There is a copy of Paris in China. It’s a ghost town

And when China built a copy of Paris and failed (shockingly)? Built for 10,000 inhabitants, Tianducheng, China’s City of Lights, is a ghost town, but everything could be changing.

The Eiffel Tower is in Paris, France. Everyone knows that. But on the outskirts of Hangzhou, there is another, more than 100 meters high.

Tianducheng It doesn’t just steal the Eiffel Tower from the City of Lights: it’s an entire luxury residential project, which was created in 2007 with the aim of completely copying the French capital.

There was a problem: Zhejiang province took everything from Paris, but left the charm, elegance and romantic aesthetics behind. It convinced practically no one to go and live there and it has since been considered a ghost town.

The development, developed by Zhejiang Guangsha, expected to welcome more than 10 thousand residents and recreate the 19th century Parisian environment in scenic detail. The central avenue replicates the logic of the Champs-Élysées, the facades evoke the style of Second Empire renovation and the squares are decorated with baroque fountains, tree-lined streets and wrought iron balconies. The result is a kind of European setting transplanted to the outskirts of Hangzhou. But the architectural grandeur always lacked the essential thing: people.

In the early years, Tianducheng was promoted to the rising middle class. The concept was in line with a trend that was then dominating the Chinese real estate market: the development of themed neighborhoods inspired by foreign models. Austrian alpine villages appeared, small “Hollands” with mills and canals, or the famous Thames Town, built near Shanghai with pubs and churches that imitated the British style. But few were as ambitious for imitation as Tianducheng.

Time has shown that aesthetics are not enough to guarantee urban life. Location was one of the main obstacles. Located in an area far from shopping centers and main transport links, the neighborhood was physically isolated. There was a lack of schools, services, commerce and employment opportunities.

The apartments, despite being expensive, did not have reasonable conditions to justify the investment. The first residents who arrived complained about poor connectivity, long commutes and the uncomfortable feeling of living in a city that seemed empty.

As several buildings remained unoccupied or unfinished, Tianducheng gained a bad reputation. Images of silent streets and the lonely Eiffel Tower began to circulate on social media and travel blogs.

The neighborhood quickly became part of the list of so-called Chinese “ghost cities”, along with other urban projects that never reached the expected population. The best-known case is Ordos, in Inner Mongolia, but Tianducheng stood out for its strangeness: an almost perfect Paris, but without Parisians, or Chinese.

In recent years, Hangzhou’s urban expansion has moved closer to Tianducheng and new works have resumed and even the metro has arrived there, notes the . Today there are already schools, parks and shops in the surrounding area, and the number of residents has been slowly increasing.

But the center maintains the peculiar atmosphere that made it famous: impeccably clean but not very busy streets, impeccable but underused buildings, a permanent silence interrupted by the ‘shutters’ of the cameras of the most curious or those photographing couples who were unable to go to Paris for the wedding session.

Perhaps it is the best place to visit if you want to avoid having Paris syndrome.