Over the past twenty years China has constructed hundreds of new cities and districts, revamped thousands of towns, and thrown up an almost … [Read more...]
5 Chinese Ghost Cities that Came Alive
Reports of the world's most populated country having tens of millions of empty apartments and dozens of cities without people sounds like a sick twist … [Read more...]
Stampede on the Bund: An Eyewitness Account of Shanghai’s New Year’s Tragedy
I wonder what it would feel like to suffocate to death? I could imagine fear and panic would engulf your entire being until blackness falls upon your … [Read more...]
Fengcheng: Shanghai’s Quixotic Spanish Town
There was something Quixotic about that place, which was perhaps appropriate as I was standing before a row of giant, mock windmills. They used to … [Read more...]
China’s Disposable Cities
Throughout China, the old is being replaced by the new and the new is being replaced by the newer in a continuous round of entropy that has virtually … [Read more...]
Nanhui, China’s Unbelievable Ghost City on the Coast
The first thing that many visitors to Shanghai will see is a ghost city. If you look down out of the window when flying into Shanghai's Pudong airport … [Read more...]
The Myth of China’s Big and Crowded Cities
I looked out over a flat, wide-open landscape of farmland, fallow fields, and dirt lots stretching far into the distance. A small brick shack was to … [Read more...]
What Life is Like Inside A Shanghai Migrant Worker Village
“They are like deserters from village life and lonely birds in the city.” -Li Jiuxin, Tsinghua University Walking on the scaffolding stacked up the … [Read more...]
A Journey To China’s Italian Ghost Town
I walked clear through Shanghai's Italian town without knowing it. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but the overtly institutional, strictly … [Read more...]
Shanghai’s Dutch Ghost Town
"Here used to be original Asian city with lots of original style buildings. Now it has been developed and all of that is now gone. It is a pity," a … [Read more...]