On a peninsula southeast of Beijing, the most ambitious knock-off of all is in the works: a financial center in the likeness and scale of Manhattan.
Perfect! Now I can visit New York without having to visit New York!
When it comes to building cities, Lee argues, the Chinese have a key advantage over the West. In places like London and New York, government planners have to contend with structures of the past. “They are not removing,” he says. Here, by contrast, “it’s like white paper.”
Erased paper is a more accurate metaphor for this peninsula, where hundreds of thousands of native inhabitants were relocated to high-rise apartment buildings that loom beyond the construction zones. Whether these displaced crab fisherman and steel workers will have prime views of China’s uber-modern, Manhattan-esque, financial center, or a ghost city whose empty offices tell a sobering tale of overreach, is yet to be seen.
