Why Is China Building a City That Nobody Needs?

Overview

China’s plan to build Shungan (also spelled “Shingang/Shongan” in the subtitles)—about 60 miles from Beijing—is portrayed as a massive, expensive attempt to relieve Beijing’s overcrowding and pollution by shifting part of the population and key institutions to a new “future city.”

The video argues the project failed because it was planned top-down and built infrastructure before demand, creating an enormous ghost city that solved little and generated new problems.

Core problem Beijing needed to fix

• Beijing’s scale is described as so dense that accommodating everyone at once would require handling extreme crowding, along with too many cars and too much demand for limited space.
• The plan was also framed as a response to:
  • Transportation congestion, including slow intersections and heavy commuting pressure.
  • Air pollution, driven largely by car emissions and worsened by industrial pollution drifting in from nearby areas.

The proposal: move people and functions to a “smart” new city

Authorities planned to transfer residents, universities, companies, and government institutions gradually to a new city to “take pressure off” Beijing.

The video also claims early consultations generated public support, including interest from:

• Beijing residents, and
• locals in the area where the new city would be built.

What actually happened: Shungan became an “enormous ghost town”

After years of construction, the city is depicted as largely empty, with:

• Empty streets
• Closed shops
• Finished neighborhoods that still feel unoccupied
• A major railway station operating far below design capacity, often shown as nearly deserted

The video emphasizes that Beijing remained overcrowded, while the new city added additional costs and complications.

Why people didn’t move (or couldn’t)

Even when companies or universities relocated, the video highlights several barriers:

• Students and workers faced a tradeoff:
  • staying in Beijing for education/careers and family life, versus
  • moving to a city that didn’t yet provide a fully functioning urban experience.
• For locals displaced by construction:
  • Even with compensation, many lost livelihoods tied to land and local economic ecosystems.
  • They were not effectively prepared for what life would be like in the new city.

Structural design failure: demand didn’t match infrastructure

Shungan is described as covering a large area (about 680 square miles, with a smaller initial staged zone), including extensive residential, office, and transportation infrastructure—yet without enough residents or businesses.

This created a vicious cycle:

• Few residents → low customer demand → fewer businesses → fewer jobs → even fewer residents

Resource and environmental constraints worsened the problem

The video argues the location intensified challenges:

• Low-lying terrain near a major wetland/lake created flood risk, requiring ongoing protection/drainage spending.
• The broader region already faced a water shortage.
• Shungan’s expected growth would significantly increase water demand, further straining supply.

Economic mismatch: jobs didn’t materialize at the right levels

The video claims job opportunities remained limited:

• Lower-tier service/retail work at the bottom
• Fewer higher-paying roles that required skills more aligned with government and major firms

This allegedly left a “gap” between what local people could access and what was actually available. It also notes that:

• Housing and consumer costs could be high while wages were not, making relocation less attractive.

A pattern compared to other Chinese “ghost city” developments

Critics are said to compare Shungan to earlier examples such as Kangbashi, where infrastructure was built faster than people moved in.

A study cited in the video estimates:

• Hundreds or over a thousand ghost neighborhoods across China
• Housing capacity for millions
• Yet lacking the permanent residents and job ecosystems that make cities function

How this strategy differs from China’s earlier successes (Shenzhen and Pudong)

The video contrasts Shungan with:

• Shenzhen
• Pudong

Those areas succeeded by creating engines of jobs and investment. The video argues Shungan lacked advantages Shenzhen and Pudong had, such as:

• Geographic/commercial proximity
  • Shenzhen’s proximity to Hong Kong
  • Pudong’s location across from Shanghai’s core
• Shungan’s more isolated location, making it harder to attract firms and residents organically

Beijing’s original justification weakened over time

The video argues Beijing’s urgency for the move decreased as growth slowed, reducing the need to relocate millions.

It also highlights a demographic risk:

• Beijing is rapidly aging.
• If younger workers/students move to Shungan, Beijing could lose the tax base and labor force needed for economic stability.

Final conclusion

The video’s central verdict is that Shungan was built to solve Beijing’s overcrowding and pollution pressures, but instead it resulted in:

• Beijing staying pressured
• Shungan struggling to attract residents
• Hundreds of billions of dollars wasted—“two problems instead of one.”

Presenters or contributors

• No specific presenter names are provided in the subtitles.