China ghost cities

[TonyHavana]

Extremely off-topic I know, but quite incredible.

http://www.businessinsider.com/pictures-chinese-ghost-cities-2010-12?slop=1

There doesn't seem to be a lot of info on these places...yet

[rogerspeed]

amazing!

[Colin]

I saw this. It is amazing to me that any "People's Republic" could legitimately become the world's "second largest economy." The fact remains that, by and large, most of the chinese population still live in pretty extreme poverty. The average GDP per capita is something like $7,500/yr. When you combine that with these ghost towns, does all the BS about how China will overtake the US economy in the next 10 years make sense?

By every measure, China is a good 100 years behind the U.S. They are entering their industrial age. If their economy is to truly grow the 3x necessary to overtake ours, it would require a MASSIVE effort to bring most of their people out of poverty, educate them, and get them into more skilled jobs.

I don't see that happening in my life time, let alone the next 10 years.

Oh, and they'll have to develop some sort of a real democracy to properly handle everything, too.

Call me skeptical, but I just don't get Wall Street and the Media "hype" about China. For 50 years now, people have been saying how China will be the next big thing.