A lot of money is going into building a new cubicle for everyone, but what's the economic rationale?[3]
Often, the economic rationale is simply the desire to create jobs (on the part of the government to stave on social unrest) and the desire to create profit (on the part of private enterprises that couldn't figure out how to be more innovative and so jumped on the bandwagon of the construction boom without seeing the risks).
As another comment notes, the government has realized this is a bad situation, and they're trying to put the breaks on it, but it's hard to do that and also enable a soft landing so that there's little or no social unrest. They're trying to shift from an infrastructure investment-driven economy to a consumption economy and an innovation economy, and the big debate is whether or not they have the right horses to be able to compete in that race.
Often, the economic rationale is simply the desire to create jobs (on the part of the government to stave on social unrest) and the desire to create profit (on the part of private enterprises that couldn't figure out how to be more innovative and so jumped on the bandwagon of the construction boom without seeing the risks).
As another comment notes, the government has realized this is a bad situation, and they're trying to put the breaks on it, but it's hard to do that and also enable a soft landing so that there's little or no social unrest. They're trying to shift from an infrastructure investment-driven economy to a consumption economy and an innovation economy, and the big debate is whether or not they have the right horses to be able to compete in that race.