Actually, it isn't. Over the last 2-3 years, China has been soliciting reporters and writers to come out and visit some of their "ghost towns", specifically, the few they've actually put some people in. They pay for the entire trip and basically give them the emperor treatment while there. The hope is that these writers will come back and write fluff pieces like this, they want to change public perception. I know they do this first-hand because my ex-roommate is a writer for a large well-known website and received such an offer. He had to turn it down because his wife was 8 months pregnant otherwise he would have went.
Oh, and your article talks about reasons for delays in getting people in there. I think the entire article is a load of BS (it's forbes, after all). Many of those ghost cities are beginning to fall into disrepair due to how long they've remained empty. At that point, justifications and excuses become a moot point.
See here about ghost cities - "The unreal emptiness of China's Ghost cities": http://www.wired.com/2016/02/kai-caemmerer-unborn-cities/