As sprawling housing developments and skyscrapers in one of the world’s most populous countries, these tower blocks and recently-built neighbourhoods should be busy and swarming with people.
But on closer inspection these stunning pictures show elaborate public buildings and open spaces which are left completely empty.
The most recent pictures of unused housing emerged as China announced plans to build 20 cities a year for the next 20 years.
Soulless cities: Despite being unable to find buyers for the hundreds of millions of new homes, China plans to build 20 cities a year for the next 20 years
Property to let: Rows of neat, newly-built houses like these in Jiangsu are becoming more common in China
Desolate: These skyscraper in Chenggong, where there are already 100,00 new homes, should be bustling with life but are instead empty
And despite pictures last year showing some of the reported 64 million empty homes, Chinese authorities have since erected masses more buildings.
Gillem Tulloch, an aanlyst for Forensic Asia Limited, described one of the areas in Chenggong, as a ‘forest of skyscrapers’.
‘China consumes more steel, iron ore and cement per capita than any industrial nation in history.
Unused: Another vacant development in Jiangsu contains well over 100 new properties
Plenty of room spare: Experts have said some of the developments are like a ‘forest of skyscrapers’
‘It’s all going to railways that will never make money, roads that no one drives on and cities that no one lives in.
‘It’s like walking into a forest of skyscrapers, but they’re all empty.’
Chinese government think tank have warned that the country’s real estate bubble is getting worse, with property prices in major cities overvalued by as much as 70 per cent.
Tulloch said that apartments in Chenggong, a fishing village near Hong Kong, were selling for up to $80,000.
Many of the developments like this one in Ordos, China, have swathes of newly-created public space completely unused by anyone
Zhengzhou New District residential towers: Soaring property prices in China and high levels of investment has fuelled the construction of up several new cities. Experts fear a subsequent property crash could damage the global economy
Property bubble: Zhengzhou New District features vast public buildings that have never been used
He added: ‘People there were joking that no one in Denaya could afford to live there. If these apartments sell at all, it is to speculators.’
Of the 35 major cities surveyed last year, property prices in eleven including Beijing and Shanghai were between 30 and 50 per cent above their market value, the China Daily said, citing the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
Prices in Fuzhou, capital of the southeastern province of Fujian, had the worst property bubble with average house prices more than 70 per cent higher than their market value, according to the survey conducted in September.
The average price in the 35 cities surveyed was nearly 30 per cent above the market value, the report said.
Source : dailymail
