Endless blocks of high-rise buildings in which no one has ever lived, abandoned amusement parks, empty giant shopping malls, deserted avant-garde theaters and museums, wide avenues without cars - over the past decade, several new cities and areas have appeared in China at once, where, it seems , no human foot has set foot. We tried to understand the phenomenon of Chinese "ghost towns" and understand why they exist.

In the photo Google Earth - huge empty cities 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 giant 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 uninhabited! 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 monitored electricity consumption in 660 cities for six months, and found zero readings on the electricity meters of 65.4 million apartments - that means no one 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.

Under all these cities, underground shelters have been built, designed to receive hundreds of millions of people. Beijing is signaling to the world that it is fully prepared 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).

In the first half of the 2000s, the Chinese government launched several projects to build new large cities. Thus, the country solved several problems: providing the population with work, maintaining high rates of economic growth, urbanization and modernization of the economy. Cities have been built, but residents are in no hurry to populate them, the demand for new housing does not keep pace with the supply artificially created by the state. This is how the phenomenon of Chinese ghost towns appeared.

Caofeidian

Caofeidian is located 225 kilometers southwest of Beijing. It was conceived as a large eco-friendly city. One and a half million of its inhabitants had to use only renewable energy. At the same time, the government insisted that a large steel plant of the Shougang Group company move to the city - this industry was supposed to base the demographics and economy of the new city. Over the past decade, $91 billion has been invested in the ambitious project, according to the Wall Street Journal, but so far it has only brought losses. Empty streets and abandoned houses speak for themselves.

chengun

In 2003, the authorities decided to expand Kunming - the capital of the southern province of Yunnan - at the expense of the territory of Chenggong County. In seven years, an urban area with a full-fledged infrastructure was erected there: residential buildings with a hundred thousand apartments, a school, campuses of two universities and government buildings. However, the city is not developing as expected. The Chinese buy houses in a new area, but as an investment, and do not live there themselves. The result is the same - empty campuses and deserted streets.

New Hebi

The economy of Hebi, a major city in Henan Province, relies on coal mining. More than 20 years ago, the government decided to develop new deposits 40 kilometers from the historical part of the city - in the Qibin area. This is how the "New Hebi" appeared - a zone that occupies several hundred square kilometers, which has not been mastered for 20 years.

Kanbashi

In 2004, the government decided to expand Ordos - one of the major cities of autonomous Inner Mongolia - by building 20 kilometers southwest of historical center new district of Kanbashi. The new district was designed for a million people, but eight years after the start of construction, only people live in the city.

Yingkou

Nine years ago, Li Keqiang, then party chairman of Liaoning Province, launched a major project to restructure the region's economy to reduce its dependence on steel production and mining. It was assumed that the government would allocate funds for the development of new industries, and developers would build houses for new workers. Yingkou was one of the cities where the construction was especially fast. At the same time, government investments did not come as quickly as the builders expected, some construction projects were frozen, the erected buildings were never inhabited.

thames town

In 2001, a plan was adopted to expand Shanghai. It was decided to attach nine smaller cities to the metropolis, four of which were built from scratch. Thames Town, an English-style township designed by architect Tony Mackay, was completed in 2006. It consists mostly of small single-family houses. Real estate at one time sold out very quickly, but it was bought mainly by wealthy families as an investment or a second home. Because of this, housing prices in Thames Town skyrocketed and alienated new potential citizens. It was planned that the British-style town will be inhabited by 10 thousand people, but local residents as a result, much less - mostly tourists and newlyweds visit Thames Town.

Tianducheng

"Little Paris", built near the city of Hangzhou in the eastern province of Zhejiang, suffered the same fate as Thames Town. It was built in 2007, the city was designed for 10 thousand inhabitants, however, according to the latest data, only a fifth was filled. However, a copy of Paris is an attractive place for newlyweds: taking a photo against the backdrop of a deserted square with the Eiffel Tower is not possible even in the capital of France.

Despite the fact that China is considered the most overpopulated region in the world, there is a huge city in which no one wants to live. No living, no business. But a lot of money was spent on the construction of this Chinese metropolis, but the city still frightens with its emptiness. What is the reason for this? According to some information from tourists, about 50% of China's territory is empty due to the fact that they do not want to live there. The Chinese do not like the cold, and the climate in Ordos is not very good. What will the Chinese government come up with to attract its heat-loving citizens there for permanent residence?

Now a question for backfilling. So what then attracts the heat-loving Chinese to our Siberia? Or maybe the size of China is greatly exaggerated to intimidate the Russians? A well-known case, one of the types of lies is statistics.

