中国新闻网2015.03.10
鄂尔多斯市长答“空城”论：未售房3年左右可消化
3月8日，十二届全国人大三次会议在北京人民大会堂举行第二次全体会议，听取全国人大常委会委员长张德江关于全国人民代表大会常务委员会工作的报告，听取全国人大常委会副委员长李建国关于中华人民共和国立法法修正案草案的说明。 中新社发 金硕 摄
中新社北京3月10日电 (记者 刘旭)“廉市长，鄂尔多斯的房子卖得怎么样了？”10日上午的十二届全国人大三次会议内蒙古代表团全团会议上，有记者向鄂尔多斯市长廉素发问。
听到记者的问题，廉素略显无奈，因为每年全国人大会议上，他都会被问到“鬼城”、“空城”、“楼市”的相关问题。廉素当天答时列举了一连串数据：“去年我回答这个问题的时候说，鄂尔多斯没有卖出去的房子还有4.5万套，2014年又卖了1万多套，大体上接近200万平方米。现在我们留下来没有卖完的房子还有3.4万套。再有3年左右时间就能消化掉，鄂尔多斯的楼市不是问题。”
廉素提醒说，鄂尔多斯的房地产问题已经被“标签化”，实际上鄂市房产存量并不大。另外，鄂尔多斯的房地产业占经济发展的比重很小，连3%都不到，所以对鄂尔多斯整体经济不会有什么大的影响。
“我希望大家不要再聚焦于鄂尔多斯的楼市，我们现在有新的口号了！”廉素在现场列举了另外一组数据：
进入“十二五”以来，鄂尔多斯的城市空气质量优良天数已经连续多年维持在340天以上；鄂尔多斯的沙尘暴天气已经由上世纪90年代的每年10次左右，减少到现在的每年1到2次；根据国家环保部环境监测中心最新公布的2014年全国190个城市PM2.5年平均值数据，鄂尔多斯的数值仅高于三亚、海口和拉萨。“这个数据可是官方的，鄂尔多斯的空气质量确实走在全国前列。”
廉素说，数据里显示出的成绩得益于鄂尔多斯近年来在产业发展结构调整、节能减排和生态建设等方面所做的工作，“老百姓切身感受到生态环境的改善。”
“天朗气清，自在养生”，廉素笑着为鄂尔多斯的生态旅游做起了广告，欢迎全国人民来旅游，“冬天到海南岛，夏天到鄂尔多斯”。
中国经济新闻网2014.04.18
从鄂尔多斯房地产困境看城镇化发展
实地调研发现，鄂尔多斯市房地产困境是诸多深层次原因交织形成的，主要包括房地产供给严重过剩、产业结构单一且协调性不高、人口集聚滞后于城镇规模扩张速度，以及经济增长的包容性不足等。因此，房地产与城镇化建设要与产业和人口发展相适应，要有序推进资源型城市转型，着力提高城镇化发展的包容性，特别是在城镇化快速发展阶段，引导住房向居住本质回归尤为重要。
刘卫民 王辉
鄂尔多斯是内蒙古“呼包鄂经济圈”中的新兴城市之一。在煤炭、天然气、稀土等资源型产业的带动下，鄂尔多斯的经济总量规模迅速扩张，城镇化率不断提高，房地产也一度成为当地投资热点。但自2012年以来，鄂尔多斯房地产出现明显的库存周转失速、房价大幅下降、资金运转等一系列问题。实地调研表明：鄂尔多斯陷入房地产困境既是市场运行规律的客观反映，也具有其产业结构的特殊原因，更有城镇化发展路径的选择问题，值得其他城市特别是处于城镇化快速推进阶段的新兴城市思考和借鉴。
鄂尔多斯2012年进入房地产低迷阶段
鄂尔多斯房地产市场经过连续几年的超常规发展，自2011年开始，有些先行的实物量指标 （如销售面积、土地购置面积等）已经出现回调征兆。在宏观经济增长趋缓、煤炭产业下滑以及房地产调控效应逐步显现等多重因素作用下，自2012年开始，鄂尔多斯房地产市场全面进入低迷阶段。主要反映为几个方面：
第一，房地产投资规模大幅下滑。2012年，当地房地产投资完成额为175．3亿元，较上年下降58．8％，而商品房施工面积和新开工面积，分别较上年下降39．7％和33．9％。在对房地产市场悲观预期下，开发企业的拿地热情骤减，土地购置面积在2011年和2012年连续两年显著缩减，2012年土地购置面积仅为2008年拿地高峰时的1／10左右。企业资金链趋紧也使得前期停工项目的开复工速度较为缓慢，甚至影响到部分保障性住房项目建设速度。
