Heads up! China just surpassed the United States as the world’s leading manufacture. But as Dateline/au shows, empty cities dot the landscape. Thousands of ancient homes are being scraped of the landscape and millions of people are being quietly relocated to make room for, essentially, empty skycrapers.

The famously disastrous Mall of China is profiled. So is one new city, which was expected to hold 12,000,000 people. In fact, it’s estimated that the vacancy rate in China far exceeds any other country’s, at any other time. A low-ball 64 million new apartments are estimated to be empty, with essentially no one interested or able to afford to buy one. Still, despite the media’s portrayal of a dire economic bubble, I think the situation is temporary and China will fill those homes, regardless of cost.

(via dasgoose-deactivated20110922)