Beijing is now placing a big bet on cities. The gamble, however, is unlikely to pay off. It could even sink the Chinese economy and create social unrest. Today, the Tokyo metropolitan area, home to 37.1 million, can claim to be the world’s most populous urban region. Beijing wants to top that and build metropolises dwarfing anything seen in Japan—or anywhere else. How about a Chinese city of 260 million people? That’s the size of the proposed Bohai Economic Rim, centered on Beijing and Tianjin. Work has already begun on this project with a high-speed railway linking the two cities, which sit next to each other.
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