第二，房地产销售受阻，去库存周期大大加长。2012年商品房销售面积232．7万平方米，相当于2011年历史高点的43．4％，商品住宅销售均价下降6．6％（见右图）。实地调研中，有些开发企业的楼盘去库存周期甚至加大到5年。
第三，房地产融资能力下降，民间融资风险凸显。由于当地房地产市场不景气、开发项目资金回笼不畅，金融机构缩紧了房地产开发贷款规模。2013年上半年，金融机构整个贷款规模同比回落9．1个百分点。另外，当地房地产投资中民间融资规模较大，市场大幅回落导致民间融资收益难以实现、民间借贷风险加剧。
鄂尔多斯“房地产困境”的深层次原因分析
导致鄂尔多斯陷入房地产市场困境的原因是多方面的。认真客观分析和总结鄂尔多斯房地产发展面临问题的原因，对于提高新型城镇化的质量，具有重要意义。
（一）供给过剩是导致鄂尔多斯陷入房地产困境的主因
在煤炭行业和房地产市场以及居民收入处于上涨预期阶段，鄂尔多斯房地产开发规模出现超常规增长，从而直接带来后续房地产供给过剩严重，这是鄂尔多斯房地产出现大幅波动的主要原因。以2011年的历史高点为例，鄂尔多斯市人均商品房新开工面积为12．6平方米，是同期北京人均水平的5．2倍，是同期全国人均水平的4．6倍。继连续数年新开工量和施工面积屡创新高，随之而来的是大量商品房建成投放市场。即使在房地产市场已经出现全面下行的2012年，当地商品房竣工面积的增幅仍然接近100％，这无疑对本来脆弱的房地产市场供求关系带来更大冲击。截止到2012年，鄂尔多斯市人均住宅使用面积为38平方米，如果按照1．3的换算系数，人均住宅的建筑面积为49．4平方米，是同期全国平均水平的1．5倍左右。因此，从经济客观规律上看，过度宽松的供求关系和旺盛的投资投机需求双重作用，必然最终诱发房地产行业增长失速和市场低迷。
（二）产业结构单一与发展不协调加剧了房地产市场波动
鄂尔多斯城市的超常规发展高度依赖煤炭等资源型产业。近年来，虽着力发展装备制造、电子信息、氧化铝等非煤产业以及文化旅游、金融商贸等服务业，煤炭产业比重有所下降，但“一煤独大”的特征仍十分明显。2012年，鄂尔多斯原煤产量6．4亿吨，占当年全国总产量的17．5％；煤炭工业完成财政收入378．1亿元，实现工业增加值1270亿元，分别占财政总收入和规模以上工业增加值的46．1％、62．4％。随着煤炭产业快速发展，第二产业占GDP比重从2007年的55％提高至2012年的60．5％，第三产业比重则从40．7％降至37％，第二产业对经济增长的贡献率超过60％。2012年以来，受煤炭市场需求不景气影响，鄂尔多斯原煤均价从2011年的峰值435元／吨降至2013年上半年的270元／吨，降幅达38％，2013年上半年煤炭行业利润同比下降约19％，51家煤矿停产。这导致当年鄂尔多斯主要经济指标增速持续回落，财政收入同比下降9％，部分企业生产经营困难，社会资金流动性严重不足，加剧了房地产市场波动。
（三）人口集聚严重滞后于城镇规模扩张
近年来，鄂尔多斯城镇化实现了跨越式发展。2006—2012年，全市建成区面积由138平方公里扩展到250平方公里，其中城市核心区建成区由56平方公里提高到162．6平方公里，扩张1．9倍，然而由于缺乏相应产业支撑，同期全市常住人口仅增长了32．3％，城市人口集聚严重滞后于规模扩张。2012年末，全市常住人口200．4万人，城镇化率72％，其中市外流入人口48．3万人，仅占总人口的24．1％，市区常住人口 （东胜区和康巴什—阿腾席连片区）约80万人，康巴什新区约7万人。按照规划，到2030年市区人口预计达到240万，其中康阿片区100万人，从目前产业发展和人口流入规模、趋势看，实现这一目标的难度较大。
（四）经济增长的包容性不足制约了有效需求释放
