As growth slows, China's huge investment in infrastructure is looking ever harder to sustain, leaving a string of ambitious projects - towns, shopping malls and even a theme park - empty and forlorn. — bbc.co.uk

As China's flood-ravaged capital dealt with the aftermath of the heaviest rain in six decades Monday, including the deaths of 37 people, questions were being raised about whether the city's push for modernization came at the expense of basic infrastructure such as drainage networks. [...]

The city has seen tens of billions of dollars poured into its modernization [...] — all while basics like water drainage were apparently neglected. — npr.org

The city is deep in debt; it's got a state-appointed board managing its finances, so it's gotta cut services it can't afford. Services that it can't afford in part because it's a city built for two million people that's now home to just over 713,000.

So street lights could be a luxury Detroit can't completely afford. — marketplace.org

[Beijing] started expanding the system in the run-up to the 2008 Olympics, and has kept pushing forward ever since. In 2001 it had 33 miles of track. Today it has 231.

Meanwhile, when you hear the completion dates for big U.S. transit projects you often have to calculate your age to figure out if you’ll still be alive. — salon.com

The new 1.1-kilometer (0.68 miles) route will link the Greenwich Peninsula next to the O2 Arena with the Royal Docks on the north bank of the Thames and will cost an estimated £40 million ($65 million)... Transport for London (TfL) are hoping that building work on what will be the first urban transport system of its kind in the UK will be completed in time for the opening of the London 2012 Olympics on July 27. — Matthew Knight, CNN