> I’m not a big fan of centrally planned cities, but this author has it out for China. The original articles about “China’a ghost town” were also not true.

I'm sorry, but this isn't true, and I say this from my own experience repeatedly visiting Dalian over the past seven years. My last trip was 2016.

Dalian's government is heavily promoting the East Harbor district. They've built a lot of skycrapers, a newly built "financial convention center"[0], a Vegas-style musical water fountain, and oddly enough, a small area modeled after old Venetian neighborhood[1] complete with canals and gondolas.

I've visited the East Harbor twice in three years. It's empty. The street lights barely work. The skycrapers are dark or unfinished. The Venetian neighborhood is is blocks of completely empty buildings. Most of these storefronts were clearly never rented, as evidenced by their completely unfinished interiors. Of the ones that were rented, there's closed coffee shop (signs are still in the window), and a closed restaurant. What does exist in this maybe square kilometer or 2 is (and I believe this list is complete), a "western style" international kindergarten / preschool, and a wedding photography studio, and a stand to rent a gondola ride. That's it. You will find as many couples getting their wedding photos taken in this neighborhood as you will tourists. (It's very photogenic neighborhood, especially at night.)

Other parts of the city also have empty apartment buildings, but I want to focus on the East Harbor, because it's a good microcosm of the ghost town phenomena.

At the end of the article, the chief executive the Tianjin Juilliard School is quoted as saying something rather insightful. “I think they are looking at this as a feather in the cap of this new project.” I think he's right. There's a very strong political component to the promotion and construction of these districts. It's a lot like shipping dubious feature all in the quest for showing "impact" at a FAANG.

Dalian's East Harbor is recently reclaimed land, and is being actively promoted (Including by the army showing up and evicting businesses in the middle of the day.[2]), as an alternative to already built and successful Xinghai Square[3] district. Xinghai Square had a fountain, but then it was ordered destroyed, to promote East Harbor. The huabiao in the center of the square, was demolished in the middle of the night. Streetlights are being turned off at night. The neighborhood is being actively sabotaged in an effort to migrate the population to the empty East Harbor district. Why would this happen? Well, the Xinghai was developed by former mayor and Xi Jingping rival, Bo Xilai. (Bo Xilai is now in jail on corruption charges.) The conventional wisdom is that East Harbor's promotion and the destruction of Xinghai is serving two purposes. It shows political fielty by carrying out a damnatio memoriae on a political rival of the new president for life, while also demonstrating the new mayor's economic "impact".

This is what's going on across the country. It's as obvious. It's as obvious as 10 city blocks of empty 50 story buildings.

[0] http://en.yifang.cn/2017/group_new_0224/72.html

[1] http://www.yunnanadventure.com/show/Dalian-builds-%22Orienta...

[2] Yeah, that happened at a rather nice indoor swimming pool / fitness center my in-laws frequented, while they were there.

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinghai_Square