包容性增长对于社会有效需求的充分释放至关重要。鄂尔多斯连续多年保持20％以上的经济增速，2002—2012年，该市GDP增长17．9倍，人均GDP增长11．9倍，而同期人均可支配收入、人均消费支出仅增长5．3倍。“十一五”期间，该市劳动者报酬占地区生产总值的比重逐年下降，从2006年的26．3％降至2010年的19％左右，下降7．3个百分点，远低于全国平均水平。2012年，该市城镇单位就业人员22．3万人，总人口就业率只有25％左右，明显低于其城镇化率和全国平均水平，国有单位和资源型相关产业、金融地产业在岗职工平均工资水平，明显高于非国有单位和其他行业。这些数据说明，鄂尔多斯经济增长的包容性不够，广大居民通过正规就业渠道分享资源性产业增长成果的机会不足，社会财富分配的公平性、普惠性有待提升，不利于社会需求的充分释放。
几点启示
1．房地产发展与城镇化建设要与产业发展和人口集聚相适应，不宜过度超前。鄂尔多斯是城镇化发展的一个典型案例，资源型产业的高速发展是其实现城市规模快速拓展的经济基础。然而，从本质上讲，城镇化是人口和经济社会活动向城市聚集的自然过程，产业发展是基础，人口集聚是结果，其他的变化都是城乡人口结构变化的派生产物。超越这一客观规律，过度超前甚至盲目圈地造城，缺乏充分的产业支撑和实现人口集聚的客观条件，不仅会造成土地、资金的极大浪费，影响生态环境，也易引发财政金融风险、激化社会矛盾。美国底特律城市破产的教训就是极好的借鉴。鄂尔多斯必须实现城镇化发展方式的转型，更加注重提高城镇化质量，通过改善城乡公共服务、增强就业吸纳能力、优化人口布局等方式加速人口集聚，实现以业兴城、依城聚人。
2．有序推进资源型城市转型是实现其城镇化健康发展的重要保障。鄂尔多斯的城镇化有很强的资源依赖特征，如何跳出“资源诅咒”，避免资源性产业周期波动对城镇化健康发展的不利影响，实现产业转型和经济社会可持续发展是资源型城市面临的共性问题。近年来，鄂尔多斯在煤炭深加工、非煤产业和现代服务业发展方面取得一定成效，但尚未在煤炭产业之外形成强有力的增长点。这既有产业培育周期的原因，也受体制机制因素制约。例如，煤炭资源的利益分享问题、煤电一体化发展问题、电力输送通道建设问题、清洁能源产业审批问题等，都制约了鄂尔多斯产业更加均衡、可持续的发展。建议制定资源型城市创新发展的政策体系，在实施差异化产业政策、优化财税分配体制、设立资源型城市发展专项基金、统筹节能减排考核、发展清洁能源等方面进行积极探索，为资源型城市转型和可持续发展提供动力，为其城镇化健康发展注入活力。
3．着力推进包容性城镇化，有序实现就业吸纳和人口集聚。经济增长和城镇化的包容性不足，经济高速成长的成果没有充分惠及全体居民，城镇化质量未与水平同步提升，是鄂尔多斯经济社会发展面临的深层次问题。鄂尔多斯应把着力推进包容性发展作为城镇化工作的重点，要积极创造更多正规就业和体面劳动机会，打破劳动力市场分割，消除就业歧视，提高就业质量。要统筹城乡发展，加快推进基本公共服务均等化，逐步形成外来人口与城市居民身份统一、权利一致、地位平等的公共服务体系，实现就业、教育、医疗卫生、住房保障的实际全覆盖。要努力营造公平公正的经济社会环境，为中低收入群体提供更多的发展机遇和通道，推进社会权利平等，激发居民和民营部门的创新活力与积极性，提升幸福感、安全感、归属感。要完善社会治理机制，加强流动人口服务管理，构建现代城市管理体系，提高治理透明度，引导居民有序参与，促进社会融合。
4．住房是高质量城镇化的重要支撑，在城镇化快速发展阶段，引导住房向居住本质回归尤为重要。高质量城镇化的出发点就是要“以人为本”，住房是广大居民安居乐业的基础，确保广大居民实现居住权是高质量城镇化的客观要求。另一方面，国内外实践经验表明，城镇化快速推进阶段往往是住房需求旺盛、房地产市场容易过热的阶段，因此，在这一特殊发展阶段，公共政策尤其要强调引导住房向居住本质回归，适当抑制投资需求，严格遏制投机需求，通过信贷、土地、税收、住房保障等多种政策组合，实现房地产供求基本平衡和市场的平稳运行。
