Never miss any of the fun stuff. Get the biggest stories and wackiest takes from the Daily Star, including our special WTF Wednesday email
Thank you for subscribing!
Never miss any of the fun stuff. Get the biggest stories and wackiest takes from the Daily Star, including our special WTF Wednesday email
We have more newsletters
A “lonely” city four times the size of Monaco has been left to rot, despite having been designed for luxury.
The whopping settlement now homes just a few hundred people and has become a source of national frustration in Malaysia. Forest City was built for $100billion (£79billion) by China but has since become dubbed “Ghost City”.
Tens of thousands of apartments are located in the development, but just a handful of people bounce around the cavernous highrise walkways. It was built by Country Garden, the largest property developer in China, and billed as "a dream paradise for all mankind".
READ MORE: Inside 'Burns OCG' crime gang who posed as tourists in Ibiza to traffic drugs across UK
For more news, click here.
It was built in 2016 as part of Xi Jinping's Belt and Road Initiative, with Country Garden intent on building an eco-friendly metropolis sprawling across thousands of acres. It was meant to be home to one million people in a certain level of luxury featuring a golf course, waterpark, offices, bars, and restaurants.
Despite seemingly having it all, the remarkable project never took off, even though it featured an international school and swanky marketing materials designed to lure people into luxury living. Rather than the masses flooding in to foster a bustling community, few came, and eight years later it stands as a monument to disappointing planning.
To make things even more spooky, the Johor Strait which the towering metropolis stands on, is infested with crocodiles. According to the Sun, at the time of writing only 15% of the planned project had been completed.
Developers claim that it was built for the middle classes but the prices were set out of reach for many Malaysians with the average condo available for $1.14million (£900,000). This is a massive contrast to the average sale price of a house in nearby Johor Bahru, which sits at more like $141,000, (£112,000) the outlet reports.
Shops and retail facilities lie closed due to a lack of custom, and only a few of the abodes in the towers have the lights on.
Joanne Kaur, one of the residents of Forest City, told theBBC: "This place is eerie. Even during the day, when you step out of your front door, the corridor is dark.
“I feel sorry for people who actually invested and bought a place here. We are looking to move out as soon as possible."
A former resident, Nazmi Hanafiah, told the outlet: "I'm getting goosebumps just being back. It's lonely around here – it's just you and your thoughts."
For the latest breaking news and stories from across the globe from the Daily Star, sign up for our newsletter by clicking here.
- China
Source: Read Full Article