One Of The Strangest Things In The World Are These Giant Empty "Ghost Cities" In China
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Eddie and I talked about this growing crisis in China this week on Dogwalk. It looks like China is going through what the United States and then subsequently the rest of the Western world went through in 2008 with Lehman Brothers. A massive housing crisis that is going to ripple it's way through the economy if the government doesn't step in and bail them out. Big problem related to too many houses and not enough demand while also having the main company in the crosshairs, Evergrande, defaulting on debt taken out to start these houses complexes.
What I can't understand is how this is just an issue NOW. China is littered with what people call "Ghost Cities" all over the country. Like this picture that looks like Paris complete with the Eiffel Tower is a deep fake Paris in China. A Paris that NOBODY even lives in
China took a "if you build it they will come" approach to these cities and nobody came.
They have a Paris, a London, and handful of other European cities that NOBODY lives in. Entire giant apartment complexes that are completely empty. It's like someone in the CCP went to Disney World, got drunk, forgot to do their housing development presentation, and pitched Epcot and the Chinese Government bought it. Just get people out of Shanghai by telling them they can live in Paris…apparently nobody in China wants to live in fake ass Paris though because all of these GORGEOUS replica cities complete with art and museums and empty homes remain empty.
I just can't wrap my mind around China. Why is Evergrande such an issue if there are literally MILLIONS of empty apartments around that are available? Why is their debt and their inability to find residents for these developments and issue when the Ghost Towns aren't? Why are people even building more complexes and making this a reality
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That is a SCARY looking graph.
Why doesn't China just tell people…no more new homes. You want your own apartment, great, here is one is fake London you can have at a bargain. The Evergrande situation is a travesty for the average, working, Chinese citizen. They're saving everything they can with their entire family. Multi-generational savings given to Evergrande as they promise to build them a home that they are going to default on. Meanwhile there's thousands of places just sitting around the country completely empty. Has my brain twisted into a pretzel. Things are seemingly becoming more and more backwards in the good ole USA every passing day, but at least we don't have both ghost towns and a housing crisis at the same time. Seems a little more straight forward.