（作者单位分别为：国务院发展研究中心市场经济研究所、发展战略和区域经济研究部）
内蒙基本是靠花钱，借钱来花
鄂尔多斯日报2015.03.12
鄂尔多斯：城乡遍添绿色 增进民生福祉
去年以来，我市上下以持续改善生态环境为目标，以创建国家森林城市为抓手，集中力量，攻坚克难，不断强化生态建设力度，重点区域绿化、国家森林城市创建、深化林业改革等都取得了新突破，有力助推了美丽鄂尔多斯和祖国北疆生态安全屏障的建设进程。
2014年，我市计划完成林业生态建设任务130万亩,全年共完成林业生态建设面积149.86万亩，为年度计划任务的115%，为自治区下达任务量的136%，位居全区第二位，其中人工造林124.36万亩，居全区第一。完成补植补播16.05万亩。
国家林业重点工程。2014年全市共争取国家林业重点工程建设任务87.85万亩，较2013年增加8.11万亩。其中天保工程31万亩、京津风沙源治理二期工程27.5万亩、巩固退耕还林成果23.6万亩、造林补贴试点5.75万亩。全年共争取上级各类资金9亿元，同比增加0.66亿元，其中国家林业重点工程建设投资1.7亿元，天保工程、退耕还林工程等国家直补农牧民林业投资6.2亿元，其他林业专项投资1.1亿元。
重点区域绿化。我市大力推进以人为核心的城市森林建设，努力让城市的天更蓝、水更清、空气更清新，营造舒心舒适的宜居环境，真正使生态建设成果惠及广大市民。按照“点上求精、线上求景、面上求量”的建设理念，我市将重点区域绿化与经济建设和城市建设紧密结合，稳步推进并逐步完善“一圈、两区、三园、四带、五点”总体布局要求，将重点区域绿化与国家和地方林业生态重点工程紧密结合，不断加大道路绿化建设和改造升级力度，推进中心城区、城镇周边、园区内外、村庄前后、河岸山前、厂矿企业等绿化，加大街头绿地和社区游园建设力度。2014年完成重点区域绿化61.31万亩，截至2014年底，全市森林总面积达到3364万亩，森林覆盖率达到了25.81%。
全民义务植树。为加快绿化步伐，我市启动了大规模的义务植树活动，营造了全民共建森林城市、共享美好生活的浓厚氛围。目前，义务植树基地达482个。2014年，全市参加义务植树活动的适龄公民达到了90.45万人次（其中机关干部30.8万人次），完成义务植树21.79万亩，较前一年增加6.23万亩，栽植各类乔灌木1996万株，为计划任务的199.6%，总量位居全区第一位。其中，市直单位和东胜区、康巴什新区机关干部职工参加义务植树活动人数达8万人次，栽植各类苗木165.55万株，挖坑66.45万个。全民义务植树尽责率达到95.15%。
创建国家森林城市。我市全面实施以林业为主的生态建设战略，因地制宜，因害设防，封飞造结合，乔灌草搭配，不断加快城乡绿化进程。启动了城市核心区百万亩防护林、“六区”绿化、碳汇造林、“四个百万亩”（百万亩油松、樟子松、沙棘、山杏）等地方林业重点工程，完成高标准造林620万亩，形成了国家项目、地方工程双轮驱动生态建设的良好局面。经过多年的努力，全市城区绿化覆盖率达到41.98%，城市重要水源地森林覆盖率达到74.67%，水岸林木绿化率达到81.31%，道路林木绿化率达到82.44%，创森各项指标均超过国家标准。
兴林富民。在生态建设进程中，我市坚持生态建设产业化的发展方向，大力发展林沙产业，通过反弹琵琶、逆向拉动，实现了生态生计兼顾，治沙致富共赢。结合集体林权制度改革，推动宜林地向林沙企业和造林大户流转集中，因地制宜发展沙柳、沙棘、山杏、沙地柏等经济林种，扩大原料林规模，提高基地产出率。围绕林沙资源的独特开发价值，大力推进林板、林纸、林饲系列加工和饮品、食品、药品、保健品、化妆品精深开发，不断延长产业链条，提高产品的附加值。全市共培育规模以上林沙企业21家，形成了年产人造板15万立方米，杏仁露、沙棘饮料及酱油醋18万吨，沙棘黄酮、籽油、果粉5万吨，生物质发电4.8亿度的生产规模。积极推行“企业+基地+农户”、订单种植等原料林种植模式，优先安排国家项目到原料林基地上，让农牧民充分享受生态建设带来的好处，增强参与生态建设的积极性。
