2016-05-26

How to Exorcise a Ghost City

Ordos local government moved into its ghost city office space in the Kang Bashi district years ago, and with some schools in the area, some parents have bought homes and stabilized the home prices in parts of the city, but it's otherwise still very empty.
Despite the development of construction projects too hot, popularity did not keep up. From the entrance to the city hall Wulanmulun river artificial lake area, in this distribution of five squares, the central axis of the two parks, few people go through.

In order to boost popularity here, the local government to spare no effort. As early as 2003, the Ordos city government decided to move to the construction had not yet started Kang Bashi. After the 2006 municipal government officially moved, municipal authorities, the hospital gradually settled. By the end of 2015, Ordos City, the Third People's Congress twenty-third session, agreed to set up Kang Bashi district.

Affiliated with Beijing Normal University, the school settled, the city moved to a secondary school, a collection of 20 schools became Ordos Kang Bashi Education Center, which effectively attracts not let children lose at the starting line of the parents. Wu Qian (a pseudonym) daughter in a small city located Kangbashi school second grade, in order to allow the children to school, she bought a nearby school district room, open every day will have its own car more than 30 km road to the old city to work. Ranked among the best in Inner Mongolia Erdos City also led to a real estate market around the school, the school across the district has kept more than 8000 yuan per square meter prices.

For some older residents can Dongsheng is their habitual residence. Power Supply Bureau Yang retired workers living in their home located in Kang Bashi's daughter, he must return trip a week old home is located in the old city. Shen Xu also found that , the sales office where their every weekend becomes desolate, because people are back to the Old City.
iFeng: 探访中国最大鬼城:市政府迁入仍空空荡荡

Forbes: China's Largest Ghost City Is Now Almost Completely Full - But There's A Twist
What makes Ordos Kangbashi even more mysterious than being a completely new city built out in the middle of the desert is the fact that the place is yet to be recognized as an administrative entity in its own right. Although this new city currently has a vibrant downtown area full of shops and restaurants, along with a population approaching 100,000 people, in the view of Beijing it doesn’t exist. However, Kangbashi’s administration is attempting to change this by petitioning the capital for county-level city status, which, when granted, will formally put the place on the map.

The interesting thing is that Kangbashi’s application for official recognition conspicuously leaves out the area to the south of the Wulanmulun River. This, perhaps not coincidentally, happens to be where the majority of its empty housing is located. Essentially, by snipping off this area from Kangbashi proper, the place suddenly becomes almost completely inhabited, having just four or five under-occupied housing complexes. So much for that ghost city critique.

...But this may mean that those of us in media need to update our narrative: Kangbashi is no longer the ghost city, Yijinhuoluo is.

No comments:

Post a Comment