Additional Information
Book Details
Abstract
Featuring everything from sports stadiums to shopping malls, hundreds of new cities in China stand empty, with hundreds more set to be built by 2030. Between now and then, the country's urban population will leap to over one billion, as the central government kicks its urbanization initiative into overdrive. In the process, traditional social structures are being torn apart, and a rootless, semi-displaced, consumption orientated culture rapidly taking their place. Ghost Cities of China is an enthralling dialogue driven, on-location search for an understanding of China's new cities and the reasons why many currently stand empty.
Wade Shepard is editor in chief at The China Chronicle.
'A crash course in how Chinese capitalism, if that’s what it is, actually works.'
The Guardian
'The landscape Shepard travels is so strange and monumental that it is hard to avoid being fascinated.'
New Statesman
'Ghost Cities of China tells a mixed story of China’s urbanisation drive…Wade Shepard presents an even-handed picture of this process as he has witnessed it and leaves the question of the future open.'
Royal Society for Asian Affairs
'In Ghost Cities of China, Wade Shepard guides us on a comprehensive - yet still often intimate - tour of cities "that are just being born." Through in-depth engagement with the country's vast urbanization efforts, Shepard exposes both the myths and realities of China's ghost cities; haunted spaces, which are not dead and abandoned, but rather have yet to come to life.'
Anna Greenspan, author of Shanghai Future: Modernity Remade
'In his exploration of East Asian cities that are literally disposable, Wade Shepard provides an intriguing overview to a phenomenon that combines two of this century's biggest narratives -- global urbanization, and the unprecedented growth of China.'
Rolf Potts, author of Vagabonding and Marco Polo Didn't Go There
'Wade Shepard cuts through the sensational coverage of China's infrastructure boom to deliver an eye-opening piece of reportage on the topic. A well-reported and fascinating primer on China's ghost cities.'
Rob Schmitz, China correspondent for Marketplace
'Scholars and students of Chinese studies will gain greater clarity and understanding regarding the dynamics and unknown facets of the ghost cities of China. It is a book that everyone interested in ghost cities and the future of China would do well to read.'
Europe-Asia Studies
Table of Contents
| Section Title | Page | Action | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Front Cover | Front cover | ||
| Asian Arguments | i | ||
| About the Author | ii | ||
| Title | iii | ||
| Copyright | iv | ||
| Contents | v | ||
| Acknowledgements | vi | ||
| Preface | ix | ||
| Map of China | xiii | ||
| One: The New Map of China | 1 | ||
| The Ghost City Critique | 3 | ||
| Building a New World Within the Four Seas | 4 | ||
| Two: Clearing the Land | 9 | ||
| Who Owns the Land? | 12 | ||
| Building a New Country, Literally | 14 | ||
| Out with the Old, in with the New; Out with the New, in with the Newer | 17 | ||
| Clearing the Land | 23 | ||
| Land Sales | 32 | ||
| Manufacturing Land | 34 | ||
| Three: Of New Cities and Ghost Cities | 39 | ||
| What is a Ghost City? | 39 | ||
| What is a Chinese City? | 40 | ||
| The Political Structure of Chinese Municipalities | 43 | ||
| Types of New Chinese Urban Development | 44 | ||
| Building New Cities | 46 | ||
| Of New Cities | 48 | ||
| Of Ghost Cities | 51 | ||
| Why So Many Empty Apartments? | 55 | ||
| Residents-in-waiting | 56 | ||
| Economics on the Frontier | 62 | ||
| Four: When Construction Ends the Building Begins | 66 | ||
| Breaking the Inertia \r | 74 | ||
| The Troops of Urbanization | 74 | ||
| Grinding the Gears of Speculation | 78 | ||
| Sustained Government Involvement | 81 | ||
| The Metro Means Everything | 83 | ||
| The Future of Ghost Cities | 85 | ||
| Five: Megacities Inside Megacities | 87 | ||
| What Megacities Look Like | 88 | ||
| The New Shanghai Master Plan | 91 | ||
| China’s German Ghost City | 95 | ||
| Shanghai’s Dutch Ghost Town | 100 | ||
| Thames Town | 102 | ||
| The Future of Shanghai’s New Towns | 105 | ||
| What Mega-Regions Look Like \r | 110 | ||
| Six: A New City, a New Identity | 116 | ||
| The Current Model of Urbanization is Unsustainable \r | 119 | ||
| The Planned City | 122 | ||
| The Cities of the Future | 125 | ||
| Ecocities | 126 | ||
| Tianfu Ecocity | 129 | ||
| Sino-Singapore Tianjin Ecocity \r | 130 | ||
| The Ecocity Gimmick? | 132 | ||
| Central Business Districts – Everywhere | 134 | ||
| Industrially Themed Cities | 140 | ||
| Duplitecture and the Search for Identity | 147 | ||
| Conclusion | 155 | ||
| Seven: Powering the New China | 157 | ||
| Coal | 158 | ||
| Hydropower | 161 | ||
| Other Renewable Energy Sources | 168 | ||
| The Law of Diminishing Returns | 169 | ||
| Eight: The Unsinkable Ship | 171 | ||
| The Housing Bubble | 172 | ||
| The New Chinese Currency | 177 | ||
| Affording Expensive Homes – House Slaves and the Moonlight Clan \r | 178 | ||
| Controlling the Fire | 185 | ||
| Too Big to Fail | 189 | ||
| Nine: What Ghost Cities Become | 197 | ||
| How Long Does it Take to Build and Populate a City? \r | 198 | ||
| Bibliography | 206 | ||
| Index | 212 | ||
| Back Cover | Back cover |