林权制度改革。2014年达拉特旗被国家林业局确定为全国集体林业综合改革试验示范区；全市集体林权转让4.22万亩，金额1210.36万元；林权抵押0.81万亩，抵押贷款5976万元。全年累计受理林权纠纷72起8.53万亩，调处43起6.03万亩，纠错林权1556宗65.99万亩，登记变更林权证590本39.31万亩。开展了林权证到户专项督查，对存放于苏木乡镇等的林权证进行了督促发放，全年新增林权证发放到位面积378.14万亩，发放总面积达到了5020.13万亩，到位率87.41%，较2013年提高10.41个百分点。完成了全市26个国有林场专项摸底调研和数据录入更新工作，申报国有贫困林场扶贫资金项目4个，总投资288.8万元，启动了国有林场远程教育终端站点建设，配发接收设备29套。 （贺晚霞）
鄂尔多斯市网站
互动百科：
据凤凰网报道：
在鄂尔多斯，从铁西区到康巴什新区，到处是这样触目惊心的空置楼房以及烂尾楼。楼市高峰时这里集中了上千家房企“掘金”，现在只剩下几家房企在苦苦支撑，靠的是卖现房才能打动买家。
实践证明市场“看不见的手”最终比限购等行政手段更具决定性。
放 松限购与限贷的利好席卷全国，可惜在鄂尔多斯却依然感受不到这股扑面而来的春风，因2010年楼市泡沫而导致的楼市寒冬还笼罩在鄂尔多斯上空。记者趁“家 天下记者天下行”采访内蒙古呼和浩特的机会，顺道到鄂尔多斯亲身感受“鬼城”的氛围，曾经有数百人的大楼盘如今只剩下十几人留守，几十人的营销部仅剩下3 名员工驻守；大部分售楼部已人去楼空，仅余一两人在现场看着。从铁西区到康巴什新区，到处是触目惊心的空置楼房以及烂尾楼。记者随机在鄂尔多斯街头“逮 着”居民采访，几乎个个都是烂尾楼业主。
即 使是在距离鄂尔多斯车程3小时的呼和浩特，鄂尔多斯留下的印记都非常明显，曾经东胜人（鄂尔多斯在内蒙古当地被称为“东胜”）是呼和浩特一大买家群体，占 据比例达1/4~1/3，可惜2011年煤价下跌后鄂尔多斯经济崩盘，东胜人已彻底离开呼和浩特楼市，仿如人间蒸发一样。
几乎每个鄂尔多斯人都是“苦主”
在鄂尔多斯楼市泡沫最严重的时候，这里集中了1000家房企在此“掘金”，现在只剩下几家房企在苦苦支撑，靠的是卖现房才能打动买家，甚至一名楼市人士以“没有买卖就没有伤害”来形容鄂尔多斯现今的畸形楼市。
官方：两三年内消化存量房
鄂 尔多斯房管局一名官员在今年9月底曾经对媒体表示：“截至2014年9月底，全市待销售商品住宅494.49万平方米、3.8万套。其中，中心城区待销售 商品住宅471.13万平方米、3.42万套。预计两至三年可以将存量房源逐步消化。与此同时，通过回购房源、企业整合重组、协调信贷支持、包联推进项目 等多种举措，推进在建工程收尾完工，大面积出现"烂尾楼盘"的可能性微乎其微。”事实是否如官员预期这么乐观呢？让我们拭目以待吧。
民间：个个摇头“不会再买了”
纽约时报2015.03.06
The Colossal Strangeness of China’s Most Excellent Tourist City
By JODY ROSEN
Ordos, like so many of the country’s hundreds of new towns, is famous for being empty — a symbol, some would say, of the hubris of rampant urbanization. But the few people who live there see it differently.
