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The ghost towns of China are waiting for their inhabitants with perfect living conditions

China is a real estate show for the rest of the world, but some projects are seen as unnecessary exaggerations even by the country's inhabitants. after 30 years of sustained efforts to urbanize the country, China has come to have more spectacular cities with impressive architecture and impeccable logistics but without the most important element for a city: the inhabitants. China's ghost towns are, however, better maintained than many of the densely populated cities of the world, hoping that one day they will have the success for which they were built. In the last three decades, China has built hundreds of new cities, where not less than 250 million people would have to move. The country's urbanization plan is a long-term one: it should end successfully by 2026. The new cities of the Chinese are impressive through architecture: skyscrapers are indestructible, public spaces are airy, roads are impeccable. However, the Chinese do not want to give up the rural areas they live in to taste the benefits of life in the city. "It's hard to build a new city from scratch. It's hard to populate it. No one wants to live in a place that seems dead, and many of the new cities do not have the jobs and trade needed to support massive populations. In some areas, the government has used some tricks to solve this problem: administrative buildings and schools have relocated to these cities, hoping that the people in nearby locations will move. Success was a small one, "explains photojournalist Kai Caemmerer, who documented the evolution of these cities. Ghost cities are the results of political arrogance and investment hysteria Thus, in cities built for 500,000 people today only 100,000 people live. This does not work for the authorities, who are trying to prove that real estate developments can work on their own for the development of the local economy. "Cities or neighborhoods built without a demand for them, or at least a necessity, have led to what the Chinese call" walls without customers. " incomplete cities, ghost. These are political arrogances and investment hysteria, supported by erroneous economic calculations made without taking into account basic human needs, "explains William Hurst, a political science professor at Northwestern University. china 3Can most spectacular of these phantom cities is Yujiapu financial area. This is a miniature replica of Manhattan City, which even contains a copy of the Rockefeller Center, but also a replica of twin towers. Construction in this city began in 2008 and costs an estimated $ 30 trillion. Next to Meixi Lake City, which stretches over an area of ​​11 square kilometers, contains an artificial lake and is thought to host 180,000 inhabitants. Like everywhere in Cgina, skyscrapers are building fast, and in parks, the music is discreetly heard in the speakers all the time. "Everywhere can see real estate agents preoccupied, talking on the phone, trying to sell apartments in buildings to be built. I felt like I was walking in the future, "explains photographer Kai Caemmerer. These are just two examples representative of hundreds of cities spread across China, cities that do not lack anything. From flats to all tastes and budgets, to public art, state-of-the-art architecture and all that urban comfort is needed for. However, no one wants to live there.

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