predict an event that will precede the global settlement of empty territories.