Research and Other Investigations from China

“What If the China Bubble Bursts?” – An Empty Chinese Metropolis in Time Magazine

The Ordos Real Estate Bubble: An Empty Chinese Metropolis series in Time Magazine

I’m sorry I’m so late with posting these clippings, but I have been traveling a lot recently. Last month Time Magazine featured my photographs from The Ordos Real Estate Bubble: An Empty Chinese Metropolis series in a piece on China’s precarious real estate market. Property prices have been skyrocketing over the past three years thanks to mass speculation by developers and government support of infrastructure development. For some time it was easily one of the best investments in the country and people would camp out on streets in order to buy apartments in especially hot markets in Shanghai and Sanya. Now it seems like the tide is finally going to turn. The real question is whether or not there is going to be a soft or hard landing for property prices. The China real estate sector might be most important financial market in the global economy, and a sudden pop would send international markets into a downward spiral. I don’t think this is going to happen, but people are starting to wake up and realize how overheated housing and commercial markets are in major urban centers. Many of these newfangled luxury developments remain empty and prices are starting to drop. It’s going to be interesting to see how this story unfolds over the next few months.

The Ordos Real Estate Bubble: An Empty Chinese Metropolis series in Time Magazine

The Ordos Real Estate Bubble: An Empty Chinese Metropolis

Two workers walk along a megablock development in Kangbashi, the new district of Ordos in Inner Mongolia.

The arid landscape around Ordos was never a forgiving place. Its remoteness and lack of ground water always kept growth in check. Now the Inner Mongolian mining center produces a third of China’s coal and the municipal government decided to use the extra revenues to literally build an entire new city. Located 25 kilometers west of the old town, the Kangbashi/康巴什 new district sports a museum, opera house, library, cultural center, sculpture parks, malls and endless rows of megablock housing. Designed to accomodate a population upwards to a million people, only 30,000 have decided to make the move into the newfangled developments. For now the strange new city that popped out of the sands remains largely deserted. Only a handful of locals walk amidst the abstract shapes and glass-covered malls of Kangbashi. It is one of many locations in China that point to a real estate bubble just waiting to pop.

The new and yet to be opened museum in Kangbashi, the new district of Ordos in Inner Mongolia.

Trees are planted in the arid soil in Kangbashi, the new district of Ordos in Inner Mongolia.

Luxury villas line developments in Kangbashi, the new district of Ordos in Inner Mongolia..An advertisement depicts a family literally exploding with Coke in Kangbashi, the new district of Ordos in Inner Mongolia.The new opera house incorporates Mongolian design elements in Kangbashi, the new district of Ordos in Inner Mongolia.

A local peruses an overstocked and underused deparment store in Kangbashi, the new district of Ordos in Inner Mongolia.Two security guards stand in front of a waterfront plaza in Kangbashi, the new district of Ordos in Inner Mongolia.A bed display at an overstocked department store in Kangbashi, the new district of Ordos in Inner Mongolia.

A local poses in a boat on the man-made lake in Kangbashi, the new district of Ordos in Inner Mongolia.An advertisement for a new development sports luxury cars and models in Kangbashi, the new district of Ordos in Inner Mongolia.A worker walks along a road in front of megablock developments in Kangbashi, the new district of Ordos in Inner Mongolia.

Workers rest in front of the impressive facade of the new museum in Kangbashi, the new district of Ordos in Inner Mongolia.Two massive horses rise out of the central plaza in Kangbashi, the new district of Ordos in Inner Mongolia.Workers assemble public sculptures in Kangbashi, the new district of Ordos in Inner Mongolia.

Two workers walk up a dusty road surrounded by megablock developments in Kangbashi, the new district of Ordos in Inner Mongolia.The Huge sculpture instillations dot the landscape in Kangbashi, the new district of Ordos in Inner Mongolia.