I'd be more interested in why two such different countries as the US and China seem to have independently arrived at the same problem of ghost cities. We know that China's problems arise from a top-down, state-directed model of development under a one-party rule. But that was never the case in the US, right?
Conversely, there are very few instances of such ghost cities in India (at least that I know of). Possibly because India's urban development has up till now (though today many new cities are currently being proposed as urbanization becomes the need of the hour in India) been much more organic and bottom-up, largely because we couldn't afford otherwise.
Is my sarcasm filter off here? The ghost towns in the US are dramatically smaller, were pretty much all the result of organic growth, and were actually populated at some point. They're ghost towns now because the populations moved away for any number of reasons (the end of a boom, economic shift, major catastrophe, eminent domain).
The situation in China is completely different. Regional governments are naively trying to stimulate their economies with these huge construction projects. So, they're building giant cities without proper planning or consideration for population shifts. These cities have never been occupied and it looks like they never will. Worse, they're being paid for by highly rated bonds issued from the central government. The whole thing looks like a real estate bubble that could tank the Chinese economy.
And while I agree with you that they weren't unoccupied to begin with, unlike the case with many of China's ghost cities, I beg to disagree on the rest of your argument - namely that the US model was appropriate for its time (we have decades of hindsight) and that the Chinese model isn't appropriate for the present (we don't know).
Many experts have been prophesying a crash for China's investment driven economy for years now, and a dramatic correction in real estate prices. Yet, after a small correction prices are still rising - http://www.economist.com/news/china/21577118-soaring-house-p...
We may only know a decade or two later whether a few dozen ghost cities was a small price China paid for continuing to power ahead economically.
>> namely that the US model was appropriate for its time
There was no model other than freedom. Freedom to invent, create, build, farm all as we saw fit. This is completely different and perhaps antithetical to what the Chinese are doing now. Their government is trying to will the result of prosperity into existence rather than allow it to culminate on its own as it does in a truly free society.
Without defending the Chinese model (which for the record I despise), let us also not forget that "freedom" is relative and defined from the POV of the winners/majority.
In the case of the "building" of America, so to speak, were there not people who did not quite enjoy the same freedom you speak of? In fact millions would have forfeited their freedom so the rest could "invent, create, build and farm as they saw fit".
Ehhhh, lets not get crazy. I'm a US citizen and have lived in the US all my life, and I could name a handful of countries much better, based on GDP, happiness, or the accessibility of affordable housing and healthcare.
Are these "generic" bonds, or does the government issue bonds explicitly tied to the development of one or another city development? Are these bonds to be paid out from new-city tax revenue streams? (Not enough plugged in to the China finance system to search for myself.)
If so, I'm surprised that financial institutions would buy these bonds, despite their high ratings.
I don't know if you're baiting for a conspiracy, but I'd go as far as to say top level politics are to blame in both countries, albeit more directly in the case of China.
America's ghost towns were once thriving and now are deserted. China's ghost cities are relatively new and have never thrived before; they are just symptoms of a huge real estate bubble.
China overbuilds way too much, even in thriving cities like Shanghai and Beijing will you find almost completely deserted shopping malls.
I only observed that America and China both arrived at the same end result independently - ghost cities. I am not saying that they followed the same approaches, or took the same time.
Interesting reading! A lot of the ghost towns in the US are pretty small, maybe 100-200 inhabitants maximum. They eventually seem to fold into nearby communities with better road/rail connections.
FWIW there are ghost towns like the US examples in Spain too - villages of about 50-100 inhabitants that eventually just seem to dry up as populations give up on agriculture/subsistence/mining or whatever and younger generations move to larger cities.
Then there's Valdeluz. Political corruption at its finest, producing a semi-ghost town with less than 2000 people living there. http://desertedplaces.blogspot.com.es/2013/06/the-spanish-gh... - I visited there a couple of summers ago. Nice and peaceful, plenty of playgrounds for the kids to play on, no queues at the supermarket :-)
True, but the examples in these cases are of cities that appeared to have been created anew - in China'a case in the middle of nowhere. India could never afford to create massive new cities using state funds like that, so it's city growth was organic by force, not by choice.
Also the reason these cities are ghosts isn't because there aren't enough people in China (it is after all the world's most populous country), but because they were ill-planned in terms of economic/social benefits for residents.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ghost_towns_in_the_Uni...
I'd be more interested in why two such different countries as the US and China seem to have independently arrived at the same problem of ghost cities. We know that China's problems arise from a top-down, state-directed model of development under a one-party rule. But that was never the case in the US, right?
Conversely, there are very few instances of such ghost cities in India (at least that I know of). Possibly because India's urban development has up till now (though today many new cities are currently being proposed as urbanization becomes the need of the hour in India) been much more organic and bottom-up, largely because we couldn't afford otherwise.