Kangbashi

Back in 2013 I wrote about China's aggressive project to move 250 million people from the countryside into cities. To accomplish this, some cities were built from scratch before they had occupants - called the "ghost cities."

The largest of these is Kangbashi in northern China. Built for a million people about ten years ago, it's inhabited only by about a tenth of that number.

A French photographer has produced a book about the big, empty buildings of the city surrounded by desert, called Ordos - A Failed Utopia. See some of the photos here.

(note - links corrected)

China's ghost cities

In this report by Leslie Stahl, you'll see:  homes bulldozed to make way for empty condos; a city built for a million people in Mongolia but no one's there; large shopping malls with no shops and no shoppers.  It's eerie.

One of the biggest contractors in the world built many of these projects, and he says that the situation is very dangerous and the housing bubble very big.

You'll also hear about "multiple classes of investors" who may well be "wiped out."

Billions wasted 1

Years ago, I discovered China's urbanizing drive, their "ghost cities," and their empty towns: staggering amounts of money were invested to develop them, yet almost no one lived there.

Years later, and they haven't changed much. (Here's a recent update on Kangbashi.)

Other countries have their stories of enormous expenditure, followed by emptiness or failure. Check out the gorgeous, expensive Forest City of Malaysia--empty and eerie for the few who do go there: