Stunning Photos From China's Creepiest Modern Ghost Town
Welcome to the most ironically-named city in China. A would-be utopia, rapidly constructed for a population of one million (that failed to materialize), the futuristic city of Ordos, which takes its name from ordo, the Mongolian word for crowd and the root for the English word 'horde', has been almost totally abandoned. The stunning landscape left behind in the following images is both disturbing and confirming of China's epic mal-investment boom...
The images, taken by Shanghai-based photographer Raphael Olivier and shared at Creative Boom, depict a strange modern ghost town. The city, in the Inner Mongolia region, was constructed under the old "if you build it, they will come" motto, but the teeming masses have never made their way to Ordos.

Raphael Olivier, Ordos, Inner Mongolia.
Photo: Raphael Olivier.
The city includes dormant schools, sports complexes, hospitals, convention centers, and other major facilities, all completed between 2005 and 2010. The Chinese building boom has seen many new cities become overnight metropolises, but Ordos City failed to replicate that success.
"The city is now a surreal landscape of empty streets, decaying monuments, abandoned buildings and half-finished housing projects," writes Olivier. "It is more than anywhere the symbol of the Chinese Dream with all its challenges and contradictions, an Orwellian vision of a bright future caught up by a less flamboyant reality."

Raphael Olivier, Ordos, Inner Mongolia, the Ordos Museum.
Photo: Raphael Olivier.
The city's most fantastical structures include the Ordos Museum, designed by China's MAD Archictects, which resembles a tiled metal blob overlooking the Gobi Desert.
Like the rest of the city, the museum was apparently built without much forethought: "As for the gallery spaces, we didn't know what kind of exhibitions they would hold, so they are designed to be flexible," the architecture firm told ArchDaily.

Raphael Olivier, Ordos, Inner Mongolia.
Photo: Raphael Olivier.
"This plaza is now a favorite amongst the locals who gather their families and friends to explore, play or lounge in the pleasant landscape," wrote de zeen magazine upon Ordos's completion in 2011, in a rather premature judgment.
Based on reports from intrepid photojournalists and travelers, including the Bohemian Blog, the city's residents (reportedly just 20,000 souls, or two percent of the total capacity) largely consist of construction crews, maintenance workers, and random employees.
See more of Olivier's photos of Ordos below:

Raphael Olivier, Ordos, Inner Mongolia.
Photo: Raphael Olivier.

Raphael Olivier, Ordos, Inner Mongolia.
Photo: Raphael Olivier.

Raphael Olivier, Ordos, Inner Mongolia.
Photo: Raphael Olivier.

Raphael Olivier, Ordos, Inner Mongolia.
Photo: Raphael Olivier.

Raphael Olivier, Ordos, Inner Mongolia.
Photo: Raphael Olivier.

Raphael Olivier, Ordos, Inner Mongolia.
Photo: Raphael Olivier.

Raphael Olivier, Ordos, Inner Mongolia.
Photo: Raphael Olivier.

Raphael Olivier, Ordos, Inner Mongolia.
Photo: Raphael Olivier.

Raphael Olivier, Ordos, Inner Mongolia.
Photo: Raphael Olivier.

Raphael Olivier, Ordos, Inner Mongolia.
Photo: Raphael Olivier.

Raphael Olivier, Ordos, Inner Mongolia.
Photo: Raphael Olivier.

Raphael Olivier, Ordos, Inner Mongolia.
Photo: Raphael Olivier.

Raphael Olivier, Ordos, Inner Mongolia.
Photo: Raphael Olivier.

Raphael Olivier, Ordos, Inner Mongolia.
Photo: Raphael Olivier.

