We all enjoy a good Chinese Ghost City story. Here’s Sixty Minutes’s version, by way of the Shanghaiist:
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Ignore the financial-apocalypse intro and skip to around 1:20 for some epic ghost-city shots. In a Chinese version of ‘If you build it, they will come,’ real estate developers have been building tremendous apartments, infrastructure, and skyscrapers, and not worrying (small detail) about the people to fill them. This CBS special includes massive empty shopping malls with fake Starbucks (3:40) and even a knock-off Europe (4:41) all built for huge populations that never got the invite.
Watchin that video and seeing the highrise condo towers and the marketing materials (condo floor plans, brochures, sales centres, etc.) I wonder whether the Chinese development industry has been copying Vancouver, or is it the other way around?