China's "Dubai" a Ghost Town

Ordos, a resource rich city of 1.5 million people in inner Mongolia, is by all accounts a flourishing city with a, "a fast-growing economy and a property market so sizzling hot that virtually every house put up for sale here is immediately snapped up". However, not even a sizzling hot real estate market can spark interest in a new central district being constructed 15 miles from the old city center.

The district, named "Kangbashi New Area", has cost the Chinese government over a billion dollars. While the city government was relocated to the new central district four years ago, few save for those officials can be found walking the streets:

"'It's pretty lonely here,' says a woman named Li Li, the marketing manager of an elegant restaurant in Kangbashi's mostly vacant Lido Hotel. 'Most of the people who come to our restaurant are government officials and their guests. There aren't any common residents around here.'"

Analysts point that Kangbashi is just one of many "sprawling ghost town annexes", fueled by the government's desire to move the masses into new urban areas, hoping to create a large middle class.

Thanks to Ryan Sloan