What is a Ghost City?

Economic downturns, disasters, overbuilding, and holidays

It was created in AI by RegiaArt. 2025

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A ghost city is an urban development that remains largely uninhabited after construction.

These are areas with completed infrastructure, buildings, and amenities but minimal residents or economic activity.

Ghost cities typically emerge due to several causes:

1. Overbuilding and speculative development do not match by actual demand
2. Economic downturns that halt population migration to new developments
3. Industrial decline, where cities lose their economic purpose
4. Natural or human-made disasters that force mass evacuation
5. Centrally-planned urban development projects that fail to attract residents

China has become particularly known for this phenomenon, with examples like Ordos Kangbashi in Inner Mongolia, which was built for over a million people but remained largely empty for years.

Other examples exist worldwide, like Pripyat near Chernobyl (abandoned after the disaster) or certain overbuilt developments following economic crashes.

These places often have a surreal quality, complete with roads, streetlights, parks, and…