“Post from the past”: Ordos in China is a modern ghost town. The Kangbashi area, designed for more than a million inhabitants, remains deserted even five years after the start of construction. Photo by Michael Christopher Brown.

1.The construction of the Kangbashi district began as part of a government project in Ordos, a city located in the province of Inner Mongolia, whose source of wealth is coal mining. The area is built up with office buildings, administrative centers, government agencies, museums, theaters and sports grounds, as well as residential areas. But there is one problem. In an area designed for more than a million inhabitants, almost no one still lives.

2. Despite the fact that most of the real estate has already been purchased and it was planned that by 2010 the area would be populated, Kangbashi is still empty.

3. Most of the one and a half million population of Ordos considers Dunsheng their home, located half an hour from the empty Kangbashi.

4. Two workers clean up the area around the public library building. The per capita income in Ordos is the second highest in the country after Shanghai.

5. Treasury. Workers carry pieces of Styrofoam up the stairs leading to the Ordos Museum, which is still unfinished.

6. Monument. A pedestrian walks down the street behind a giant sculpture depicting two horses in Linyuynli Square, Kangbashi district.

7. Desert highway. View of empty houses.

8. There is a complete lack of business in the city. A pedestrian walks past empty shopping areas. Almost none of the companies wanted to move to a new area.

9. Oppressive silence. The streets are deserted even in the morning, when residents have to go to work.

10. Construction of new facilities in Kangbashi continues despite the fact that the area is not populated.

11. An elderly man pushes a cart while crossing a road separating completed buildings from those still under construction.

12. Construction in progress. Workers are chasing the walls of the future shopping center for non-existent residents of an apartment complex.

The largest ghost town is in China (video)

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. Introduced the latest developments in scientific, technical and engineering thought in all spheres of her 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? Cause he already got some islands for 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 quite 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 ultra-red solar rays, which are the most active on the planet, allow you to live over 100 years without disease, spending your time in the way you want.

Kangbashi – Big 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 . Guangzhou suburb is famous for copy eiffel tower, however, attempts to make the region look like Paris were unsuccessful. 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, do not have the financial resources to purchase their own homes. 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 predominant part 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 the broad-lane concrete roads heading towards Russia, bearing the load of heavy equipment, they suggest a possible attack from China, and the 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.

August 18, 2014 A lot has been said and written about ghost towns in China. Recall that we are talking about huge complexes built in different, sometimes very inhospitable, regions of the country, including office skyscrapers, administrative buildings, residential towers, houses and other things that are commonly called urban development, up to universities. All this is connected by roads, a network of communications, maintained in order, but ... empty.

According to some reports, there are now more than twenty such ghost towns in China, and in total, according to some estimates, about 64 million houses are empty in the country. And this is in China, where overcrowding in large cities has long been a national problem!

Why people do not live (or almost do not live) in ghost towns is not difficult to understand. Hardworking and active Chinese simply have nothing to do in strange cities where there are no industrial facilities. But for what purpose such cities were designed and built - Internet browsers have not yet found a clear answer to this question, although there is no shortage of versions.

For example, such an assumption is made: China is preparing for a global military conflict and new cities are a kind of “bomb shelters” where residents of megacities will be saved. This version does not stand up to criticism - it is difficult to imagine tens of millions of people populating expensive elite housing "on alarm".

There are versions that look more believable. For example, it is assumed that housing in ghost towns was purchased during construction, but the owners live in other cities and use the apartments as capital investments. However, this "market version" also does not stand up to serious criticism. There are not as many rich people in China as is sometimes believed, and expensive luxury apartments in empty cities need to be guarded and maintained in order, which will certainly cost a lot. In addition, in ghost towns, as you can see in numerous pictures on the Internet, not only housing has been built - there are many state and municipal facilities.

The following version seems to be the most probable: the construction of cities is an anti-crisis measure taken by the Chinese leadership. Like those that in the 30s of the last century, at the height of the Great Depression, President Franklin Roosevelt undertook in the United States. His program of "public works" - building roads, schools, hospitals, prisons - helped to overcome unemployment and brought America out of a deep crisis.

The only difference is that such a measure is being taken in the Celestial Empire, not waiting for a crisis or recession, but, as it were, “in anticipation”.

Chinese leaders may be driven to this by objective reasons: industrialization reserves have already been exhausted, GDP growth rates are slowing down, and an internal economic crisis, despite the fact that the economy uses huge amounts of borrowed funds, can happen at any moment. The first victims, as a result of socio-economic tension, as always happens during crises, will be the current megacities. That's when "ghost towns" come in handy as new investment sites. This is also a variant of "settlement on alarm", only not military, but economic.