Land of the Lost: An Empty Ghost City Built For Millions

It must be nice to be a country with so much wealth; One can simply throw it away.

We can't complain - we helped make China who they are today -  we bought all their exported merchandise. 

So imagine a city  built for 1 million people, but with no people living in it.  An Australian film crew recently made a trip to one of China's massive ghost towns built to boom the future economy and were surprised by what they found:

Vast new cities of apartments and shops are being built across China at a rate of ten a year, but they remain almost completely uninhabited ghost towns. It's all part of the government's efforts to keep the economy booming, and there are many people who would love to move in, but it's simply too expensive for most. Video journalist Adrian Brown wanders through malls of vacant shops, and roads lined with empty apartment buildings… 64 million apartments are said to be empty across the country and one of the few shop owners says he once didn't sell anything for four or five days. - Dateline

I found the video news footage rather intriguing - and fascinating.

To check out more of China's ghost towns, see Ordos City after the jump...

American Shame?

A comparison of standards of living on several variables among the world’s wealthiest nations. Interesting presentation that encompasses both the underlying complexity of the United States but also its failures in a number of areas.

From Charles Blow, New York Times, February 20, 2011.

click to enlarge

Source: The New York Times