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Monday, August 25, 2014

Ordos, China: The world's largest ghost town


Kangbashi New Area, part of Ordos City in the Chinese Inner Mongolia, was built in 2004 to house 300,000 people. It was part of an ambitious plan to create a glitzy, state-of-the-art commercial and residential zone that would house affluent citizens. 17 billion yuan were spent to transform the area into a  postmodern metropolis with spaceship-like government towers, Dubai-style skyscrapers, museums, libraries, theaters, sculpture squares and luxury bungalows.

However, only about 2% of the buildings were filled. High home prices were blamed for keeping prospective buyers away. Today about 20,000-30,000 people live in the city which has population density of 469 people per square kilometer, which is less than 5% of the average for Chinese small cities. As the city remained virtually empty, prices fell from $1,100 per square foot in 2006 to $470 a square foot in December 2011 but that wasn't enough to attract new buyers. 

Today, most of residents of the district are government employees who bought their houses with a discount of 50% or more. The remaining houses were bought by coal tycoons who then chose to live elsewhere.










Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Athens Olympic Games sites, 10 years later

Two years ago, we took a look at the 2004 Athens Olympics venues, 8 years after the Games, and found most of them to be abandoned and in disrepair.

This summer, 10 years after the Olympic Games, we find that almost nothing has changed. Even though the Games were considered a success back in 2004, there were no plans whatsoever for the future use of most of the sporting facilities. Many of them were never used again in the last 10 years, while others, such as the Athens Olympic Sports Complex, don't receive proper maintenance due to lack of funding.

Meanwhile, just last week the Greek government announced that it has no responsibility for the condition of the Athens Olympic facilities and that most of them will be sold to private investors soon.




SEE ALSO: Athens Olympic Games sites, 8 years later // More abandoned Olympic venues around the world // More abandoned sport facilities // More abandoned places in Greece // LIST OF ALL DESERTED PLACES 
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Monday, August 11, 2014

The abandoned town of Kharanaq in Iran


The abandoned village of Kharanaq is near the city of Yazd, in central Iran. Build in the shadow of a scenic mountain, the site is occupied for at least 4,000 years while some of the mud brick houses still standing today are up to 1,000 years old.

Only a few people live in Kharanaq today. Until a few years ago there was even a guest house in the village but not many tourists visit the area. Some restoration work is taking place around the village.






SEE ALSO: More ghost towns around the world // LIST OF ALL DESERTED PLACES 
For more deserted places, LIKE US on Facebook and FOLLOW US on twitter



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Monday, August 4, 2014

An abandoned Thai shopping mall overtaken by fish

New World shopping mall in Bangkok, Thailand used to be an eleven storey building. Its top seven floors were demolished in 1997 though as it was found to be in breach of the city's building codes. In 1999 the mall was burned down in a suspected arson and several people were killed. Since then, the building remained abandoned.

As its roof had collapsed, the basement floor remains under several feet of water year round. During the early 2000's, an unknown person introduced a small population of the domesticated Koi fish species do deal with the growing mosquito problem. The population began to thrive and the mall's basement became a self-sustained urban aquarium.

Blogger and photographer Jesse Rockwell took some photos in the abandoned mall last year, which quickly went viral.