Stripping away the special factors of the ancient city and the maverick mayor, looking back at Datong's five-year city-building history, it applied China's current urban development model—land management and debt-driven development—to the extreme, becoming a microcosm of Chinese-style city-building. The new urbanization decision that has attracted nationwide attention has entered a critical moment. Urbanization is a combination of a series of economic and social policies, and a single move affects the whole situation. Its path choice is related to whether China can achieve sustainable economic and social development in the future. From the current perspective, the balance of central decision-making has tilted towards "urbanization of people," but in reality, the inertial thinking and practices of massive demolition and construction, and government-led rush city-building have not yet been broken.

　　Driven strongly by government investment, although the city has achieved rapid expansion and the urbanization rate has increased significantly, it has also caused serious side effects. The typical symptom is that regardless of the industrial agglomeration capacity, many new cities and new districts are artificially created, exceeding actual needs, and becoming "empty cities" and "ghost cities." In January 2013, then Vice Premier Li Keqiang stated that to promote urbanization, "we must take a new path of intensive, energy-saving, and ecological development, focus on improving internal carrying capacity, and not artificially 'build cities.'"

　　In the Datong sample in Shanxi, the government's massive investment in just five years achieved earth-shaking changes in the city's appearance, but with the departure of the strong leader and changes in the macroeconomic situation, this city that applied China's current urban development model—land management and debt-driven development—to the extreme also exposed the drawbacks of seeking grandeur and completeness, and advanced planning and construction, resulting in heavy debt and an unresolved mess.

　　——Editor

　　At 8 p.m., the lights on the East City Tower of Datong light up one after another from far to near, outlining the contours of an ancient city. The ancient city wall at its foot is 18 meters wide at the bottom, 14 meters wide at the top, and 14 meters high. On the wall, there are 12 watchtowers, 2 military control platforms, 2 corner towers, as well as one arrow tower, one crescent city, and one barbican, stretching for 1,800 meters, a magnificent sight that reminds people of Datong's former glory as the first of the "Nine Border Towns" in the Ming Dynasty.

　　However, this city wall is not a natural relic—more than 600 years after Ming Dynasty general Xu Da built Datong City, an ancient city covering an area of 3.28 square kilometers was rebuilt at a cost of 4.5 billion yuan.

　　Unlike other cities that only rebuild a few historical blocks, Datong's ancient city comprehensively restores the city wall, moat, Liao and Jin architectural complexes, the Ming Dynasty Dai Prince's Palace, and the block layout. All modern buildings within the original ancient city area are planned to be demolished or lowered, and hundreds of thousands of people have been relocated as a result.

　　While rebuilding the ancient city, Datong has built a new city covering 42 square kilometers east of the Yu River, including government buildings, high-standard hospitals, schools, and facilities such as a grand theater, gymnasium, art museum, library, and museum designed by many international masters, as well as real estate projects developed by well-known developers.

　　This series of grand projects, billed as "not outdated for 50 years, no regrets for 100 years," began five years ago. According to the plan of former mayor Geng Yanbo, Datong will achieve a "one axis, two cities" urban layout—with the Yu River as the boundary, the west is the old city centered on the 3.28-square-kilometer ancient city, and the east is the Yudong New City.

　　The old is restored, the new is updated, and both wings fly together. Geng Yanbo hoped that Datong could use urban construction as a breakthrough to escape the dilemma of "coal dominance" and drive urban transformation through cultural tourism.

　　Just when Datong's urban construction plan was more than halfway implemented, Geng Yanbo was transferred to Taiyuan in February this year, and Datong's urban construction subsequently fell into a state of stagnation. Many construction projects were shelved, and news emerged one after another about the government's debt of tens of billions of yuan and construction teams seizing houses to save themselves due to arrears.

　　Stripping away the special factors of the ancient city and the maverick mayor, looking back at Datong's five-year city-building history, it applied China's current urban development model—land management and debt-driven development—to the extreme, becoming a microcosm of Chinese-style city-building.

　　Decline

　　Datong is the second-largest city in Shanxi Province, with a current population of 3.3 million.

　　Because it guards the gateway to northern Shanxi, Datong has been a military fortress since ancient times. In the 2,300 years since its founding, it has experienced thousands of large and small battles—the adoption of nomadic dress and archery, the Battle of Baideng, and the Tumu Crisis all occurred nearby. History has left Datong with rich cultural relics, and the World Cultural Heritage Yungang Grottoes are its shining pearl, with carvings covering the mountains, exquisite beyond compare.

　　After 1949, Datong transformed into the "Coal Capital of China," and over the past 60 years, it has transported 2.4 billion tons of coal to the whole country. In 1984, Datong was listed by the State Council as one of the 13 larger cities in the country, on par with Chongqing, Luoyang, Wuxi, and others. In the 1990s, under the development idea of "let water flow fast, dig it out and sell it," a group of coal bosses rose, but the city declined. Datong people mocked themselves: "Sewage basically relies on evaporation, garbage basically relies on wind, vendors basically no one catches, city appearance basically no one praises."

　　In 2008, the resident population of Datong's urban area was 600,000, of which 160,000 households lived in low, dilapidated, and damp single-story compounds. In winter, up to 100 people queued for dry toilets. Because every household relied on coal for heating, the air was severely polluted; and the city's sewer system was backward, and in some unrenovated areas, sewage outlets could still be seen in the middle of the road, with sewage and garbage emitting a rotten smell. A French expert passing through Datong on the way to the Yungang Grottoes evaluated it as "the ugliest city in the world."

　　In 2001, Jia Zhangke filmed "Ren Xiaoyao" in Datong, a movie depicting the children of local unemployed workers, laying out a mood of doom—the city had lost the power to change. At that time, there were rumors that Datong's mines were exhausted and the city was declining, and it was about to be relocated entirely to Xinjiang.

　　Datong suffered a lost 20 years. When it woke up from its deep dream, it found that the cities that once ran neck and neck had run far ahead, and its own resource advantages were gradually disappearing—coal reserves are still considerable, but the best Jurassic coal is nearly exhausted. This historical city abandoned by the times faces the dual situation of making up for urban construction arrears and urban transformation.

　　The direct cause of Datong's decline was insufficient investment in urban construction funds. According to Li Yixin, director of the Datong Municipal Construction Committee, before 2008, Datong's urban construction budget was 30 million yuan per year. This money had to cover housing, roads, and landscaping, and was stretched thin.

　　After Geng Yanbo became mayor in February 2008, Datong's urban construction funds soared to more than 10 billion yuan per year. From 2008 to 2012, total urban construction investment reached 100 billion yuan, excluding social funds, government investment was about 60 to 70 billion yuan.

　　Five years, 100 billion yuan, equivalent to 55 million yuan invested every day in the construction of this third-tier city for 1,825 days, regardless of cold or heat.