Chinese ghost-towns

[Tellos Athenaios]

No necessarily, I can see an alternative case wherein these cities are not a “problem” merely part of a range of solutions to other problems. These projects provide jobs and may help drive property prices down. This can be seen as killing three birds with one stone: provide jobs, provide housing, alleviate population pressure on the big cities. It doesn't matter that these cities are empty now, or will remain so for the foreseeable future.

Consider:

• There are “hordes” of Chinese in cities like Beijing unable to get a job because they are “outsiders” so even if they have good degrees Chinese culture practically excludes them from a proper job. In these new cities, this doesn't apply (or not to such a degree).
• These “hordes” also are young people looking to settle.
• These young people have no way they are able to afford their own property in even remotely populous cities.
• The cities where they usually migrate to (Beijing, Shanghai etc.) have mounting and increasingly hard to ignore problems when it comes to pollution, sanitation and traffic congestion. You think the Netherlands or the UK or France or Italy or Arizona or Texas whatever is full and we can't have more immigrants (not saying you do, just in general), look at those cities to see how much worse it can get.
• This combination provides your traditional basis for social unrest, riots, and popular revolt.

So a few ghost towns means work for thousands, and might alleviate the population pressure and other problems associated with the big cities.

On the other hand this might well be construction contracts of the sort which merely serve to make a select group of officials that much richer on the Renminbi.