The young Chinese choosing life in ‘ghost cities’

{"text":[[{"start":9.1,"text":"From their balconies, residents of Prosperous Lakeside Mansion can look south towards China’s Daya Bay or out over verdant hills around Huizhou, a city of 6mn near Hong Kong."}],[{"start":21.45,"text":"But for Ruby Chen the appeal of this high-rise tower complex lies in another feature: it is half empty. Rents are dirt cheap and, unlike China’s biggest cities, the place is never overcrowded."}],[{"start":34.45,"text":"“You have many choices here because there are so many vacant houses,” says Chen, an online English teacher. “If I rent a house here and I find it unacceptable — maybe one day I have a problem with the neighbourhood — I can choose to move to another house.”"}],[{"start":48.85,"text":"Chen is among a band of urban castaways turning the aftermath of China’s decades-long property boom — history’s biggest building spree — into an experiment in what the Chinese call “empty city living”."}],[{"start":60.2,"text":"Originally from Chongqing, the south-western megacity, the English graduate with a master’s in psychology moved to Huizhou for its warm weather and low-stress vibe. "}],[{"start":69.45,"text":"With only about 10 online classes a week she can earn enough to cover her bills. Chen says the flat she rents originally cost her landlord Rmb1mn but would now sell at only “half the price”. She pays Rmb1,300 ($190) rent per month, a fraction of big city prices."}],[{"start":86.95,"text":"Each day, she cooks a leisurely breakfast and might play video games with her partner, a lawyer who can also work online. If they get a new game, they will spend the whole day on it. “I do some reading, and recently I bought a sewing machine, I’m learning to make clothes for myself,” Chen says."}],[{"start":105.15,"text":"Chen’s home in Prosperous Lakeside Mansion, whose Chinese name is Rongsheng Yuhu Guandi, was completed in 2021, the year after Beijing punctured the decades-long housing bubble by cracking down on developer leverage. "}],[{"start":119.80000000000001,"text":"Like scores of its competitors, the complex’s developer, RiseSun Real Estate Development, fell into debt restructuring as China’s house prices began a downward slide that continues to this day, erasing about Rmb100tn ($15tn) in wealth."}],[{"start":135.9,"text":"But unlike other downturns, the prospect of a market recovery in smaller cities such as Huizhou is slim. "}],[{"start":142.25,"text":"While China’s so-called first-tier metropolises — Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen — attract talent with their high-tech industries, many third- and fourth-tier centres are on the frontline of China’s twin crises of overbuilding and demographic decline. "}],[{"start":159.2,"text":"These cities built too much, too fast, and are now struggling to fill the white-elephant projects that were supposed to secure their future. "}],[{"start":166.7,"text":"Max Woodworth, of Ohio State University, who has studied the problem extensively and once lived in a Chinese “ghost city”, said some of these urban areas saw “additions of Manhattan-sized floor space several times over”. "}],[{"start":180.95,"text":"“China is a big country, it’s got a lot of population, but not that much,” he said. The demographic crisis was “an exacerbating factor” of a problem that has been growing unchecked for years."}],[{"start":null,"text":"

"}],[{"start":193.1,"text":"Local governments in China approved real estate developments for decades on the basis of, in Woodworth’s words, “build it and they will come”. The principle applied to places as far afield as Inner Mongolia and central China’s Henan province. "}],[{"start":206.95,"text":"Local Communist Party officials used the developments to generate spectacular economic growth and tax revenue, guaranteeing rapid promotions. Buyers viewed homes as investments rather than as residences, Woodworth and co-author Jeremy Wallace wrote in a 2017 paper Seeing ghosts: parsing China’s ‘ghost city’ controversy. "}],[{"start":228,"text":"At its peak, the real estate industry in China contributed about 25 per cent of GDP growth and property accounted for 60 per cent of household wealth."}],[{"start":237.5,"text":"But after 2021, that growth imploded. The value of new home sales of the top 100 developers fell by 72.7 per cent between 2021 and 2025 and 19.7 per cent year on year in the first four months of this year, according to Nomura."}],[{"start":256.05,"text":"China has been left with a huge inventory of what Goldman Sachs calls “saleable” new housing projects. Together with projects still under construction but not yet ready for sale and land earmarked for housing development, these amounted to about 70mn units in 2023."}],[{"start":272.45,"text":"On top of that is what analysts call a “shadow supply” — apartments sold in previous years but left vacant or held for investment, amounting to another 90mn to 100mn units, according to Goldman. That is many multiples of the 9mn new home sales in China in 2023, suggesting the backlog in some smaller cities might never clear."