I want to talk about that in the light of a lot of negative coverage of "ghost cities" being built in China. I want to tell that building new cities in the middle of nowhere is not a bad idea if done correctly, and probably the best option for countries with extreme population densities like China and Pakistan.
Point one: redevelopment often cost way, way more than development from scratch.
It is much harder to add economic value to the land already possessing a lot of it, line one in a dense city. If you demolish even old housing in a dense urban area, new housing have to make way more money than existing one. This is why social aspects of housing shortage are rarely solved by redevelopment.
If the poor were not able to afford even the housing that stood on the land before, how would they afford something that is newer and, obviously, more expensive? You will have to heavily subsidise such development to make it available to the poor, and it is simply cheaper to give rent allowances to the poor to the same effect.
Add to that that demolitions, massive road closures, and cost of bringing equipment and materials into a dense urban area are not cheap either. In other words, it is much, much cheaper to build in "the middle of nowhere"
Point two: the industry and employment is often "priced out" from dense urban areas
Few people will move into a new place without employment opportunities. It sounds paradoxical, but you can get higher gains in employment outside of dense urban areas because it's too expensive to run industrial facilities in a dense city. This is a very, very serious issue for Shenzhen now for reasons I will outline below.
Factories require a lot of cheap land, big continuous plots, and unclogged roads — there is no chance you get that in large conurbations. On other hand, factories are HUUUGE employers of labour on all levels of professional proficiency. In other words, factories act like "sponges" for highly liquid labour resources. Always willing to get more labour at right cost.
Without a doubt industries are greatly beneficial for country's economy, and this is why the state should work hard to accommodate them. Whenever when such "green field" development is planned, it is much easier to attract industries during planning stages, and iron out on what terms they will be staying there, as well as to plan out how to make city accommodate their unique needs like heavy transport accessibility, infrastructure requirement, or sanitary needs.
For the same reason, it's also makes sense to not to build new cities way too far from existing cities and transport hubs.
Point three: it's easier to provide for personal and social development in new cities
I think this point will be the most controversial one. My argument is that mobile, younger part of labour force is the most worthy to be employed in building new social fabric of the state as they are the most malleable, both mentally and socially. They are the easiest part of the population to socially uplift for the state, and they are the ones who will gain the most from that.
Making things like modern schools, facilities for youth, adequately sized hospitals are always easier if you plan them ahead of the development. Second to that, the population of newly moved in people is almost always having very "coherent" social needs, and it is easier for the local government to work with them and provide for their needs.
The more cordial and engaged are the relationship in between the populace and the local government, the more the state can do. A great example from China is how different is the turnout for volunteer activities in old and new cities. In Shenzhen, you have 1 in 30 people working in some volunteer activity, and a very meaningful one at that, in Beijing and Shanghai, you will barely get 1 in 1000 to do something as simple as a city cleanup. The bigger social initiatives you can do, the better it is — that's what I think.
The last what I wanted to talk about this is crime, and policing. In overall, newer cities are easier to police. 'm a strong believer in the idea that criminality is "infectious," and that preventing criminality from taking root is easier than to fight it reactively.
Point four: it's near impossible to do deep infrastructure upgrades in old cities.
This more or less follow the first point. It's extremely hard to put modern infrastructure in century old cities which were made with zero considerations for things to come in the future. Like in Shanghai that has huuge problems with its shallow sewage system that was first build in late 19th century, and electrification, that was made in fifties. Shanghai can't do anything about that, despite being the richest city in China as the entirety of its street layout, and housing zoning have to be redone for that. Beijing has extreme problem with traffic with its medieval street layout, 10 ring roads, and socially predisposed long commutes.
New cities are a great playground to try out new infrastructural ideas like central heating, central air conditioning, water management, waste management, and new forms of transit.
Point five: plainly economics
More of a sum of all points above: building a new, well planned city is often the most cost efficient way to use state money for action on just any social issue.
You can get biggest cost efficiencies in just everything if you go so big, and this does not only end in construction. Administrative overheads are lowered, government activities and processes are also made cheaper when purpose built from scratch. Logistics of construction greatly benefit from good, city wide planning: in a big city, it's hard to organise housing of construction staff, storage of materials, and operation of heavy vehicles. All of aforementioned is not hard in a big, centrally managed project.
Having certain ideas of future infrastructure utilisation help lower the cost, through lowering of financial risks. Probably not an issue for Pakistan, but in China there were many issues with underutilised infrastructure like power stations. The same factor plays in attracting foreign money. A big capital assets builder will be way more confident in returns if he can be sure that his resources in the country can be productively invested again, and again. Second to that, the prospect of near guaranteed land cost appreciation makes capital cheap for such projects
New cities guarantee crazy land value appreciation, and gain for first comers, and financial security for the newly built city for at least a decade or two. New cities are net creators of economic activity, and produce much higher returns for the national economy at large than any redevelopment effort. Finally, there is no price too high for the newly weaved fabric of society created by new cities.
