When did that change? They were incredibly trying to cultivate and outright force mega cities.
Leaving behind mega cities that are empty. Hell if you want to play out a pretend version of "I am legend" you could get pretty close. (Minus the zombies)
This animation by McKinsey shows a number of different paths for urbanization. There are many neuanced models, but they commonly divide into "supercities", "hub and spoke" and "distributed growth". https://www.mckinsey.com/tools/Wrappers/Redesign/Interactive... Quote from a related 2009 report called "Preparing for China's Urban Billion": "China's current urbanization path will show a pronounced expansion in the number of midsized cities across the country. Although China today has two megacities [Shanghai and Beijing] and a number of prominent hub-and-spoke systems [...] many midsized cities are growing in parallel and will become more and more relevant in the national landscape."
Now, I haven't done any close reading on this for the past few years, but back in 2014 or so the consensus among China-watchers was that the government both in policy and in action had clearly staked a path somewhere between the "hub and spoke" and "distributed growth" models. The high speed rail network is an important part of this, creating economic hot spots along the path between existing supercities. In fact, in the intervening time they have disincentivized further growth of Shanghai and Beijing, and is creating a new administrative city south of Beijing and west of Tianjin rather than expanding each of those two supercities.
I have no idea what empty megacities you're referring to...
No one significant has ever said China has empty mega cities, or even empty cities, they are more like empty districts of existing cities (eg Kangbashi of Ordos, Tianjin Financial district, etc...). The western press latches onto “ghost cities” because Chinese city/town administration units are weird to westerners.
This is the comment I replied to: "When did that change? They were incredibly trying to cultivate and outright force mega cities.
Leaving behind mega cities that are empty. Hell if you want to play out a pretend version of "I am legend" you could get pretty close. (Minus the zombies) "
I am I having a stroke, or did that comment refer to "mega cities that are empty"?
Leaving behind mega cities that are empty. Hell if you want to play out a pretend version of "I am legend" you could get pretty close. (Minus the zombies)