The Ghost Cities of China

Photo: Michael Christopher Brown/TIME Magazine

If you build it, they will come – or so the famous saying goes … but what if you build it in the middle of nowhere, Inner Mongolia? Michael Christopher Brown visited the famous ghost city of Ordos, Inner Mongolia for TIME Magazine:

The Kangbashi district began as a public-works project in Ordos, a wealthy coal-mining town in Inner Mongolia. The area is filled with office towers, administrative centers, government buildings, museums, theaters and sports fields—not to mention acre on acre of subdivisions overflowing with middle-class duplexes and bungalows. The only problem: the district was originally designed to house, support and entertain 1 million people, yet hardly anyone lives there.

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Similarly, Business Insider has the satellite photos of Ordos and other ghost cities of China:

There are no cars in the city, except for a few dozen parked at the glamorous government center.