Yes. And they also underestimate the cost and time to build such a thing. From the article, "The project is closely identified with President Xi Jinping, which

Yes. And they also underestimate the cost and time to build such a thing. From the article, "The project is closely identified with President Xi Jinping, which means it’s unlikely to join a long list of Chinese “ghost cities” financed by local governments." A lot of initiatives are started by people with an idea but without resources or knowledge to execute it. I think that city planning is an awesome idea. I grew up in Barcelona and the results are very good (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eixample https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eixample). But creating a new city from scratch is more difficult. And it is harder to get the experience to do it right as the execution of the project will take decades.