Christian Sorace 中國的幽靈城市化與鬼城的病態

Christian Sorace 中國的幽靈城市化與鬼城的病態

克裏斯蒂安·索拉西亞和威廉·赫斯特

https://content.csbs.utah.edu/~mli/Econ%205420-6420-Fall%202018/Sorace-China_s%20phantom%20urbanization.pdf

a 澳大利亞國立大學世界中國研究中心，澳大利亞；

b 美國西北大學政治學係，美國

摘要

本文考察了中國“鬼城”的形成和持續的城市擴張，旨在挑戰以農村人口向城市遷移為城市化驅動力的主流概念敘事。

文章認為，在中國“奇跡般”的城市化故事背後，隱藏著一種強大的意識形態信念，即城市增長是通往現代化和政治績效評估的“康莊大道”。地方政府擁有一套廣泛的“工具箱”來推進城市化，從行政邊界的劃定到農村土地的征用，再到對城市基礎設施擴建的投資，無所不包。

城市化似乎是所有道路最終的歸宿。事實上，地方政府不惜一切代價，甚至在經濟上也置之不理，也要建設新的城市空間。但這是為什麽呢？“幽靈城市化”的概念揭示了這樣一個過程：對於地方政府而言，構建城市的美學形態比經濟、人口或環境影響更為重要。

如今，大躍進的悲劇正在重演，而資本主義快速邁向現代化的“大躍進”則演變成了喜劇，昔日的口號“每個村莊都有一座煉鐵廠”如今變成了“每條街道都有一座摩天大樓”（齊澤克，2011，718）。

自十九世紀中葉以來，城市發展一直帶有投機性質，甚至可能更早，但中國城市發展的投機規模似乎與人類曆史上的任何時期都截然不同（Harvey 2013, 60）。

關於中國城市化的傳統觀點遵循一套標準敘事，將農村人口向城市遷移、現代化和發展等假設結合起來。隨著中國試圖從出口導向型經濟向內需型經濟轉型，城市化既吸收了投資，也創造了城市消費者，而城市消費者的消費能力往往高於農村居民（Harvey 2008, 25; Walker and Buck 2007, 50）。盡管中國房地產市場存在諸多低效和過剩問題，但投資者和觀察人士普遍認為，供應過剩的問題是暫時的，隨著越來越多的農村人口湧入城市，這些問題終將得到解決。正如經濟學家斯蒂芬·羅奇（Stephen Roach，2012）所言，中國的發展是“世界曆史上最偉大的城市化故事……根據經合組織的預測，到2030年，中國本已蓬勃發展的城市人口將增加3億以上……如今所謂的‘鬼城’將迅速成為明日繁榮的大都市區。”中國奇跡般的城市化進程和未來的經濟增長，是那些“極具韌性的敘事”（李，2009，69）之一，其基礎是“隻要你建造，他們就會來”這一神奇公式。即使是批評者，認為中國的城市化並非通過市場機製，而是通過國家主導的自上而下的規劃和強製性遷移來實現，他們仍然接受農村向城市遷移敘事的基本框架（《紐約時報》，2013年6月6日）。

然而，在中國的學術、政策和大眾話語中，一種關於“城市病態”的反敘事追蹤了高速城市發展帶來的問題，例如房屋空置、人口過密、生態破壞和基礎設施惡化（DRCSC 2012；Yin 2010）。1 事實上，許多中國學者和政策分析人士使用諸如“偽城市化”、“半城市化”（ARDHMC 2010–2011）、“冒進城市化”（Yuan 2008）以及“有城無市”（Zhu 2011）等新詞來描述這種僅在名稱和形態上類似城市的建設現象。與發展中國家常見的模式截然相反——在發展中國家，數百萬人口在缺乏城市土地或基礎設施的情況下湧入城市——中國的土地城市化和基礎設施建設速度往往遠遠超過人口的城市化速度。

“城市病理學”的論述提出了一個概念上的難題：在中國，“城市化”一詞是否仍然與一個可靠且可識別的指稱對象相連？或者，它的“定義輪廓是否已經變得難以捉摸”（Brenner 2013, 91）？我們稱之為“幽靈城市化”的概念，通過將城市外殼的構建與傳統的城市化進程剝離開來，挑戰了中國城市化敘事背後許多未經審視的假設。如果不再存在未來大批農村移民終有一天會通過某種未知的方式買得起新城市住房的神話，那麽剩下的就隻有脫離城市實踐和用途的城市形態的激增。鬼城就是這種現象的極致體現。

