Newly built Chinese "ghost towns" lay vacant

[semper occultus]

good point Mac - this isn't going to end well

In a frightening replay of the early stages of the credit crunch, Standard Chartered and Barclays are pulling out of Europe’s inter-bank funding markets and shifting billions of dollars to Asia. They fear a systemic meltdown that could leave them facing losses on supposedly low risk, short-term funding to a stricken rival bank. Asia is the new safe haven, just as European sovereign debt was – ironically – in the original financial crisis.

www.telegraph.co.uk

sounds like the cue for the next exploding bubble.....anywhere these bloodsucking f-ing parasites start infecting disaster won't be following very far behind...

[brainpanhandler]

Creepy, Abandoned Theme Park on the Outskirts of Beijing
Samuel MedinaNov 15, 2011



Of his most ambitious endeavor and what could be considered America's greatest utopian project of the twentieth century, Disneyland, Walt Disney observed, "clocks and watches will lose all meaning, for there is no present. There are only yesterday, tomorrow, and the timeless land of fantasy." What better words, then, to describe this abandoned theme park, located at the fringes of Beijing’s sprawl.

Construction on Wonderland began in 1998 with the intention of building the largest amusement park in Asia. The project was scrapped after funding was withdrawn and the developers and the local farmers could not come to terms over ownership of the land. This past year, UK-based photographer Catherine Hyland braved the harsh land to capture the crumbling park, which has been reclaimed by nearby villagers who regularly tend to the grounds.

Hyland’s images reveal a strange landscape of half-built structures amid corn fields and cracked pavement. The park is strewn with fragments of anachronistic landmarks, anchored by an unfinished fairytale castle whose inchoate construction dissolves into the smog. Had it all been completed, Wonderland may have rivaled Disneyland, with undoubtedly larger crowds and plenty of in the way of spectacle but few genuinely new experiences. In its ruinous state, however, it offers something much more rare but infinitely more interesting.

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/neighb ... ijing/496/

[utopiate]

Any country with a billion people should expect their population will continue to grow by leaps and bounds. China built while the times were good. These cities will fill soon enough.
Sea levels may cause millions to migrate.
Location location location

[JackRiddler]

Why don't we buy up a piece of Pittsfield or Cleveland or Detroit or somewhere and turn it into a Free City? Proposals, please. Post your best abandoned urban swathes suitable as Future Utopian Complexes here. I prefer the classic industrial ambiance with courtyards and large convertible warehouse spaces, but will consider other practical factors like soil, running water, shoreline, forest, garden, high ground, power sources, understandable local language, no current military conflict or known Superfund site nearby, etc.

[StarmanSkye]

^^^^^
After watching quite a few vids on the phenomenon of China's building boom, creating vast urban cities w/ towering highrise condominiums. gov and civic spaces, malls and roads, it seems like SO much of the hackneyed, inefficient, wasteful and poorly-planned development in Ireland which isn't meeting ACTUAL human needs is fastly happening there. MANY of these cities simply do not have the potential of being economically viable. It seems like SUCH an atrocious mismanagement on a truly mind-boggling scale, I can't imagine how they'll deflect dire economic consequences as yet a further massive bubble scam which was fed largely with enormous corruption.