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I'm sorry, I don't find this argument terribly persuasive despite generally agreeing with Mr. Roach's points on future urbanization. The crux of the issue is why cities are being built far in advance of their occupation.



Mr. Roach declares this to be a necessity without justification, and arguably, contrary to the evidence in two significant ways. First, between technological advances and natural decomposition of even derelict structures, the product that will be consumed will be needlessly inferior to more recent construction. Second- and really an extension of the first point- the very existence of these un(der)utilized edifices is a testament to the extraordinary capacity of China's construction industry. In other words, they could produce whole cities with more efficient techniques and more apt accoutrements in quite short order when warranted in the future. So why aren't they?



I think the issue Mr. Roach has chosen to elide is that the CCP couldn't afford to work in this manner. They couldn't afford an unemployed and politically restive population, so this was a stop gap measure to inflate growth. The fact the end product may be useful a decade or two in the future doesn't rationalize poor allocation of resources in the present.



The question of whether the article's title is correct is still undecided. That will largely be determined by the ability of future consumers to service the debts incurred to build the (as yet, still) ghost cities. If they can sustain median income growth at a high clip, then quite possibly so. That's simply not a foregone conclusion.