There is something sad about the traffic lights blinking over empty boulevards in brand new 'business districts' all over China places that have all the makings of a thriving commercial center except… well, actual businesses.
在中国各地新建的商业区，空荡荡的大街上闪烁的交通灯发出悲凉的光。这些商业区拥有一个繁荣的商业中心所需的一切，但就是没有商家。
The empty malls and office buildings, waiting for someone to move in, are visible reminders that local governments and their developer pals often build first and ask questions later.
空置的购物中心和写字楼等待着人们前来进驻，这提醒着人们，地方政府和它们的开发商伙伴总是先盖楼，然后才问问题。
Optimists counter that Shanghai's Pudong New Area felt like a ghost town when it was built, pretty much from scratch, in the 1990s. Now it is China's Wall Street.
乐观的人们反驳说，上世纪90年代，上海的浦东新区从零开始建起来之后感觉就像是一个鬼城。现在，它是中国的华尔街。
But Pudong has the advantage of sitting just across the river from downtown Shanghai. As every realtor knows, location is everything.
但是浦东拥有着与上海市中心一江之隔这一地理位置上的优势。每一个房地产经纪人都知道，位置决定一切。
'In Beijing and Shanghai there is going to be demand for all the prime office space that is being built,' said Chris Brooke, head of real estate services firm CBRE in China, in a recent interview.
房地产服务公司世邦魏理仕(CBRE)的中国区负责人蒲敬思(Chris Brooke)近日接受采访时说，北京和上海将出现对正在建造的所有优质写字楼的需求。
'If you take markets like Tianjin or Shenyang or Chongqing, they've created these new commercial zones and the demand is not going to be deep enough to keep up with that level of supply in the short term. Tianjin has not just one central business district but three.'
蒲敬思说，但看看天津、沈阳或重庆的市场，这些城市都建造了新的商业区，那里的需求不足以在短期吸收供应的水平；天津不是只有一个中央商业区，而是有三个。
Tianjin alone will see more than five million square meters of office space completed between now and 2016, according to CBRE figures released Thursday.
根据世邦魏理仕周四公布的数据，从现在起到2016年，天津将建成500万平方米的办公空间。
Yet even the second-tier cities should be all right in the long run, Mr. Brooke said. Western China is now seeing some of the country's most impressive gross domestic product growth, and its two big cities, Chongqing and Chengdu, are emerging as commercial hubs for a vast region. Meanwhile, the central government has invested a lot of political capital in developing Tianjin, which is just southeast of Beijing, as a secondary northern metropolis.
蒲敬思说，然而，长期来看即使是二线城市也应该无虞。中国西部录得了全国最令人印象深刻的经济增长，中国西部两个最大的城市重庆和成都正在成为一个广袤区域的商业中心。与此同时，中央政府已经投资了许多政治资本开发天津，想把天津打造成中国北方的一个次级大都会。
The real trouble could be elsewhere. Much smaller cities like Zhengzhou, Changsha and Nanchang have big plans to build out new commercial space. Rents might take a dive in those markets in the next couple of years, Mr. Brooke reckons, but they won't get much sympathy in Beijing.
真正的麻烦可能在别处。郑州、长沙和南昌这样小得多的城市拥有建造新的商业空间的大计划。蒲敬思说，未来几年，这些市场的租金可能大幅下跌，但是它们不会获得中央政府的太多同情。
Unlike the residential market, which the authorities treat as a social issue, the government will likely take the view that cavalier developers who built more than the market can needs will have to live with the consequences.
有关部门通常将住宅地产看做一个社会问题，但对于商业地产来说，政府将可能会认为，那些满不在乎的房地产商需要自己承担建造市场不需要的地产的后果。
But that might suit the bigger kids in the Chinese real estate playground. Consolidation is coming in the sector, Mr. Brooke thinks, with banks reluctant to lend to smaller, less experienced developers.
但是，这可能对中国房地产领域规模较大的参与者更有利。蒲敬思认为，因为银行不愿意向规模较小、缺乏经验的开发商提供贷款，中国的房地产行业将出现并购的局面。
Such also-rans can't compete with the likes of China Vanke and Gemdale, big boys who can tap banks and international capital markets as well.
这样的小企业无法与中国万科(China Vanke)或金地集团(Gemdale)这样的大公司竞争，后者不仅能够从银行获得贷款，还能利用国际资本市场。
These firms are accumulating big portfolios of commercial property to lease out, as well as building apartments for sale, modeling themselves on companies like Sun Hung Kai Properties and CapitaLand, the giants of Hong Kong and Singapore.
这些公司正在积累用于租赁的大的商业地产组合，还在建造用于销售的公寓楼，他们的目标是成为香港的新鸿基地产(Sun Hung Kai Properties)和新加坡的嘉德置地(CapitaLand Ltd.)这样的巨头。
If a few heavyweights like that emerged from the mainland, China's government would not be sorry at all.
如果内地出现了几个这样的重量级公司，中国政府高兴还来不及呢。