這正是“幽靈城市化”綜合症的一種病態表現。

中國“奇跡般”的城市化故事背後，蘊含著一種強大的意識形態信念，即城市發展是通往現代化的“康莊大道”，也是衡量政治績效的指標。地方政府擁有廣泛的“工具箱”來推進城市化，從行政邊界的劃定到農村土地的征用，再到對城市基礎設施擴張的投資，無所不包。即便城市化是被迫的、適得其反的，甚至是人為製造的，它仍然是所有道路最終的歸宿。

即便建設新的城市空間會給地方政府帶來經濟損失，他們仍然不顧一切地推進。但這是為什麽呢？我們提出的“幽靈城市化”概念，指的是這樣一種過程：對於地方政府而言，構建城市的美學形態甚至比經濟、人口或環境影響更為重要（Cartier and Tomba 2012）。

地方官員實現城市化的途徑之一是改變和“升級”一個地區的行政地位，而不一定改善其物質條件。中國社會長期以來都存在著城鄉空間涇渭分明的行政區劃。但是，如果一個地方在行政上被命名為“城市”，它就真的是一座城市嗎？這個問題並非理論上的空想，而是反映了我們傳統的概念體係與所謂“行政城市化”動態之間的滯後。一波城市化浪潮是通過行政上的更名和升級實現的，例如將“鎮”改稱為“市”，將“縣”改稱為“縣市”，將“地級市”改稱為“地級市”（Ma 2005; Lin and Ho 2005; Bulag 2002）。Ulfstjerne 和 de Muynck (2012, 2) 指出：“將某些地方貼上‘城市’的標簽一直是中國加速全國城市化和現代化進程的手段之一。”行政上的城市化提高了城市空間的統計比例，但未必改變了相關地區的實際情況。

城市化的另一種途徑是構建城市表象，其外表看似一座城市，但其華麗的外表之下卻缺乏城市生活所需的基本基礎設施和經濟條件，甚至在某些情況下，連居民都缺乏。在中國，城市化是人們對現代化的渴望，並且常常以審美奇觀的形式出現（Ren 2012, 20-22; Harvey 2013, 60）。Bulag（2002, 198）認為，“城市”一詞的魔力在於它能成為“通往現代化的捷徑”，尤其是在欠發達地區和少數民族地區，城市“被譽為驅散現代化失敗陰影的靈丹妙藥”。Yeh（2013）關於西藏領土化政治的研究也關注到城市景觀被“視為國家發展饋贈”的現象。城市既是建構的產物，也是人們想象的對象。正如“在當代藝術語境下，創作藝術即展示藝術”（Groys 2009, 1）一樣，在中國的城市化進程中，建造一座城市即展示一座城市。因此，正如Harvey（2013, 60）所評論的，“如今在中國內陸地區，我們可以找到一些全新的城市，但幾乎沒有居民，也沒有任何實際活動。”

城市立麵的例子比比皆是。在東北的遼寧省，一片沼澤地被排幹，用於建造鐵嶺新城。由於缺乏足夠的就業機會，“鐵嶺新城實際上成了一座鬼城……那些本應創造當地就業機會的企業並沒有出現。沒有工作，人們就沒有動力搬到那裏。” 具有諷刺意味的是，2009年，鐵嶺新城因“提供完善的現代化生活空間”而獲得了聯合國人類住區規劃署的特別表彰（《華爾街日報》，2013年8月8日）。然而，正如聯合國和鐵嶺市政府似乎都忘記的那樣，“城鎮化並非統計數據的問題。

那些留在小城鎮、養家糊口的人在大城市工作，留下的兒童和老人並非真正的城市居民。那些名義上是城市居民，卻沒有謀生手段的人也並非真正的城市居民”（China.org，2010年8月28日）。

