In Ghost Cities of China, American journalist Wade Shepard takes readers on a tour of a China whose society, economy, and culture have been drastically transformed during the past two decades by processes of urbanization. The tour highlights the emergence of the so-called ghost cities, or newly constructed urban places that are found to be having "drastically fewer people and business than there is available space for (40). The book's nine chapters are organized around the central message that urbanization is a project that the Chinese state is determined to accomplish, even if it means using unorthodox measures such as actively populating a place if needed. By following such an argument, the book interprets China's ghost cities as a phase of the country's urbanization process that will eventually be followed by a fuller realization of urban potential.