ORDOS, A MAGICAL LAND in the just north of China, is a dazzling pearl in the world history and culture. That’s what it says — verbatim, in ungrammatical English — on a plaque that greets you as you enter a rotunda in the Ordos Museum. The city of Ordos sits in a coal-rich wilderness of desert and grassland at the southwestern edge of the Chinese province of Inner Mongolia. It is not even 15 years old and has a minuscule population compared to most Chinese cities. But those facts have not constrained Ordos’s municipal rhetoric. In the museum’s exhibition devoted to Genghis Khan you are told that when the great warrior traveled through in the early 13th century, he praised Ordos as a paradise, an ideal home for both children and old people, with a natural landscape of unrivaled beauty. Signs welcome visitors to “the famous tourist city,” “the most excellent tourist city” and “the top tourist city in China.” The word Ordos itself is a kind of boast: In Mongolian, it means “many palaces.”
The outside world has come to know Ordos by a different title: as a ghost city. In recent years, Ordos has emerged as the most famous, and most infamous, of China’s overbuilt and underpopulated instant cities — a would-be “Dubai on the Steppe,” designed to accommodate hundreds of thousands of residents but home to comically few. Internet slide shows and international television crews have captured scenes of skyscrapers and statues looming over empty streets, and pundits have seized on Ordos as a metaphor for the hubris and folly of China’s rampant urbanization.
It is true that China is in the throes of a transformation without analogue or precedent. Experts say that in the next two decades, hundreds of millions of rural Chinese will move into hundreds of newly built cities — the biggest building boom, and the largest migration, in human history. Last March, China’s State Council and the Central Committee of the Communist Party released a report, the “National New-Type Urbanization Plan,” announcing the government’s intention to boost the proportion of the nation’s population living in cities to 60 percent by 2020. To meet that goal, China will need to bring 100 million new residents to cities over the next five years. The estimated cost of the plan is $6.8 trillion.
Ordos, in other words, is not exactly unique: Everywhere in China, new cities are springing up and spreading out over recently paved countryside. What makes Ordos a special case are the mineral deposits beneath it. The land surrounding Ordos City sits on one-sixth of China’s coal reserves. In the early 2000s, China began awarding mining rights to private companies, which generated massive tax revenues, swelling municipal coffers. The government poured much of that windfall into the development of a monumental new district, Kangbashi New Area; hundreds of millions of dollars in capital investment flowed in, spurring a construction boom on a staggering scale. The cycle that was unleashed is familiar: speculation and debt, boom and bust, a real-estate bubble that burst cataclysmically amid downturns in the volatile coal market.
Today, the real-estate situation in Ordos has turned macabre. Video billboards along the city’s major roadways display mug shots of fugitive developers who have skipped town, fleeing their debts. There are rumors about the dynamiting of buildings in Kangbashi: about owners of unoccupied apartment towers who hope to create value through destruction, reselling freshly cleared land to new investors. To the extent that “the famous tourist city” attracts sightseers, they are the morbidly curious, who pilgrimage to Ordos to experience its eeriness. What they find there, though, may come as a surprise. In the shadows of the deserted construction sites and vacant hotels, there are people. They are the citizens of Ordos — not the inhabitants of a ghost town, but the pioneers of a novel kind of 21st-century urban life.
FOR THE NEWLY ARRIVED visitor, the most shocking thing about Ordos may be its cleanliness. On a mild, overcast day this past autumn, the sleek steel-and-glass terminal at Ejin Horo Airport gave off the gleam of a model kitchen at a high-end department store. The city’s impeccably landscaped roadways were equally pristine. In fact, the first human beings spotted on a taxi ride from the airport into the center of Ordos weren’t pedestrians — there were few of those — but municipal cleaning crews, tidying the sidewalks and broad, multilane thoroughfares. It was an absurdist scene worthy of Ionesco or Beckett: corps of street sweepers pushing brooms on streets that didn’t need to be swept. The closest thing to litter in Ordos is the sand that is now and then whipped up by winds in the surrounding desert and blown into town.
