Why does China have so many empty skyscrapers?

The phrase “ghost city” might imply a city once full of life and now abandoned. But China's ghost cities are brand new, and their high-rises never populated. Many had remained that way for years, byproducts of rapid economic growth that continue to plague the nation's urban planning strategy.



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Because rents are so low, many investors have not bothered to finish apartments over the past decade, holding newly built but hollow shells in the expectation of flipping them for ever-higher prices. By some estimates, Chinese cities now have 65 million to 80 million empty apartments.

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Cities in the United States were traditionally made up of low-rise buildings, but significant economic growth after the American Civil War and increasingly intensive use of urban land encouraged the development of taller buildings beginning in the 1870s.

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The primary reason is the need for space, both residential and commercial, in urban areas. Globally, about 10 million people move to urban areas each month. Some very large cities don't have much land available to build on, driving developers to build tall, supertall or even megatall buildings.

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