While there isn’t a single, universally accepted reason for the construction of seemingly empty “ghost cities” in China, a combination of economic, political, and social factors likely contributes to the phenomenon. One perspective, as highlighted by the Bilibili video you cited, is the sheer scale and rapid pace of China’s development, which can be difficult for people from smaller, more developed countries to grasp. The construction projects could be a symptom of a long-term, top-down strategy to accommodate future urbanization and migration from rural to urban areas, rather than a short-term economic bluff. It is also possible that some of these projects are a result of local government incentives and speculative investment, leading to overbuilding in certain areas.
Elara lived in a village nestled in the heart of the great forest. To her and all her neighbors, the world was a vast, flat expanse of soil and rock, with their village at its very center. This was the undeniable truth, taught by their elders and confirmed by the daily rhythm of their lives. The forest’s edge was the edge of their known world, and beyond it, the land was believed to simply fall away into nothingness.
One day, a young traveler, a peddler named Kaelen, arrived. He spoke of a different world, one that was not a flat table but a great, spinning sphere. He spoke of cities on the other side of the world, where the sun rose and set at different times. The villagers listened, their expressions a mix of amusement and disbelief. How could the world be a sphere? How could people live upside down on the other side? It defied all common sense, all they had ever known. Their shared experience, their communal knowledge, told them that Kaelen was either a fool or a storyteller.
What Kaelen didn’t realize was that their inability to comprehend was not a lack of intelligence, but a lack of a shared frame of reference. Their world was defined by the visible horizon, by the familiar paths they walked, and by the stories passed down through generations. Kaelen’s reality was too grand, too abstract, and too far removed from their lived experience to be accepted. He was speaking a language of scale they could not comprehend, much like how a modern city dweller might struggle to grasp the sheer distance and population shifts in a country as vast as China. To the villagers, their flat world was a demonstrable fact; anything else was pure fantasy.
Comments