另一種“幽靈城市化”的美學變體是建造著名城市的複製品。

浙江省於2007年建成的天都城，原本計劃建成一座擁有1萬居民的微縮版巴黎。然而，如今它卻被認為是一座“鬼城”（雅虎新聞，2013年8月5日）。天津市政府正在建造一座名為餘家堡的曼哈頓複製品（美國國家公共廣播電台，2013年11月13日）。除了複製城市之外，中國還參與了生態城市的建設（Caprotti 2014, 7–9），例如中國和新加坡政府合作在天津濱海新區建設的生態城市。到2013年，據報道，這座生態城市已淪為又一個空洞的“鬼城”（《金融評論》，2013年7月20日）。

盡管這些“被忽視的”教訓表明形式並不代表實質，但中國對城市形態的癡迷依然存在。

中國太平洋建設集團與蘭州市政府合作，宣布計劃夷平700座山（超過500平方英裏的土地），為“蘭州新區”這一大型城市和工業開發項目騰出空間。學者和官員對“在沙漠中心建設一座新城”的財務風險表示擔憂（《衛報》，2012年12月6日），並擔心它有可能成為中國下一個國際知名的“鬼城”。

幽靈般的城市化機器 傳統上，學者們將“大規模土地轉換”解讀為“由移民驅動的城市化的結果”（Lin and Yi 2011, 52）。近年來，這種將移民視為城市化因果變量的傳統觀點已被另一種觀點所取代，即“資本積累的邏輯和動力”（Lin and Yi 2011, 50）驅動著全球乃至中國城市化進程的空間重構。近期的學術研究提供了新的概念工具、解釋機製，並詳細描述了城市空間如何與地方政府、房地產開發商和私人投機者的收入相互依存，共同擴張。

根據 Hsing (2010, 7) 的觀點，“地方積累依賴於銷售和開發，而地方政府機構也隨著城市擴張而壯大。”

也就是說，地方政府依賴土地收入來維持財政償付能力，並擴大其權力基礎。Rithmire (2013) 進一步指出，宏觀經濟改革的先後順序、優惠的國家政策以及獲得外國資本的途徑，都會影響地方政府采取的不同土地開發策略。Lin (2009) 描述了一種“通過剝奪進行積累”的過程，即高價值地段的房屋被拆除，居民僅獲得少量補償，取而代之的是利潤豐厚的開發項目。這些旨在改變城市經濟和美學構成的嚐試，偶爾會受到“釘子戶”（Shin 2013）的挑戰，這些“釘子戶”指的是拒絕放棄房產的當地居民。事實上，資本流動的邏輯和模式已經取代了農村向城市遷移的邏輯，成為中國快速空間重組的因果變量。

即使是那些不依賴城市建設收入的富裕地方政府，仍然在擴張城市景觀方麵擁有既得的政治利益——將其作為政治權力的視覺展示和現代化發展的壯觀美學證據。在內蒙古鄂爾多斯地級市（下文將討論）等地區，地方政府從煤炭和天然氣中獲得的意外之財被用於建設一座新的“速成城市”（Pond 2010/2011），損害了地方政府的財政健康。“鬼城”隻是最直觀的“證明地方建設是為了盈利，而不是為了人”（Ulfstjerne and de Muynck 2012, 6）的證據。事實上，有些城鎮的建設僅僅是為了維持體麵（即便造成財政虧損）。

究竟是什麽在城市化？

中國學術界普遍認為，土地城鎮化的速度遠超人口城鎮化。根據內部刊物《中國區域經濟參考》（2011年）的一篇文章指出：“……土地城鎮化與人口城鎮化不協調——土地城鎮化速度遠遠超過人口城鎮化速度。” 2013年3月，國家國土資源局副局長胡存誌在一次講座中警告說：“過去20年，人口城鎮化明顯滯後。1990年至2000年，土地城鎮化速度是人口城鎮化速度的1.71倍……

2000年至2010年，這一速度上升至1.85倍……這表明土地正在被浪費，城市擴張速度過快。”（引自《財經》，2013年3月31日） 2013年8月，國家發展和改革委員會城市發展中心副主任錢潤玲再次發出警告，稱“中國現在存在城市過剩問題”。她援引的統計數據是：“2000年至2010年，城市建設用地增長了83.41%，而同期城鎮人口僅增長了45.12%”（新華社，2013年8月10日）。國家國土資源局法律中心主任王（2013）則直言不諱地指出：“空城和鬼城是土地城鎮化而人口城鎮化的極端現象”。中國荒涼的鬼城和廢棄的開發項目生動地印證了馬克思（2007，67）所說的“死物對人的完全支配”。

