The Surprising Truth About China's Ghost Cities

You'll be as surprised as we were.

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TIANJIN — China is overbuilt. Badly. The future of iron ore has never looked so murky.

The ultimate embodiment of that overbuilding is China's 'Ghost Cities' — cities developed well in advance of future country residents moving to the city. Sounds good on paper, but the plans haven't all worked out.

For example, the vision above is of the Yujiapu Financial District, a replica of Manhattan built 40 kilometers outside of Tianjin, which is a city just east of Beijing.

But as you'll see in the following video, what we saw was a bit less glossy. More like unfinished with no end in sight.


Whether the city is ultimately finished and fills up is something of a moot point to Australian investors, though, because the overbuilding has already taken place. That's the disconcerting takeaway. Also, bring thicker clothes when you visit China in winter.

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