Massive Cities That Were Built But Never Lived In

Bright Side

Imagine walking through a city with huge skyscrapers, fancy homes, and empty streets—welcome to the world of ghost cities! These massive cities were built to house millions of people, but for different reasons, almost no one moved in. One of the most famous examples is Ordos City in China, built in the early 2000s during a coal mining boom. It was designed for a million people, but today, only about 100,000 live there—meaning most of it feels eerily abandoned. Many of these ghost cities were created as huge investment projects, but when people didn’t move in, they turned into empty urban jungles. Some are slowly gaining residents, while others stand as silent reminders of over-ambitious planning. Would you dare to explore one? 👀    Animation is created by Bright Side. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Music from TheSoul Sound: https://thesoul-sound.com/   Check our Bright Side podcast on Spotify and leave a positive review! https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD34jRLrMrJux4VxV   Subscribe to Bright Side: https://goo.gl/rQTJZz ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Our Social Media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brightside Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brightside.official TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@brightside.official?lang=en Telegram: https://t.me/bright_side_official   Stock materials (photos, footages and other): https://www.depositphotos.com https://www.shutterstock.com https://www.eastnews.ru ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  For more videos and articles visit: http://www.brightside.me  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.

Transcript

00:00You're walking along a wide street of a huge megacity and feel as if you've suddenly

00:08been transported into a post-apocalyptic movie.

00:11Everything around is eerily quiet.

00:13The high-rise buildings surrounding you look new but deserted.

00:17There are no cars and no people.

00:20Has doomsday taken them all?

00:23Those might be your thoughts if you visited Ordos Kambashi, a new city in China's Inner

00:27Mongolia a few years ago.

00:30The place rose in a desert rapidly in less than a decade.

00:34It has wonderful architecture, lots of public spaces, and rows upon rows of fresh new houses.

00:40But the place didn't get famous because of it all.

00:43Instead, the city became known for something it didn't have – people.

00:48The media started calling it a ghost town.

00:50They claimed it was empty, with no businesses or life.

00:54Well, I've got so many questions here, and the main one is, why didn't people want

00:59to live there?

01:00Ah, now there's a curious twist to this story.

01:03The thing is, news stories, which describe Ordos Kambashi as a ghost town and generally

01:09a failure, began in 2009.

01:12Some reporters visited the place and figured out that not so many people lived there.

01:16At that time, the city indeed looked like a megalopolis after a terrible disaster.

01:22But the problem was, the reporters didn't ask local officials why the city was so empty,

01:27and they missed a key point.

01:29By that time, the city had only been under construction for 6 years.

01:33It hadn't even been finished yet.

01:35True, there weren't many people living there when they called the place a ghost city.

01:40But the reporters didn't know the full story and exaggerated the facts to impress readers.

01:45You want to know the real story?

01:47Ordos wasn't a ghost town built for nobody.

01:50It was just a city still in the making.

01:53The city's original plan was to build a comfortable place for 1 million people by

01:572023.

01:59But some unpleasant changes in the coal market occurred.

02:02Sadly, it was Ordos' main source of income.

02:05So the plan was scaled down to about 300,000 people.

02:10In his first 5 years, Ordos Kambashi got a whole downtown with offices, a world-class

02:15museum and an opera house.

02:17It even had a cool library.

02:19It was shaped like books standing on a shelf.

02:22But even though the place already looked like a city, in reality, it was still under construction.

02:28It wasn't a ghost town, it was more like a construction site.

02:32Early on, nobody lived in Ordos Kambashi full-time since there weren't enough schools, hospitals

02:37and shops.

02:39People went there to work and then returned to their hometowns at the end of the day.

02:43It took a few more years to build these facilities.

02:46So no wonder that, at first, the population of the city was small.

02:52Ordos isn't a true ghost town these days, just as our next destination.

02:56We're traveling all the way to Africa to a massive new residential area, Nueva Ciudad

03:02de Colombo.

03:03You can find it 18 miles away from Angola's capital, Luanda.

03:07The city has 750 apartment buildings, more than a dozen schools and over 100 retail spaces.

03:14The project cost $3.5 billion, more than I make in a year, and was supposed to house

03:19up to 500,000 people.

03:22They used to show Colombo in glossy promotional videos.

03:25In those mini-movies, happy families lived far from the crowded, chaotic districts of

03:30Luanda.

03:31But there was a catch.

03:33The people in the videos were not real residents.

03:35They were actors.

03:37Because nearly a year after the first 2,800 apartments had gone on sale, only 220 were

03:43sold.