甚至華爾街的房地產分析師也借用了馬克思的比喻。當開發項目中住房供應過剩時，開發商會將這些“未消化”的房產存量歸類為“待售房產”。

所謂“空置土地”和“僵屍土地”。根據花旗集團中國房地產部門的一份內部報告，截至2012年7月，中國主要房地產開發公司23%的土地儲備處於“死亡”狀態（花旗集團，2012，2-3）。這不包括作為投資購買但未居住的房產，也不包括故意未完工以在房地產開發公司的賬簿上被列為“資產”而非“負債”的房產。

最後，它也不包括因資金短缺而停工至少一年的未完工建設項目。雖然目前尚無關於此類“爛尾樓”的係統性數據，但一些零散的報告表明，這種現象十分普遍。然而，要準確確定這些問題的嚴重程度，在政治上仍然十分敏感，在實踐中也難以實現。

事實上，即使是“空置/閑置住房”（更不用說更廣泛的“鬼城”現象）的定義，也是一個頗具爭議的技術問題。爭議的焦點在於，空置住房的衡量標準究竟是采用“存量”還是“增量”。

“存量”法將空置住房定義為空置房屋總麵積與中國住房總麵積之比。“增量”法則將空置住房定義為新建開發項目中空置住房麵積與同期新建住房總麵積之比。然而，這兩種方法都存在不足。

此外，對於由哪個政府機構負責收集和規範中國空置住房率的數據，目前也未達成共識。建設部、國家統計局、住房管理局等機構都提出了各自的訴求，甚至有人提議設立一個專門機構，其唯一職責就是收集空置住房總麵積的數據。模糊不清的定義和行政上的混亂使得“幽靈城市化”問題——以及其以“鬼城”形式呈現的病態表現——難以界定、衡量，更遑論加以控製。

李克強總理將新型的“以人為本”的城鎮化作為政府經濟綱領的核心。其目標是實現農民到城市居民的轉變，保障他們的物質福利，並為他們提供穩定的職業。預期結果是治愈“城市病態”，並刺激國內消費（參見Sorace 2014）。然而，中央政府的“良好意願”卻受到現實的製約，因為城鎮化是地方政府重要的財政命脈。如果黨想要實現以人為本的和諧城鎮化目標，就必須徹底改革中國國家和地方的財政結構，以取代目前以征地和房地產開發為基礎的資本積累和收入攫取模式，這將挑戰許多既得利益集團對現狀的維護。

這樣一來，將會形成怎樣的城市環境？

許多城市發展項目缺乏完善的城市基礎設施，例如交通、教育和醫療設施，以及就業機會。朱（2011）指出，“大規模建設忽視了提高城市居民的收入和生活質量”。對地方政府而言，擴張城市空間可以實現兩個關鍵目標：獲取財政資本和打造令人矚目的政績。隻要建成類似城市的雛形，它是否充滿活力、以人為本、經濟可持續就無關緊要了：“在追求GDP和政治成就的背景下，重要的是搭建城市的框架；其內部如何填充、填充什麽都無關緊要”（袁2008，7）。

除了財政上的考量，城市化還會帶來許多有害的社會和經濟影響。何和吳（2009）探討了“新自由主義城市化”，並著重分析了中國城市化進程中的階級動態。就連花旗銀行似乎也認同，“中國房地產市場存在嚴重的供需不匹配問題。大部分供應集中在高端/豪華住宅，而中低端住宅的供應不足”（花旗2011，20）。對於地方政府而言，高端住宅的投資回報最高（以土地出售和未來稅收的形式體現）。正如米爾肯研究院的一份報告所指出的，“地方政府尤其不願為經濟適用房項目提供土地，因為此類開發會吸引周邊地區的低收入居民，並給公共設施和現有基礎設施帶來越來越大的壓力”（Barth、Lea 和 Li，2012，15）。這種對豪華住宅領域的集中表明存在大規模的投機和過度投資（Gaulard，2013，10）。

需求集中在富裕階層手中。在中國房地產市場，需求分為兩類：投資型住房和自住型住房。許多市民渴望擁有城市住房自住，但缺乏足夠的資源購房。供應往往迎合投資型住房的需求，導致平均房價居高不下，越來越多的人因此買不起房。事實上，盡管收入不斷增長，但“收入增長速度與房價上漲速度之間存在著令人擔憂的差距”（Gaulard 2013, 5）。這給樂觀主義者帶來了挑戰，也對房地產市場的未來發展提出了挑戰。