The scale of that town is cartoon-ishly huge. The dimensions of its plazas, the width of its roads, the square footage of its municipal and residential buildings — everything in Ordos seems like it has been attached to a helium pump and inflated to gargantuan size. In Kangbashi, there are dozens of apartment towers and hotels, many reaching 15 stories high, with looping circular drives and sweeping lobbies. The Ordos Museum is a mammoth blob that owes something to Frank Gehry; next door, there’s an enormous library designed to look like books stacked on a shelf. The population of Inner Mongolia is not very Mongolian: There are about four times as many Han Chinese as there are citizens of Mongol extraction. But in Kangbashi, the government has built a kind of Mongolian Disneyland, a city packed with kitsch monuments that evoke the heritage and heroism of life on the steppes. There is a theater shaped like a gigantic yurt; there are streetlamps that take the form of bows and arrows. Everywhere you look, there are horses: murals of Mongol warriors on horseback, a suspension bridge with stanchions in the shape of stallions’ manes. The biggest statue in town shows a pair of massive horses rearing up on their hind legs, each as tall as a small New York tenement building.
Images of this architectural excess, circulated on the Internet, have captured the imagination of the outside world. What these photos omit are the people who inhabit the cityscape. On a blustery afternoon in Kangbashi not long ago, groups of men and women in their teens and early 20s gathered on the steps of the museum and the library, and in the adjacent plaza. Some rode skateboards; a group of kids played basketball on a court just outside the library. The dress code was the same that you see across urban East Asia: lots of brand-name sneakers, hooded sweatshirts and other totems of Western culture. A girl of about 13 arrived on a mountain bike, wearing a baseball cap that read “Chris Brown.” (The R&B star, she explained in English, is her favorite musician.) A little while later, a car came past, blaring slogans and music through a roof-mounted megaphone: a mobile advertisement for Ordos’s newest supermarket. The announcer touted the market’s fresh produce and invoked “Big Big,” a popular nickname for China’s President, Xi Jinping. The soundtrack was the theme music from “Dallas,” the 1980s TV hit.
Nearby, seated outside the library, were a group of five young women, all 19. Two were Mongolian and three were Han Chinese; all of them had come to Ordos from small villages in Inner Mongolia to attend Beijing Normal University, which has opened a Kangbashi branch. “It’s nice here,” said one of the women. “My hometown is a tiny place in the grassland. The people here are more well educated. There’s so much more to do here.” What is there to do in Ordos? “I hang out with my friends. We study at the library. We go to the mall.”
The mall, in this case, is a five-story building that looms over a parking lot in central Kangbashi. It is essentially a big food court, clustered around a central atrium, with dozens of small restaurants serving regional cuisines from all over China, as well as some Western fast food, like ice cream and pizza. That afternoon, the mall’s eateries were crammed. When the sun set, the action shifted to the parking lot, where groups gathered to socialize, and young men sold electronic dance music CDs out of car trunks ringed with LED lights. Later, many of the parking-lot revelers migrated to downtown Kangbashi’s signature evening entertainment: the “fountain show,” a synchronized display of gushing water, flashing lights and bombastic New Age music. It is billed as Asia’s largest such show, and it looks it: The dozens of geysers are arrayed in a vast reflecting pool that stretches the length of three football fields.
IN SHORT, ORDOS is not empty, but it is odd: part windswept frontier outpost, part demented college town, with the vague mirage of another tacky desert colony, Las Vegas, shimmering in the strobe-lit mist of those fountains. It is unclear exactly how many people live in the city; the government is cagey about the question, and the figures they release are unreliable. But close observers of Ordos insist the numbers are on the rise. The filmmakers Adam Smith and Song Ting spent two years shooting “The Land of Many Palaces,” a feature documentary about Ordos and its citizens, which debuted in January. They contend that the population increased markedly during the years that they made the movie, between 2012-14, and estimate that about 100,000 currently live in the city.
