Not all satellite cities can attain expected prosperity

The construction of high-speed railway is accompanied by the building of new satellite cities around China. Most of these satellite cities, with high-speed railway stations as their center, are far from the existing urban areas. Incomplete data show more than 70 such satellite cities are under construction, or have already been approved, as part of China's urbanization drive. If the smaller towns are taken into account, their number will be higher.

The problem is, these construction projects will increase local governments' debts and worsen their financial situation. Besides, many newly built satellite cities are sparsely populated.

Local governments assume high-speed railway can change the existing regional economic patterns of cities, bring new economic benefits, and facilitate the rapid development of the new city areas. The fact is, local governments obtain huge areas of land to continue deriving benefits from "land finance", that is, secure large amounts of revenue from selling land to real estate developers again after the old urban land areas are almost sold out.