The Spanish park in Fengcheng devoid of visitors and maintenance.

In the outskirts of Shanghai, a traditional style Spanish village town sits. The buildings were constructed with creamy yellow walls and bright red tiles; the windmill once energized street lamps on both sides of the town's main street. In the center of the town's square a bronze sculpture of a bullfighter stands.

Fengcheng is an almost perfect recreation of a Spanish township. The only thing missing is people.

None of the residents the Global Times found in nearby compounds knew that the town was part of a once ambitious plan to urbanize rural Shanghai. The plan was called the "One City Nine Towns" project.

In 2001 Shanghai city planners decided to develop rural Shanghai. The plan hoped to decentralize the city center, and relieve pressure on downtown areas by attracting people to live and work in selected suburban areas. To make the project attractive to home buyers, the government invited international designers to make the towns resemble foreign styles, according to a government notification in 2001.

However, few have been attracted to the towns in the past 10 years, either because of the poor transportation or the lack of job opportunities. Now the towns which are gradually fading from people's attention are deserted.

Cobwebs and weeds

Around 60 kilometers from People's Square lies Fengcheng, a town in Fengxian district. It takes about three and a half hours to reach the town by public transport. There are no direct bus lines or subway lines connecting the town with the city center. The Spanish town was built in the southern part of Fengcheng, occupying an area of about 1.98 square kilometers.

Because of the attention the township government has given to building the so-called "Oriental Barcelona," local government buildings were moved to the main street of the Spanish town, on Lanbo Road. Also the most important venues and facilities, including a museum, a park, an opera house, and a shopping center all lie along the main road. However, most venues are either closed or vacant.

The Spanish museum is located at the central part of Lanbo Road. The entrance has been sealed up by a white board and the two slopes leading to the top of the venue are overgrown with a thick layer of weeds. The paintings on the wall are gradually fading. It is hard to see anything but a few chandeliers inside through the window as there is no light in the building.

The Spanish park sits a short distance from the museum. It seems to have been a long time since the park received any visitors. The pathways are blocked by large spider webs, and there is plenty of garbage in the pond.

Qu Long is the manager of the Shanghai Fengcheng Township City Investment Company, a company under the local government, and the director of the urban planning department of the township government. Qu told the Global Times that the Spanish Township project fell into trouble shortly after it was launched.

"The Fengcheng Township City Investment Company was set up in 2003, marking the beginning of the Spanish town project. Three parties including the township government, the Shanghai Agricultural Investment Corporation, and the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the district level shared the holding," Qu said.

However, the financial chain was soon broken. "The stocks held by the Shanghai Agricultural Investment Corporation were frozen by the court after Zhou Zhengyi (the former richest businessman in Shanghai who held a prominent position in the Shanghai Agricultural Investment Foundation) was arrested for stock market fraud in 2004," he said. Zhou was sentenced to three years' imprisonment. "The construction was suspended and both sides of Lanbo Road were overgrown with weeds by 2007, when I took office. The construction was restarted after the township got a bank loan of 440 million yuan ($68 million)," Qu said.

Why foreign?

Financial problems are not the only obstacles the project has met. "Another major reason for the town's failure to attract residents is that many people are not in favor of the Spanish style. People still prefer a modernized community," he said.

After the municipal government decided on a Spanish theme, no buildings except for those in a Spanish style were allowed to be built within the town. "The height of the buildings cannot be more than 10 meters; the buildings should be white or yellow; and the tiles should be red; long corridors need to be constructed to resemble the Spanish style," Qu said. The strict requirement has served as a hindrance in attracting real estate developers. "It is impossible for real estate companies to build tall buildings or set the house prices high as it is a remote place," Qu said.

Xu Shunjie, the sales manager of the Oriental Madrid residential compound near the town's square, told the Global Times that most of the 200 houses have been sold. However, the neighborhood is devoid of residents. Zhang Song, an expert in urban planning from Shanghai Tongji University said that the local government's emphasis on real estate development has resulted in them neglecting other aspects of development. Thus few downtown residents will be attracted to these remote communities. "Most buyers are house flippers or those who buy houses for retirement. So the town lacks residents to attract businesses," Qu said.