}],[{"start":296,"text":"Remarkably, there are no official estimates of the vacancy rate in China. The real estate transaction platform Beike in 2022 estimated it at up to 20 per cent but then abruptly withdrew the data and apologised. China regularly discontinues unfavourable economic data. "}],[{"start":314.15,"text":"Qiu Baoxing, a former vice-minister of housing, said at the 2022 China Urban High-Quality Development Think Tank Forum, that China’s housing vacancy rate had reached 15 per cent nationally and 25-30 per cent in some provinces, which was “far beyond the international 5 per cent standard”. "}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":333.95,"text":"In 2016 the official news agency, Xinhua, estimated that local governments were planning more than 3,500 new towns and districts capable of housing 3.4bn people — nearly two and a half times the country’s population of 1.4bn."}],[{"start":350.84999999999997,"text":"This build-out has collided with China’s dramatic demographic decline — last year China reported 7.92mn babies were born, the lowest number since 1949. "}],[{"start":362.45,"text":"While for many these empty cities represent catastrophic waste, for people such as Ruby Chen they offer freedom. "}],[{"start":369.3,"text":"She does not describe herself as “tangping”, or “lying flat”, the nickname for young people in China who have dropped out of its high-pressure lifestyle. "}],[{"start":378.65000000000003,"text":"If she or her partner needs more formal work, Hong Kong and China’s high-tech centre, Shenzhen, are one to two hours away. But for now she wants to focus more on herself and living life better. "}],[{"start":390.70000000000005,"text":"“Some people will say our generation is not so hard working but our environment has changed from the last generation,” Chen says. “I think the last generation enjoyed the best time of China, with rapid development. But nowadays, sometimes people work hard, very hard, and what they get does not match their effort.” "}],[{"start":409.95000000000005,"text":"The buildings in her complex seem well maintained, though the vast empty underground parking lot contains built-up refuse in one corner. At the grand entrance to the complex, several shops are shut and barred. "}],[{"start":422.95000000000005,"text":"A few kilometres away in Huizhou, Charles Xue, a content creator and online history teacher, shows off his complex — another vast multi-tower project with an unfinished section on one side. "}],[{"start":436.45000000000005,"text":"Most shops here, too, have never opened, including some with international brand names. The swimming pools and some other amenities are also closed."}],[{"start":445.75000000000006,"text":"Xue bought his apartment for Rmb5,900 ($870) per square metre — the previous owner paid Rmb13,000."}],[{"start":455.30000000000007,"text":"But he and his girlfriend mainly live in another apartment nearer to Shenzhen and with better amenities, only visiting this flat to relax with their cats and dog. This is a common practice in this area, Xue says.  "}],[{"start":467.05000000000007,"text":"Nearby, Olivia Shu, a 32-year-old freelancer who created outdoor sculptures for shopping centres during the property boom, lives in the area but occasionally works in Hong Kong."}],[{"start":478.00000000000006,"text":"She says hers is the city’s highest-quality complex but she pays just Rmb2,000 ($295) a month for a new three-bedroom, two-bathroom flat. "}],[{"start":489.30000000000007,"text":"The occupancy rate in some of the newly built phases is exceptionally low, she says. “It’s as quiet as a ghost town,” she says of those areas. Still, she feels more relaxed since moving to Huizhou."}],[{"start":502.05000000000007,"text":"Further down the coast, the story is the same. Southern China’s summer monsoon lashes new tower blocks arrayed along the shoreline and stretching inland, surrounded by scrappy shops. "}],[{"start":513.6500000000001,"text":"The low prices and relaxed atmosphere also attract some foreign castaways, such as Daniel, a freelance actor from Kazakhstan living in Huizhou’s Shili Yintan district."}],[{"start":524.0000000000001,"text":"“In my area, it’s about 30 per cent lived in. The rest is empty,” he says. “The problem is now they are still building new apartments.”"}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":532.4000000000001,"text":"Some analysts believe that the problem of overbuilding is so chronic that once the government has allocated some of the excess housing for rentals to low-income earners or other uses, it may have to bulldoze the rest. "}],[{"start":545.6500000000001,"text":"“Where population loss is severe and demand is structurally gone, demolishing the most unsalvageable stock may be unavoidable,” said Yi Fuxian, an expert on Chinese demographics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of the book Big Country with an Empty Nest. "}],[{"start":563.2500000000001,"text":"Loading groceries into his purple locally made EV, Daniel said he had bought a house nearby for Rmb600,000 ($88,000) but it had already shed Rmb100,000 in value."}],[{"start":576.7000000000002,"text":"“If you buy it, the next day it’s going down. It’s not a good investment . . . If you buy for living [in it] now, it’s better.” "}],[{"start":585.4500000000002,"text":"Additional reporting by Nian Liu in Shanghai and Wenjie Ding in Beijing"}],[{"start":597.3500000000001,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1782805625_2132.mp3"}