Point one: redevelopment often cost way, way more than development from scratch.
It is much harder to add economic value to the land already possessing a lot of it, line one in a dense city. If you demolish even old housing in a dense urban area, new housing have to make way more money than existing one. This is why social aspects of housing shortage are rarely solved by redevelopment.
If the poor were not able to afford even the housing that stood on the land before, how would they afford something that is newer and, obviously, more expensive? You will have to heavily subsidise such development to make it available to the poor, and it is simply cheaper to give rent allowances to the poor to the same effect.
Add to that that demolitions, massive road closures, and cost of bringing equipment and materials into a dense urban area are not cheap either. In other words, it is much, much cheaper to build in "the middle of nowhere"
Point two: the industry and employment is often "priced out" from dense urban areas
Few people will move into a new place without employment opportunities. It sounds paradoxical, but you can get higher gains in employment outside of dense urban areas because it's too expensive to run industrial facilities in a dense city. This is a very, very serious issue for Shenzhen now for reasons I will outline below.
Factories require a lot of cheap land, big continuous plots, and unclogged roads — there is no chance you get that in large conurbations. On other hand, factories are HUUUGE employers of labour on all levels of professional proficiency. In other words, factories act like "sponges" for highly liquid labour resources. Always willing to get more labour at right cost.
Without a doubt industries are greatly beneficial for country's economy, and this is why the state should work hard to accommodate them. Whenever when such "green field" development is planned, it is much easier to attract industries during planning stages, and iron out on what terms they will be staying there, as well as to plan out how to make city accommodate their unique needs like heavy transport accessibility, infrastructure requirement, or sanitary needs.
For the same reason, it's also makes sense to not to build new cities way too far from existing cities and transport hubs.
Point three: it's easier to provide for personal and social development in new cities
I think this point will be the most controversial one. My argument is that mobile, younger part of labour force is the most worthy to be employed in building new social fabric of the state as they are the most malleable, both mentally and socially. They are the easiest part of the population to socially uplift for the state, and they are the ones who will gain the most from that.
Making things like modern schools, facilities for youth, adequately sized hospitals are always easier if you plan them ahead of the development. Second to that, the population of newly moved in people is almost always having very "coherent" social needs, and it is easier for the local government to work with them and provide for their needs.
The more cordial and engaged are the relationship in between the populace and the local government, the more the state can do. A great example from China is how different is the turnout for volunteer activities in old and new cities. In Shenzhen, you have 1 in 30 people working in some volunteer activity, and a very meaningful one at that, in Beijing and Shanghai, you will barely get 1 in 1000 to do something as simple as a city cleanup. The bigger social initiatives you can do, the better it is — that's what I think.
The last what I wanted to talk about this is crime, and policing. In overall, newer cities are easier to police. 'm a strong believer in the idea that criminality is "infectious," and that preventing criminality from taking root is easier than to fight it reactively.
Point four: it's near impossible to do deep infrastructure upgrades in old cities.
This more or less follow the first point. It's extremely hard to put modern infrastructure in century old cities which were made with zero considerations for things to come in the future. Like in Shanghai that has huuge problems with its shallow sewage system that was first build in late 19th century, and electrification, that was made in fifties. Shanghai can't do anything about that, despite being the richest city in China as the entirety of its street layout, and housing zoning have to be redone for that. Beijing has extreme problem with traffic with its medieval street layout, 10 ring roads, and socially predisposed long commutes.
New cities are a great playground to try out new infrastructural ideas like central heating, central air conditioning, water management, waste management, and new forms of transit.
Point five: plainly economics
More of a sum of all points above: building a new, well planned city is often the most cost efficient way to use state money for action on just any social issue.
You can get biggest cost efficiencies in just everything if you go so big, and this does not only end in construction. Administrative overheads are lowered, government activities and processes are also made cheaper when purpose built from scratch. Logistics of construction greatly benefit from good, city wide planning: in a big city, it's hard to organise housing of construction staff, storage of materials, and operation of heavy vehicles. All of aforementioned is not hard in a big, centrally managed project.
Having certain ideas of future infrastructure utilisation help lower the cost, through lowering of financial risks. Probably not an issue for Pakistan, but in China there were many issues with underutilised infrastructure like power stations. The same factor plays in attracting foreign money. A big capital assets builder will be way more confident in returns if he can be sure that his resources in the country can be productively invested again, and again. Second to that, the prospect of near guaranteed land cost appreciation makes capital cheap for such projects
New cities guarantee crazy land value appreciation, and gain for first comers, and financial security for the newly built city for at least a decade or two. New cities are net creators of economic activity, and produce much higher returns for the national economy at large than any redevelopment effort. Finally, there is no price too high for the newly weaved fabric of society created by new cities.
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