A large shopping center sits opposite the Oriental Madrid compound. Though rent ads are stuck everywhere, most shops remain empty. The only escalator leading to the second floor is out of use. However, Qu sticks to the opinion that the real estate industry is fundamental to the town's future development. "There are 120,000 square meters of land in front of the local government that will be developed into a new Spanish residential compound. The developer is a very competent State-owned company. We have got special permission to build the houses higher this time. If you come here in three years' time, the town will be totally different," Qu said.

Apart from the Spanish town, Shanghai has several other exotic style towns, for example, a British town in Songjiang district, a German town in Jiading district, a North European town in Baoshan district, an Italian one in Minhang district, a Dutch one in Gaoqiao, Pudong New Area, a North American one in Jinshan district and a general Western style one in Zhoupu, Pudong New Area. A traditional Chinese water town was also constructed in Zhujiajiao, Qingpu district and Baozhen on Chongming Island was constructed to be an ecological town.

A major reason behind designing the towns in foreign styles is to make each city unique, according to a report in 2008 by a real estate magazine based in Beijing.

According to Zhang Song, he was among one of the first to oppose to the plan. "A town's construction style is related to people's daily life and its historical background. Their development and style is organic. It reflects the town's progress. It is impossible to clone a foreign country's style in a short time. It takes long years of devotion to cultivate a style."
A report by the economic department of the Shanghai People's Political Consultative Committee in September 2009 points out that a major problem of the One City Nine Towns project was that there was no clear target market. The urban planners did not make it clear from the beginning what kind of customers would be attracted to the exotic houses - the houses are usually too expensive for local residents and too far for downtown residents, the report said.

According to the report, another problem was that in some satellite towns, preferential policies were lifted when the project was in its initial stages, including the Spanish town in Fengcheng. This has put those towns at a disadvantage when attracting businesses and developers.

Photo opportunities

Thames Town which is based on British style architecture in Songjiang district is probably the best-known and best constructed township in the project. However, the town also has a lack of residents though there is a surprising abundance of wedding photo studios.

According to the town's administration, there are more than 20 wedding photo studios in the town. A security guard told the Global Times that a major part of his job is managing the photography shoots as there is barely anyone else to monitor. "We could spend a whole day following the shoots. Those which are not licensed with the town's administration are not allowed to take photos here," he said.

However the security guard said the town is devoid of people after 5 pm. "When the photography crews leave, there is barely anyone in this town. Most home buyers come here once and twice a year. It is really inconvenient if you intend to stay a long time. The nearest wet market is about half an hour's walk from here and there are no supermarkets except for two tiny ones," he said.

An owner of a photography studio told the Global Times that it is impossible to run other businesses except for photo studios in the faux-British town. "If you opened a restaurant here, you would not even see one customer," he said.

Duan Xiuqin, who works in a tea house in the town, told the Global Times that the store keeps running because there are customers coming from outside. "They drive here because it is a quiet and peaceful place to enjoy tea. But we do not have a lot of customers during the week. Many other stores around us have closed down," she said. Liu Lili, who also works at the teahouse, said that she has not seen the nearby church opened once since she came to the town two years ago.

A spokesperson from the Songjiang government said that a vicious circle has formed. "There are too few residents to attract businesses here. And the inconvenience of living adds to people's reluctance to move here," she told South China Morning Post in March 2008.

Though a rental promotion was launched by the Songjiang government and a real estate developer at the end of 2007, a large portion of the stores remain closed. Zhou Ke, an expert from the Shanghai Tongji Urban Planning and Design Institute, said that people are unwilling to move to the towns because there are few employment opportunities. "If the towns do not solve the problem of creating more jobs, they will remain empty," he said.

Despite challenges city planners have grown a new passion and are developing seven new cities in suburban areas in the next 10 years. Hu Jun, deputy director of the Shanghai Municipal Planning, Land and Resources Administration, announced in a news conference two months ago that the new project will "help Shanghai to become a city with well balanced urban and rural development." Most towns in the One City Nine Towns project are included in the new plan, except for Fengcheng, and Gaoqiao townships.

Sun Jiwei, head of Jiading district, is confident about the new project. He said in a global construction conference last month that unlike the old project which mainly focused on absorbing population from the city center to suburban towns, the new plan would give importance to developing local industries and plan to build the areas into modern cities with multiple functions.

Professor Zhang Song said policies need to be made to encourage industries like education and scientific research in the new cities. He added that the real estate development accompanying the subway construction may cause house prices to soar in those cities, and that it may cause people to return to the city center.