Raphael Olivier, Ordos, Inner Mongolia, the Ordos mosque.
Photo: Raphael Olivier.
We have nothing to add... except one chart...
This is what happens when the central planners get drunk on their own hopium-laced Kool-Aid.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhRjyLLUdhw
Build a city in the desert, where have I heard that before.
well then fill that fucking place up with few million musloids for fucks sake!!! Quit unleashing those stoneage motherfuckers all over the rest of Western civilization.
(and then nuke it from orbit...it's the only way to be sure)...no brainer, bitchez. ;-)
They could take in LOTS of fugees....
The same excess is going on in London. Massive building of property that is far too expensive for most Londoners to buy or rent. It is there to launder fiat into physical.
LOOK AT THAT P/E BAR CHART AND ANSWER ME THIS...
IN WHICH COUNTRY IS HONG KONG??
It is empty because those who planned it
did not expect commodity prices to collapse.
They expected someone (anyone really) to show up, but the line of 'potentials' just got eaten for time and missed their boat or simply fell off of it. Long tragedy of boating accidents on earth. Couldn't possibly imagine how that could have happened either. Stroke of bad luck I suppose.
Whether it be China or the world... get rid of the debt-based money, and so much more would indeed be possible... not just a "dream". If we can extract the cancer of usury from our collective systems - allowing money to work FOR us and not the other way around - humanity would experience a prosperity yet unknown.
Fantastic movie sets for aspiring film makers, available 24/7-365.
Looks to me there are two architectural drawings included. I'd think to qualify for part of a ghost town you'd have to actually build the building. A picture of a drawing of a building is not really a picture of a building.....
China should house some syrian and other arab refugees there
Meanwhile, in other parts of Mongolia...
Why aren't Mongolian nomads finding their way to these "Ghost Cities?"
Gotta admit, it would be pretty daunting to be the first to move into an empty city. What if no-one else follows? Where do I work? How do I make money? Where do I buy stuff? Oh, of course! Buy and sell crap on the internets. Now you can live anywhere!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mq__Z-Z_Ofs
Given China's "Communist" roots, I guess there are no homeless Chinese. Otherwise these empty homes would be given to the homeless. No?
Oh, silly me. You're only allowed to embrace Capitalism or Communism if it means you work harder, otherwise you have to use the other one. Unless you're "special". Then you're allowed to embrace whatever ideal puts more loot in your own pocket. No doubt, in a few years the empty buildings will "need" to be demolished and rebuilt in order to "create jawbs" but God help any poor bastard who tries to live in any of these empty homes ... YOU didn't WORK hard enufff!!! Only rich capitalists are allowed to borrow money and be bailed out becoz they created jawbs. You can't buy the houses their employees built becoz you didn't werk HARD enuff, so the houses MUST stay empty until someone signs up for a lifetime of debt-slavery and then whoops! They went bankrupt becoz they are stupid and didn't work hard enuff so the bank needs to repossess the house and get bailed out again becoz they are doing Baal's work again ...
"Gotta admit, it would be pretty daunting to be the first to move into an empty city. What if no-one else follows?"
That's why the guy in the photo is playing basketball alone.
Nice place to retire. :)
This going to be my next holiday destination, a whole city full of peace and quiet, nice river flow's thru it: https://ssl.panoramio.com/photo_explorer#view=photo&position=188&with_ph...
No light polution so ibet™ they have a killer night sky to.
Its part of Agenda 21 and the concentration of people in cities. They build in advance, the will get filled SOON. Its like FEMA camps in the US, a blueprint of the future ahead of us.
Thats the most beautiful "kick the ball through the giant hole" stadium I have ever seen.
Are there guards posted to keep the homeless out?
I don't understand this at all. Where are the armies of niggers and spics who rip apart buildings for the copper conduit?
I guess communizum works.
show pictures
unbelievable.
http://www.citymayors.com/gratis/uscities_100.html
Why would you build something twice the size of Seattle or Portland where there is no industry, people, ....reason to be there?
Do the Chinese need somewhere for gambling and hookers?
A NATURAL place to host the next Olympics.
Same excess going on in NYC too!
http://www.businessinsider.com/skyscrapers-of-57th-street-manhattan-2014-9
http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/540614b6ecad04d62c44e2f8-1200/5...
They sure could take in alot at least a million. Also has anybody wondered who is holding the paper to these projects that where done?
The American Tax Payer, of course.
Nah, they won't pay. Best to market and sell to Libertarians, as the ultimate bugout towns, where gold and silver coins will be honored as money.
You'd fill those cities on a jiffy, especially if you bundle the deal with a Chinese wife or GF, who has traditional rather than feminist views and attitudes.
;-)
@ SA1 there would be no money to make off the savages if they were sent there. Chaos creates money. On the flip side, the mudslimes wont go anyways, heard they dont like mongoloid women and young girls....
Right out of the new movie, "A Clockwork Red"
But can you get decent Egg Foo Young anywhere?
Why is it that Europe gets stuck with the Muslim horde with no place to live while there is an empty ghost city in China with a name like Horde.
Lotsa room(s) there for the refugee/invaders.
wow, that's nice.
Ok so who's paying the mortgages on all this? Oh,,,, never mind.
oops
It's a beautiful waste of money.
Just think, in a few hundred (or dozen??) years, the ruins could rival those of Rome and Athens.
Given the corruption and incompetence in the Chinese building sector, most of those buildings will probably collapse within a dozen years.
Do you rather be holding on to $1 trillion fake US dollars and they could be worth less than a truck of firewoods in a year? or build something with it now even when there isn't anyone moving in yet?
Not exactly what I'd call visionary. WTF were these guys smokin?
Is this where you go after the Zombie Apocalypse, to start over?
Seriously though, I'd build cities like this in Syria, and let normal, non-violent people / families from Alepo move there, just before leveling Aleppo and ISIS/ISIL/DAESH.
Two thoughts...
1) What a great place to do a remake of "Sleeper".
2) What a great place to hold the 2016 Olympics. Paint that sucker green and yellow and boom, instant Brazil to the TV audience.
I swear I saw a few of these buildings on Chinese TV shows. I also know that there's a "film city" outside of Beijing where they rebuilt all of the famous historical sites (Forbidden City, etc.) for movie making. Maybe the film city could annex a few ghost towns and rent it out to Hollywood?
may be they get Stanley Kubri-khan to do a remake of the Man on the Moon?
3) What a great place to start a university town. Free from distractions.
Just looks like a bunch of Chinese Drywall problems waiting to happen. Although, it might make a nice muzzie community.
Fate the Magnificent
"Push the Button, Max"
Build it they will cum.
Damn - that place gives me the ibby jibbies - makes me think of the Twilight Zone - Rod Serling would be proud!
In one word "WOW"...
I'm seeing elements of this happening where I live in Washington D.C. ... Building commercial real estate like crazy these past 3 years when they aready have nearly 2 million square feet of space in the McLean- Tysons Corner-Vienna corridor that's been empty since 2004!... What exacerbates the situation making it much worse is the rail system that connects North Arlington to this corridor and the fact that the number(s) for growth are completely being "fudged" and incentivized betting on some future outcome of growth in order to pay for it.
The real estate companies that have had those buildings dormant for nearly 16 years now will never recoup those losses and they get covered anyways as the State and local tax just keeps going "up"!... And this is in one of the most affluent and expensive places to live in the Country!
I have this feeling we've got alot of these same pictures going throughout the U.S. that ain't being shown either!!!
What's really bizarre is that the only value this real estate has is as collateral. It exists solely to give value to some piece of paper.
What a fuckin' hoot!