China’s Phantom Urbanisation and the Pathology of Ghost Cities

Christian Soracea and William Hurstb

https://content.csbs.utah.edu/~mli/Econ%205420-6420-Fall%202018/Sorace-China_s%20phantom%20urbanization.pdf

a Australian Centre on China in the World, The Australian National University, Australia;

b Department of Political Science, Northwestern University, USA 

ABSTRACT
This article examines the production of China’s “ghost cities” and constant urban expansion to challenge the dominant conceptual narrative of rural-to-urban migration as the driver of urbanisation.

It argues that behind China's “miraculous” urbanisation story is a powerful ideological commitment to urban growth as the “royal road” to modernity and assessment of political performance. Local governments have a wide-ranging “tool-kit” for pursuing urbanisation, ranging from administrative border-drawing to expropriation of rural land and investment in expanding urban infrastructures.

Urbanisation is the destination to which all paths seem to lead. Indeed, local states pursue the construction of new urban space, even when doing so harms them financially. But why? The concept of phantom urbanisation names the process whereby constructing the aesthetic form of the urban is even more important to local state actors than economic, demographic or environmental repercussions.

Today the tragedy of the Great Leap Forward is repeating as the comedy of the rapid capitalist Great Leap Forward into modernization, with the old slogan “an iron foundry in every village” reemerging as “a skyscraper on every street” (?i?ek 2011, 718).

Urban development since the mid-nineteenth century, if not before, has always been speculative, but the speculative scale of the Chinese development seems to be of an entirely different order than anything before in human history (Harvey 2013, 60).

The conventional wisdom regarding China’s urbanisation follows a standard narrative, combining assumptions regarding rural-to-urban migration, modernisation and development. As China attempts to transition from an export-driven economy to one based on domestic consumption, urbanisation both absorbs investment and creates urban consumers, who tend to consume more than their rural counterparts (Harvey 2008, 25; Walker and Buck 2007, 50). Even though China’s property market is plagued with myriad inefficiencies and excesses, investors and observers alike have tended to see over-supply problems as temporary, to be resolved as ever-more rural villagers migrate to China’s cities. In the words of economist Stephen Roach (2012), China’s development is “the greatest urbanisation story the world has ever seen. . .[A]ccording to OECDprojections, China’s already burgeoning urban population should expand by more than 300 million by 2030. . . today’s so-called ghost cities quickly become tomorrow’s thriving metropolitan areas.” China’s miraculous urbanisation story and future economic growth are one of those “remarkably resilient narratives” (Li 2009, 69) that rest on the magical formula “if you build it, they will come.” Even critics, who argue that China’s urbanisation is not occurring through market mechanisms but by state-led top-down planning and forced migration, still accept the basic co-ordinates of the rural-to-urban migration narrative (The New York Times, June 6, 2013).

In China’s scholarly, policy and popular discourses, however, a counter-narrative of “urban pathologies” tracks the problems caused by high-speed urban development, such as empty housing, population overcrowding, ecological destruction and deteriorating infrastructures (DRCSC 2012; Yin 2010).1 Indeed, many Chinese scholars and policy analysts use neologisms like “fake urbanisation” [偽城市化], “half urbanisation" [半城市化] (ARDHMC 2010–2011), “impetuous urbanisation” [冒進城市化] (Yuan 2008), and urbanisation yielding a “city without a city” [有城無市 – literally, walls without a market] (Zhu 2011) to describe the phenomenon of building what resembles a city in name and morphology only. In a stark reversal of patterns typical across the developing world – where millions of people urbanise in the absence of urbanised land or infrastructure – China’s urbanisation of land and creation of infrastructure often far outpace the urbanisation of its people.

The discourse of “urban pathology” poses a conceptual quandary: does the term “urbanisation” in China still connect to a reliable and identifiable referent? Or, might its “definitional contours have become unmanageably slippery” (Brenner 2013, 91)? What we call phantom urbanisation challenges many unexamined assumptions behind China’s urbanisation narrative by disentangling the production of an urban carapace from traditional processes of urbanisation. Without the myth of future waves of rural
migrants who will some day by some unspecified means afford new urban housing, what remains is the proliferation of urban forms divorced from urban practices and uses. Ghost cities are the extreme pathological expression of this syndrome of phantom urbanisation.

