Introduction

Chenggong, a former farming county adjacent to Kunming, Yunnan Province, did not attract public attention outside of China until a 2012 British Broadcasting Corporation report that characterized it as one of China’s ‘ghost towns’ (Banerji and Jackson 2012) created in the course of rapid nationwide modernization. Photographs included with the BBC report show largely empty concrete high-rises, developed real estate devoid of inhabitants, and Kunming's new central business district in the making. The newness of Chenggong can be smelled in the air, and is visually striking with construction sites, the vertical and horizontal expansion of modern high-rises, and wide new streets. The new urban cityscape's asphalt has uncompromisingly replaced the red earth of its former farming landscape.

The physical modernization of Chenggong began in 2003, when Yunnan Province initiated the urban expansion of Kunming. Its initial plan was to transform Chenggong into a new real estate development site and a university town for accommodating the growing urban population and alleviating the spatial pressure on the city. Both objectives were meant to speed up Kunming's modernization process. Like its counterparts, such as Dongguan in Guangdong Province and Yujiapu in Tianjin Province, the speed of Chenggong's physical modernization exceeded that of its projected incoming population. The city was thus largely empty except when college students were in session. In 2013, however, this ‘ghost town’ was slated to become a new transregional center when President Xi Jinping announced China's ‘One Belt, One Road’ global initiative.