The China “ghost cities” thing is so funny. Aside from all of the stories published about them only to see a few years later that all of the buildings are fully occupied, what really makes me laugh is that none of the westerners bringing up ghost cities ever talk about housing in their own country as a comparison.

So tell me then western millennial, do you own a home? No? That’s fine, not everybody wants to own a home. So if renting is your preferable alternative, it must be cheap then? No, and you don’t prefer to rent? Huh, well that must mean a lot of other people would prefer to own a home, so the housing situation is almost certainly adapting to current conditions to make affordable homes readily available? Also no? In that case, surely the housing crisis is being addressed by your government with the sole purpose of providing homes, not just building to benefit speculators and landlords, right? Still no? Hmmmm well now a ghost city is suddenly starting to sound like a highly preferable situation.