See the earlier post on Ordos. Further to that, the Priceonomics blog has a nice item on ghost cities, including a map of where various ones are located. They have a neat twist, including a chart from the Baidu travel service of which cities are destinations and which points of departure. That helps track whether there really are people in particular locations that (as with Ordos) where 99+% of the population are migrants.
It is interesting to observe the phenomena of the growing number of ghost cities in China after reading Wallace’s work on the topic. I think it is an interesting that in order to avoid the development of slums the Chinese government works to provide housing for all lower income citizens, which has led to the development of these vast projects. Also it fascinating how construction and heavy industry is one of the most important sectors in China’s economy, and they have been building like crazy to accommodate what seems like a fraction of the anticipated migratory body. Is it possible that these jobs were undertaken in older to bolster that portion of the national economy and create value for the government in anticipation of the great influx of migrants to these new cities?