The modern ghost town of Kangbashi

Usually, a ghost town is considered to be that human settlement, which after years of being inhabited, is eventually abandoned by people due to different causes, such as disasters or economic downturns. But how can an ultra modern city be turned into a ghost town right after it was built? Well, the answers finds itself in China, in the city of Ordos, where Kangbashi, one of the newest and most modern neighborhoods is absolutely empty.

The Kangbashi district, in Inner Mongolia, Northern China, was built following all the modern standards, and after the project will be finished it should be capable to host more than 1 million people, most of which work in mines near the city. As of 2010, the city could host at least 300.000 people, which cost $161 billion, a huge investment that seems to not have been planned well enough.

Authorities invested all those billions of dollars to transform the area into a real metropolis, from which administrative buildings, skyscrapers, post-modernist buildings, museums, theaters, libraries, parks and luxury residences are not missing. and although it sounds absurd, nobody thought that people will also need schools, hospitals, cable TV, internet, taxi services or clubs where young people meet, a reason for people to avoid the luxury location, for now.
Currently, the only people you can see on the streets of Kangbashi are the sanitation workers and extremely few people who chose to live here, in this modern ghost town.

Kangbashi was made world famous by a news report from AlJazeera, later picked up and expanded through an article in Time magazine, for having few residents but massive amounts of empty residential housing and high-tech public works projects. Subsequent reports have supported the claims that Kangbashi only presently houses around 20.000 to 30.000 people. (wikipedia)