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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