That growth is due in large part to old-fashioned Chinese social engineering: an aggressive top-down effort to populate sparsely settled Kangbashi. In 2006, the headquarters of the local government was moved to Kangbashi from the Dongsheng District, 20 miles north; bus service between Kangbashi and Dongsheng was allegedly cut off so that Ordos’s public officials would be forced to take up residence in the new town. Some of the region’s best schools, including a high school, were also relocated to Kangbashi. Today, some vacant apartment buildings have become makeshift dormitories, home to teenage squatters whose parents couldn’t afford to move but wanted their children to attend the new district’s schools.
On the north side of Kangbashi, the result of a different sort of social engineering can be seen. There, a population of largely middle-aged and elderly residents occupy a cluster of high-rise apartment towers that are arranged on a grid of hilly roads. The area is not genteel. There is little in the way of landscaping, and the few shops, set back from the streets in small strip malls, have a grubby, weather-beaten look. But the place does feel like a neighborhood. The residents sit outside the buildings, joking and gossiping. On the narrow sidewalks and in front of the shops, groups gather to play cards and mah-jongg.
These people are new citizens of Kangbashi, but they are not quite arrivistes. Nearly all are former farmers whose lands were purchased by the government, which persuaded them to move to apartment buildings in the new town. A half-century ago, in Mao’s Cultural Revolution, China exiled privileged urban youths “down to the countryside,” forcibly turning city dwellers into rustics. In Ordos today, peasants have been deployed to activate the city that has claimed their old pastoral homesteads.
As you wander around Kangbashi, you catch the surreal flavor of these residents’ transformed lives. One day, I spent a few hours in a place called the Ordos Marriage Celebration Cultural Park — the kitschiest attraction in Kangbashi, which is no small distinction. Billed as “China’s first open topic park integrating culture, arts and recreation aimed to exhibit the ‘Ordos Marriage,’ ” it is a sprawling network of sculpture gardens devoted to the themes of romance and wedlock. Visitors can stroll through the Marriagable Age Square, Love Tree Square and the Chinese Traditional Love Culture Zone. There are gardens devoted to the Chinese and Western zodiacs; there are dozens of statues of hearts. Scattered throughout the garden are a series of grandiose tableaux depicting scenes from a courtship and wedding in the grasslands — hulking statues of Mongols and yurts and, of course, horses.
There are real-life horses in Marriage Celebration Cultural Park, too: a pair of them, hitched to carriages of the fancy old-fashioned gilded sort that the British royal family rides in parades. Visitors can hire the carriages for a romantic spin through the gardens. But on that day, there were no takers. The horses stood stone still in a circular path near the park entrance, looking rather less lively than their sculptural counterparts.
Nearby, a half-dozen carriage drivers sat on benches. They were middle-aged men in their 40s and 50s. All of them were former farmers who now lived in apartment towers on the north side of Kangbashi. No one had shown up looking for a carriage ride that week, they told me. In fact, they’d had just a couple of customers in the past month. “It is the slow season,” said one of the drivers with a shrug. It didn’t matter much: With or without business, the government-run tourist office paid their salaries. Even in the “busy season,” they confessed, their eight-hour-long shifts were mostly spent sitting around and talking.
Economists and urban planners remain divided about whether Ordos will ever populate sufficiently to feel like a “real city.” But the carriage drivers agreed: Urban living was good, and their lot now was far better than it had been when they tilled the hard Inner Mongolian earth. I asked the men where they had lived before moving to their apartments in Kangbashi. One of them, a 56-year-old man named Li Yonh Xiang, spoke up. “I lived here,” he said.
Li had been born and raised just steps from the bench where he was sitting. About half of the 90-acre park had belonged to his family; the government bought the land in 2000. “When we were peasants, we lived according to the weather,” Li said. “Now I live in a heated building with six floors. The city is very nice. There are many cars and buildings, but the air is very clean.”
He said: “Sometimes I miss the old days — the farm, the nature. But it’s easy to picture it the way it was.” He pointed toward the horse-drawn carriages. “Our fields were here. We grew potatoes and corn and other things. Our house” — he nodded toward the park entrance, framed by a garish arch, studded with red and gold hearts — “was right there.” Is Ordos a ghost city? Not exactly. But for some, it’s a city of ghosts.