Behind China’s “miraculous” urbanisation story is a powerful ideological commitment to urban growth as the “royal road” to modernity and assessment of political performance [政績]. Local governments have a wide-ranging “tool-kit” for pursuing urbanisation, ranging from administrative border-drawing to expropriation of rural land and investment in expanding urban infrastructures. Even when urbanisation is forced, counter-productive, or fabricated, it is the destination to which all paths lead.

Even when building new urban space is financially detrimental to local states, they pursue it regardless. But why? Our concept of phantom urbanisation names the process whereby constructing the aesthetic form of the urban is even more important to local state actors than economic, demographic or environmental repercussions (Cartier and Tomba 2012).

One pathway to urbanisation for local officials is to change and “upgrade” the
administrative status of a locality, without necessarily improving its material condition. Chinese society has long been marked by the sharp administrative separation of urban and rural spaces. But, if a place is named a city administratively, is it thus a city? This question is not theoretical navel-gazing, but the mark of a lag between ourconventional conceptual apparatus and a dynamic of so-called urbanisation by administrative fiat. A wave of urbanisation occurred via the administrative re-naming and upgrading of town to city (zhen gai shi 鎮改市), county to municipality (xian gai shi 縣改市) and prefecture to municipality (di gai shi 地改市) (Ma 2005; Lin and Ho 2005; Bulag 2002). Ulfstjerne and de Muynck (2012, 2) observe that: “The labeling of places as ‘cities’ has been part of China’s means toward quickening urbanisation and modernization processes throughout China.” Administrative urbanisation inflates the statistical percentage of urban space, without necessarily changing the reality of the places involved.
Another route to urbanisation is to construct an urban façade, which resembles a city externally, but lacks basic infrastructural and economic requirements for city life, or, in some cases, even people, behind its showy exterior. In China, urbanisation is a scene of desire for modernity and can often take the form of aesthetic spectacle (Ren 2012, 20-22; Harvey 2013, 60). According to Bulag (2002, 198), the “magic of the term city” functions as “a short-cut to modernity” especially in underdeveloped and minority regions where it is “hailed to exorcise the haunted failure of modernization.” Yeh’s (2013) work on the politics of territorialisation in Tibet also draws attention to the representation of urban
landscapes “as gifts of development from the state.” The city is a conjured object as much as a constructed one. Just as, “in the context of contemporary art, to make art is to show art” (Groys 2009, 1), in China’s urbanisation process, to make a city is to show a city. Thus, as Harvey (2013, 60) comments, “whole new cities, with hardly any residents or real activities as yet, can now be found in the Chinese interior.”
Examples of urban façades are common. In the Northeastern Province of liaoning, a marshland was drained to construct Tieling New City. Lacking adequate employment opportunities, “Tieling New City is virtually a ghost town. . . The businesses that were supposed to create local employment haven’t materialized. Without jobs there is little incentive to move there.” Ironically, in 2009, Tieling New City won a special mention from the United Nations (UN) Human Settlements Program for “providing a well-developed and modern living space” (The Wall Street Journal, August 8, 2013). Still, as both the UN and Tieling City Government apparently forgot, “urbanisation is not a matter of statistics.
Children and old people left behind in small towns while breadwinners work in big cities are not genuine city dwellers. Neither are people who are formally urban residents but have no means of making a living” (China.org, August 28, 2010).
Another aesthetic variation of phantom urbanisation is the building of replicas of
famous cities. The city Tianducheng, built in Zhejiang Province in 2007, was meant to be a miniature Paris with 10,000 residents. It is now, however, considered a “ghost city”(Yahoo News, August 5, 2013). Tianjin Municipality is in the process of building a replica of Manhattan called Yujiapu (National Public Radio, November 13, 2013). In addition to replica cities, China has engaged in the construction of eco-cities (Caprotti 2014, 7–9), such as the joint venture between the governments of China and Singapore to construct an eco-city situated in Tianjian’s Binhai New Area. By 2013, the eco-city was reported to be another ghostly hollow urban landscape (Financial Review, July 20, 2013).
Despite these “unheeded” lessons that form does not guarantee substance, China’s obsession with the urban form persists. China Pacific Construction Group, working in tandem with the Lanzhou government, announced plans to flatten 700 mountains (over500 square miles of land) to make way for the “The Lanzhou New Area,” a massive urban and industrial development. Scholars and officials have raised concerns over the “financial risk of building a new city in the middle of a desert” (The Guardian, December 6, 2012) and its potential to become China’s next internationally infamous ghost city.
The phantom urbanisation machine Traditionally, scholars have interpreted, “massive land conversion as a consequence of urbanisation driven by migration” (Lin and Yi 2011, 52). The conventional view of migration as the causal variable of urbanisation has been replaced in recent years by the argument that “the logic and dynamics of capital accumulation” (Lin and Yi 2011, 50) drive the spatial reconfigurations of the urbanisation process globally, as well as in China. Recent scholarship has provided new conceptual tools, explanatory
mechanisms and detailed accounts of how urban space expands in symbiosis with the revenues of local governments, real estate developers and private speculators.

