On this week’s podcast, we’re talking about one of the biggest stories in the world today – the urbanisation of China.
To help us work this one out, we’re joined by a man who literally wrote the book on the subject. In 2006, American student Wade Shepard found himself lost in an entirely empty city somewhere in western China. When he told his professor about the experience, the response was a shrug and the words, “Yeah, those things are everywhere”.
So Wade set about exploring these empty cities. Last year, he published the book, Ghost Cities of China, about his experiences, to explain where these cities come from – and why they’re not really ghost cities at all. (You can find links to some of Wade’s excellent articles for us below.)
Also this week, we’re introducing a new segment in which one of our listeners tells us about their own city. This week, the man behind the curtain, our producer Roifield Brown, tells us about his hometown Birmingham.
