How to Build China's City of the Future

On April 1, real estate prices in rural Xiongxan County, roughly 80 miles south of Beijing, spiked as much as 37 percent; highways jammed as speculators rushed to the obscure district. That morning, the Chinese government had announced that at the direction of President Xi Jinping, 800 miles surrounding Xiongxan would be developed into a city meant to serve as a model for China's development over the "next millennium."

Expectations are high: The government has placed the Xiongan New Area on equal footing with China's two great successes in government-directed urban development, Shenzhen and Shanghai's Pudong New Area, calling it an area of "national significance." Xi is following in the footsteps of Deng Xiaopeng, who presided over the rise of Shenzhen and laid the groundwork for Pudong. Whether the ambitious plan succeeds, though, depends on whether Xi learns not just from Deng's successes, but from the many failures that followed.