According to Hsing (2010, 7), “Local accumulation is dependent on sales and
development, while the local state apparatus grows along with urban expansion.”
That is, local governments are dependent on land revenue for their fiscal solvency
and augmentation of their power-base. Rithmire (2013) argues further that the
sequencing of macro-economic reforms, preferential national policies and access to foreign capital influences the different land development strategies adopted by local states. Lin (2009) describes a process of “accumulation through dispossession” whereby homes in high-value locations are demolished with low compensation provided to their residents and replaced by lucrative development projects. These attempts to transform the economic and aesthetic composition of the city are occasionally challenged by “nail houses” (Shin 2013), local residents who refuse to abandon their property. The logic and pattern of capital flows has indeed replaced the logic of rural-to-urban migration as the causal variable of China’s rapid spatial reorganisation.

Even wealthy local municipal governments that do not depend on revenue from
urban construction still have vested political interests in expanding the urban landscape –as a visual display of political power and spectacular aesthetic evidence ofmodernising development. In areas like Inner Mongolia’s Ordos Prefecture-Level Municipality (discussed below), the local state’s windfall revenues from coal and natural gas were channelled into the construction of a new “insta-city” (Pond 2010/ 2011), to the detriment of local state fiscal health. Ghost cities are only the most visible “proof that place can be built for profit, not people” (Ulfstjerne and de Muynck 2012, 6). In fact, they are sometimes built just to keep up appearances (even at a fiscal loss).

What is being urbanised?

There is a consensus in China’s scholarly community that land is being urbanised [土地城鎮化] at a much faster rate than people. According to an article in the internal (內部, circulated only to government officials or Party members of sufficient rank) publication Chinese Regional Economy Reference (2011): “. . .the urbanisation of land and theurbanisation of population are uncoordinated – the urbanisation of land far exceeds the urbanisation of the population.” During a March 2013 lecture, Deputy Minister Hu Cunzhi of the National Land and Natural Resources Bureau warned that: “over the past 20 years, population urbanisation has clearly lagged behind. From 1990–2000, the speed of land urbanisation was 1.71 times faster than the speed of population urbanisation. . .

From 2000–2010, this trend increased to 1.85 times as fast. . . This demonstrates land is being wasted and urban expansion is happening too fast” (cited in Caijing, March 31, 2013). This warning was reiterated again in August 2013 by Qian Runling, Deputy Director of the China Center for Urban Development under the National Development and Reform Commission, who claimed that, “China now has an oversupply of cities,”based on the statistic that “land used for urban construction rose by 83.41 percent from 2000 to 2010, while the urban population saw an increase of 45.12 percent in that period” (Xinhua, August 10, 2013). The Director of the National Land and Natural Resources Bureau Law Center put it starkly: “empty cities [空城] and ghost cities [鬼城市] are extreme phenomena of land urbanisation without population urbanisation”(Wang 2013). China’s desolate ghost cities and abandoned development projects vividly display Marx’s (2007, 67) reference to the “complete domination of dead matter over man.”

