Satellite Pictures of China's Ghost Cities

Disturbing. But not quite as much as another article your story linked to: http://www.businessinsider.com/hitler-teapot-on-jcpenney-billboard-2013…

Some waste trillions on housing projects, some waste trillions on wars in the middle east. When it comes to government spending; diffr'n strokes for diffr'n folks.

Read this OP

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-28/china-credit-bubble-call-pits-…

Plenty of other articles describing reasons.

Unbelievable. The Chinese really haven't grasped the fact that they aren't impervious to economic downturn have they?

I guess the theory behind all this is 1) China's urbanization is still in its infancy and all these people are going to need places to live, 2) May as well build shit shit now when the economy needs construction jobs, and 3) an economy with so much secular growth can handle a lot of credit. I still think that this will all end badly. Even if they avoid a crisis it's still a very sub-optimal use of capital to build cities that won't be occupied for 5-20 years.

Also if they want to fill their 64 million empty houses/apartments they should probably lift the one child policy.

How does the Chinese government not anticipate that the housing prices in these "ghost cities" will be jacked up by speculators? Too much bribing on the part of the builders to the greedy municipal governments that desperately need cash flow.

Forced Urbanization

Source: Chinese Billionaire involved in these projects.