Andrew Sheng and Xiao Geng write:   Without large-scale infrastructure investment, especially in transport, the productivity gains that enabled America’s emergence as an industrial power would have been impossible. Though the process included significant creative destruction, rapid economic growth offset losses resulting from excess capacity.
Similarly, when viewed through the long lens of history, China’s ghost towns will prove to be potholes on the path to development. China’s massive infrastructure investment, funded largely through LGFVs, will most likely be remembered for its critical contribution to the country’s economic modernization.  China’s Infrastructure Expenditures