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opinion of them as simulacra (or the eco-Potemkin of Huangbaiyu). On the
other hand, as a real estate investment venture they more than succeed. One
employee of the Weimar villa sales site, Huajie Chen, told a reporter, “Most
houses in An Ting new city have been sold. h ere are only 100 units that are
not sold.” h e problem is that most buyers did not move in. Chen described
the three types of buyers: employees of the local auto companies (whose pri-
mary residence is elsewhere, but who stay in Shanghai for business); busi-
nessmen from Jiangsu province (just north of Shanghai), who come to the
villas only for holidays; and investors, who bet the houses will increase in
value. Although the original plan was to attract thirty thousand people, the
actual population was so low that the only kindergarten in An Ting could not
open for lack of students.
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h e new city off ers few employment opportuni-
ties, and drivers to Shanghai would face a forty-fi ve-minute commute—
there is not yet a subway to the central city.
h e same dynamic (successful real estate venture but no residents) is also
present in h ames Town, despite its relatively accessible location on the sub-
way line with direct access to downtown Shanghai (this relative accessibil-
ity is part of why international critics have tended to focus on h ames Town:
it's easier to visit). My colleague and I visited with a family friend who grew
up in downtown Shanghai, the granddaughter of a Party general, a young
woman who now attends college in the United States. She was initially
excited by the h ames Town website but ultimately disappointed by the
experience. When I asked if she would ever live there, she shot me a horrifi ed
look. When I asked if she would live there for free, she still demurred. h en,
I upped the ante with a “what if they paid you to live there,” and she still
refused. h e best comparison I can off er is that it's sort of like asking a born-
and-bred Manhattanite if she'd consider the outer reaches of Staten Island—
but a Staten Island in drag as a dilapidated “classic” English town.
So, despite the broad eff ort by Shanghai urban planning o' cials to
“relieve pressure” in the central city by developing these towns, they have
