Ghost Cities of China.

Happened upon this video by Wayne Steigler (2016) about China’s ghost cities and fell down the rabbit hole.

Summary: There are 20 (and counting) ghost cities in China. Called ghost cities because some are 250km wide and empty. Why? Don’t know. What’s interesting is these cities are duplicates of famous, existing cities (Paris, Italy, USA, etc). Video provides aerial photography of some cities, and notes each city has different classes of neighbourhoods and are colour coded. Properties include water front homes, high rise apartments and bungalows. Most homes are apparently fully furnished and many are empty shells with no interiors. The billboards are frequently updated and landscape maintained by the district. Although China is strict on places of worship, many are built in these cities.

Mind, the video is dated 2013, still I find this super interesting. Curious to know why these cities are empty! The architecture and infrastructure is beautiful! I don’t know if China's harbouring secrets of any impending doom, or why they won't move the people living in congested local cities to these empty ones, but I for one am impressed.