Even Wall Street real estate analysts have borrowed Marx’s metaphors. When housing oversupply accumulates in a development project, developers classify such “undigested” property stock as “dead landbanks” and “zombie landbanks.” According to a confidential report from the China Property division of Citi, 23% of China’s major real estate development firms’ landbanks were “dead” as of July 2012 (Citi 2012, 2–3). This does not include properties purchased as investments but not lived in. It is also excludes properties remaining intentionally unfinished so as to be classified as “assets” instead of liabilities”
on the books of real estate development companies. Finally, it does not account for construction projects abandoned for at least one year and unfinished due to lack of funds. While no systematic data on such “broken tail buildings” [爛尾樓] are available, anecdotal reports suggest that the phenomenon is pervasive. Yet pinning down the precise extent of these problems remains politically sensitive and practically difficult.

Indeed, even defining “empty/idle housing” (let alone the broader phenomenon of ghost cities) is a controversial technical matter. The crux of the controversy is whether to measure empty housing by “reserves” (存量) or with an “incremental” (增量) metric.

The “reserves” method defines idle housing as the ratio of the total surface area of idle apartments to the total surface area of China’s entire housing stock. The “incremental”metric defines idle housing as the ratio of the surface area of vacant housing in newly constructed development projects to the total surface area of new housing stock constructed during the same period of time. Both methods, however, are imperfect.

There is also no agreement over which governmental agency should be in charge of compiling and standardising data on China’s idle housing rate. Competing claims have been made on behalf of the Ministry of Construction, National Statistics Bureau, Housing Management Bureau, as well as for the creation of a specialised bureau, whose sole institutional mandate would be to collect data on the total surface area of idle housing. The combination of muddled definitions and an administrative morass make the problem of phantom urbanisation – and its pathological expression in the form of ghost cities – frustratingly difficult to chart or measure, let alone rein in.

Prime Minister Li Keqiang has promoted a new-type of “People-Oriented
Urbanisation” as the centrepiece of the administration’s economic platform. This is intended to turn peasants into urban citizens [從農民到市民的轉換], guarantee their material welfare [福利的保障], and provide them with stable employment opportunities [穩定職業]. The hoped-for result is a cure for “urban pathologies” and stimulus for domestic consumption (see Sorace 2014). The “good intentions” of the central state, however, are constrained by the reality that urbanisation is the key financial lifeline for local governments. If the Party wants to achieve its goal of a harmonious peoplecentred urbanisation, China’s national and local financial structure would need to be completely overhauled to replace the current model of capital accumulation and revenue extraction based on land requisition and real estate development, challenging many vested interests in the status quo.

What kind of urban environments are produced?

Many urban development projects lack proper urban infrastructures such as transportation, educational and medical facilities, as well as employment opportunities. According to Zhu (2011), “large-scale construction neglects to improve the incomes and living quality of urban residents.” For local governments, expanding urban space achieves the two key goals of securing fiscal capital and creating an impressive political achievement record [政績]. As long as something resembling a city is built, it does not matter whether or not it will be vibrant, people-oriented and economically sustainable: “in the context of pursuing GDP as well as political achievements, it is only important to build the frame of the city; it is not important how its insides [內容物] are padded or with what” (Yuan 2008, 7).

Beyond fiscal imperatives, urbanisation produces many deleterious social and economic effects. He and Wu (2009) discuss “neoliberal urbanism,” calling attention to the class dynamics of China’s urbanisation. Even Citibank seems to agree that, “the China property market has a severe problem of supply mismatch. Most of the supply focuses on high/luxury end whilst the supply of low-to-middle housing is not enough” (Citi 2011, 20). For local governments, high-end housing provides the highest returns (in the form of land sales and future tax revenues) on investment. As a Milken Institute report argues, “local authorities are especially reluctant to provide land for affordable housing projects because such development attracts low-income residents from surrounding regions and puts ever more pressure on public utilities and existing infrastructure”(Barth, Lea, and Li 2012, 15). Such concentration in luxury residential sectors is indicative of massive speculation and over-investment (Gaulard 2013, 10).
Concentrated demand in the hands of the wealthy In the Chinese property market, there are two types of demand: for housing as an investment and for housing to live in. There are also many citizens who desire urban housing to live in but lack sufficient resources to purchase any. Supply tends to cater to demand for housing as an investment, keeping average housing prices high enough that more and more people are simply priced out of the market. Indeed, despite rising incomes, there is an alarming “gap between the rate at which incomes are growing and the increase in property prices” (Gaulard 2013, 5). This challenges the optimistic and