Yeah you ' re right in more ways than one . However I could see these ' ghost cities ' becoming populated in the future i found the replica of Paris to be quite interesting when the global sea levels rise to high that everyone is going to have to move father inland . Afaik a lot of those cities were built pretty far inland so they would probably not be affected by the sea level like the more populated cities in China . It would be crazy if they knew they would be ghost cities for now and just built them in anticipation of a global climate catastrophe and is a large part of the populations fallback point . Maybe they stocked them up with tons of nonperishable food and supplies and the means to generate clean power and make new food and supplies . If that were true then China would be so far ahead of everyone else , it would blow our minds . Also , there was a short story written a year or two ago about how after a global climate catastrophe went down , China came out on top because of their geography withstanding the brunt of the flooding and refugees from around the world fleeing there . I haven ' t read it myself and can ' t recall the title or author , but I suggest you check it out , as I will tomorrow as well . There was a piece about it on NPR when it came out and i meant to check it out then but totally forgot until I started writing this post . I just hope the world doesn ' t go down like it did in the movie showpiercer . That movie was weird , I couldn ' t figure out if I liked it or not .