03:44If you had come to visit Colombo in the first years of its existence, it would've been

03:48eerily quiet.

03:50You would've seen the rows of colorful apartment buildings standing empty.

03:54Closed shutters, deserted balconies.

03:57There would've been barely any cars and hardly anyone around.

04:01Most of the shops would've been vacant, except for the hypermarket at the entrance.

04:05Even if people had lived there, there would've been nowhere to buy basic things, like food.

04:11There's no mystery here.

04:12Apartments in Colombo were priced between $120,000 and $200,000.

04:17And that was way far beyond the reach of most Angolans.

04:20Two-thirds of them live on less than $2 a day.

04:24It was also incredibly difficult to get a bank loan.

04:27Even with new laws designed to help people get mortgages, many Angolans couldn't afford

04:32the down payments, even those with decent-paying jobs.

04:35Luckily, some time later, prices of the smallest units were reduced from $125,000 to $70,000.

04:43As a result, the population increased to 80,000 residents by July 2015.

04:50In 2019, the population was already 129,000.

04:54As for 2024, Colombo has become a desired destination for middle-class Angolans.

05:01Meanwhile, it's time to visit the next place on our list of post-apocalyptic megacities.

05:08Imagine walking down cobblestone streets with lines of charming old-style homes on each

05:13side.

05:14You pass Edwardian houses and Victorian terraces.

05:18Oh look, a fish and chip shop over there, and iconic red phone boxes.

05:23It looks like a scene straight out of England.

05:25But here's the twist.

05:27You're only 40 minutes away from downtown Shanghai.

05:31The thing is, Shanghai tried to give its residents a taste of the world.

05:36And back in 2001, they started an ambitious project called One City, Nine Towns.

05:42The idea was to relieve terrible overcrowding in the city by building nine suburban communities.

05:48Each of them was designed to look like a different Western country.

05:51One of those is Thames Town, a little slice of England.

05:56Over $330 million was spent creating this mini-England from scratch.

06:01They even imported actual lampposts from the UK and built a replica of a famous Gothic

06:06church from Bristol.

06:08But it wasn't just about England.

06:10Other towns were inspired by Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, and even Canada.

06:15So what happened?

06:17Well, the houses in Thames Town sold fast, but most of the middle-class people they were

06:22meant for couldn't afford them.

06:24Instead, wealthy buyers swooped in, getting them as investments or second homes.

06:29And now Thames Town, and most of the other nine towns, remain empty.

06:34The area has turned into a ghost town, with beautiful houses and shops, but no one to

06:39live there.

06:43Our next destination isn't too far away.

06:45Welcome to one of the strangest capital cities in the world, Nepal.

06:50Now imagine a city built from scratch right in the middle of rice paddies and sugarcane

06:55fields.

06:56In 2005, Myanmar showed the world its brand-new capital, named Nyapodwa, which means the seat

07:03of the king.

07:04The rumor has it, the city cost up to $4 billion to build.

07:08This surreal city is six times the size of New York City.

07:12Everything there is supersized.

07:14Roads have up to 20 lanes and stretch as far as the eye can see.

07:18There's a safari park and at least two golf courses.

07:22Unlike in the rest of the country, there's reliable electricity there, and many restaurants

07:26have free fast Wi-Fi.

07:29But there's one big issue – the place is weirdly empty.

07:32It even got international attention because of its odd layout and ghost town vibe.

07:38If you look closer, though, you might spot pairs of street cleaners in neon green vests.

07:44You're walking up and down those roads, sweeping streets that are already spotless.

07:49But what's the point if no one wants to live there?

07:52People say it's boring, expensive, and has no infrastructure for life.

07:56The whole place feels like an extreme test of, if you build it, they will come.

08:01The test the city seems to have failed.

08:06Let's fly back to the USA now.

08:09There, in Pennsylvania, you'll see a town on fire.

08:14It's Centralia, a near-ghost town.

08:16Since 1962, a coal fire has been burning underneath this small town, and it's likely to keep

08:22burning for the next 250 years.

08:25It all started with an attempt to clean up the local landfill.

08:28It accidentally ignited the coal seams underground.

08:32Over the years, people abandoned their homes as the fire created dangerous sinkholes and

08:37filled the air with poisonous gas, such as carbon monoxide.

08:41In 1992, the state had taken over most of the land, leaving just a handful of residents.

08:47They agreed to give up their property when they passed away.

08:50Centralia was doomed, and the fire is still burning beneath its empty streets.

08:56So tell me, which of the ghost cities would you like to visit?

09:00Tell us in the comments!

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