The revealing appeal of China’s cheapest city

CENTRAL planners have long shaped Hegang, a city in China’s far north. Once, coal and other minerals made Hegang a pillar of socialist industry. When the richest seams were declared exhausted, just over a decade ago, the central government closed many mines and put its faith in green infrastructure. Shanty-towns of soot-blackened miners’ huts were demolished and replaced with brightly painted apartment blocks, marching to the horizon beside new city parks. A high-speed rail line opened last December. There is proud talk of a graphite mine that will supply factories making batteries for new-energy vehicles. Alas for the technocrats, they could not prevent more than one in six locals leaving Hegang after 2010, fleeing low salaries, limited job prospects (especially for graduates) and long, dark, brutal winters.