China
Inner Mongolia’s new urban developments reflect China’s broader strategy of rapid urbanization and resource-driven growth, particularly in coal-rich areas. Cities like Ordos New Town (Kangbashi) were built with grand infrastructure and modern amenities, aiming to accommodate growing populations and economic expansion. However, many developments struggled with overbuilding, speculative
China
Every era of great economic ambition produces its ghost cities, and China's has produced more than most. Yujiapu is among the most instructive. Launched in the 2000s as part of Tianjin's Binhai New Area, it was conceived with the kind of confidence that looks either visionary
New Cities Atlas
In 1984, China was still in the earliest days of figuring out what it wanted to be. Deng Xiaoping had cracked the door open to foreign investment and market economics, but nobody quite knew how far the experiment would go or what it would produce. TEDA, the Tianjin Economic-Technological Development
New Cities Atlas
Milton Keynes is one of the most misunderstood cities in Britain, which is saying something for a country that has made an art form of misunderstanding it. The standard critique (grid roads, roundabouts, concrete cows, a soulless monument to the automobile) is the kind of lazy shorthand that gets repeated
New Cities Atlas
Saudi Arabia has a problem that most countries would envy and a few have figured out how to solve. It is sitting on nearly inexhaustible oil wealth accumulated over half a century, and it knows, as surely as any economist who has studied the arc of petrostate economies, that the
New Cities Atlas
When China announced Xiong'an New Area in 2017, it didn't do so quietly. State media heralded it as the most significant new city project since Shenzhen, a comparison that, if you know what Shenzhen became, is either an extraordinary promise or an extraordinary act of hubris.
New Cities Atlas
The scale of what is about to happen in Africa's cities is difficult to fully absorb. The continent's population will double to 2.5 billion by 2050, and it won't stop there. By the end of the century, Africa will rival Asia as the
New Cities Atlas
Since 1970, China has undertaken the largest urbanization project in history, building cities for 760 million people, more than the total urban population of the world in 1950. This rapid expansion was driven by industrialization, economic reforms, and massive rural-to-urban migration. New cities like Shenzhen, once a fishing village, have
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia’s new city developments are part of an ambitious effort to diversify its economy beyond oil, attract global investment, and modernize its urban landscape. As part of Vision 2030, the country is creating futuristic cities to drive economic growth, tourism, and innovation. Key projects include Neom, a $500
30K Insights
Welcome to Roger Weber's New Cities Atlas, a groundbreaking independent publication dedicated to a singular, transformative era in human development: the creation of entirely new cities from scratch. This atlas dives deep into the boldest urban experiments of our time, offering a panoramic view of an unprecedented urban
30K Insights
Originally published on RealClearPolicy Why is Saudi Arabia suddenly the pit stop of choice for an impressive laundry list of major companies? How is it positioned among the growing number of Middle-Eastern industrial free zones? And should Rust Belt cities like Cincinnati look this way for answers? If a nation&