In THE first decade of Xi Jinping’s rule, builders in China poured more concrete than America did in all of the 20th century. Urban areas expanded by 40%. No longer. In the past five years the debt-fuelled property market has slumped. Evergrande, once China’s largest developer, has collapsed: on August 25th it was delisted from Hong Kong’s stock exchange. Many cities today are plagued by sprawl, smog and gridlock, and are littered with tens of millions of empty flats. China’s leaders say they want a new approach, aimed at making cities more pleasant rather than more massive. That is far harder than it sounds.
The Economist
