IT WAS a jawdroppingly bold project: Flatten hundreds of mountains in order to build a massive metropolis from scratch with the hope that up to a million people will eventually move in by 2030.

Located on China’s Silk Road Economic Belt, Lanzhou New Area was meant to be a diamond in the country’s otherwise arid northwest Gansu province, “a golden opportunity that no one wants to miss”. And the bid to revitalise the ancient trade route came with a whopping price tag of $14 billion. That includes the construction of roads, railways and a bigger airport, along with the diversion of water from the Yellow River to create lakes and rivers. It’s just one of hundreds of megacities and towns that have been springing up in China seemingly out of nowhere in recent years, at mind-boggling speeds. With the government planning to move more than 100 million people from the countryside into the cities within the next 10 years, it’s no wonder that a massive building spree is underway. But, sadly, Lanzhou New Area looks to be shaping up to become the next ghost city, one in a long list lately. The Washington Post went along on a recent media tour organised by the government, finding what they described as a wasteland. They spoke to Yan Yuejin at E-House China R & D Institute in Shanghai who said that despite incentives such as cheap land, the venture has been “very unsuccessful” when looking at vacancy rates. For now, there are just 150,000 people living here, and 40,000 construction workers. The city sits mostly deserted, with life-size replicas of the Sphinx lacking visitors. Even Xu Dawu, deputy Communist Party secretary for the New Area, admitted to a “problem”. “Lanzhou is a very important town on the Silk Road, but it is sandwiched between two mountains with a river running through it,” he said. He suggested the need to expand it, but if that doesn’t work said that “we can at least develop modern agriculture here”. Indeed, it’s the newest and most striking example of what’s wrong with China’s economic approach, with debt skyrocketing as more projects are embarked upon that make little financial sense. “You’ve had massive credit growth and investment in projects that don’t generate an economic return,” Rodney Jones, founder of Wigram Capital Advisors in Beijing, said. “Now you’re facing two shocks — you’ve got to stop credit growing and deal with the bad loans, and you’ve also got to see how the economy expands once this credit boom is over.” Concerns have also been raised about the environmental impact of flattening so many mountains. “Land-creation projects are already causing air and water pollution, soil erosion and geological hazards such as subsidence. They destroy forests and farmlands and endanger wild animals and plants,” science and environment journal Nature explained. “Many land-creation projects in China ignore environmental regulations, because local governments tend to prioritise making money over protecting nature.” Ultimately, whether Lanzhou New City is destined to join the eerie likes of other main ghost cities in China such as Nanhui New City or Yujiapu, China’s “Manhattan” is just a matter of time.