A man visited a $100 billion city to see what life there looks like after the mega project became a ghost town.
The failed project was supposed to create an 'urban paradise' as the new city in Malaysia was proposed to be a “smart city of the future, blending nature and architecture to become a Utopia”.
However, things didn’t quite go as planned and one man, Ben Morris, documented his experience visiting the area for his YouTube channel.
Forest City is located in Johor, southern Malaysia, and the Chinese-built complex promised to bring in a million new residents to the region but only 1% of the development was ever occupied.
Morris took his 804,000 subscribers along with him for his trip to the ghost city, saying: “there's no one here, not a single person, which begs the question - how did things go so drastically wrong?”
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Once he arrived in the deserted city, the YouTuber commented: “I think there's meant to be plants growing up the side of the building but it looks so overgrown, it kind of looks like a zombie apocalypse has happened here.”
He went on to add: “It's quite a strange feeling walking around this place, everything is so clean, looked after, well maintained but no one's actually here to enjoy it.”
During his stay, Morris met some of the few residents who live in the ghost town, which consists of a mall with mostly closed shops and uncompleted tower blocks.
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On the beach, Morris found a staircase that leads to nowhere.
There are speculated reasons why the project failed, just Morris explored, including 'a major property crisis in China' which not only 'affected developments in the country but ones overseas as well'.
It’s also theorized that locals were priced out of buying property in Forest City, which partly led to it standing empty.
Viewers of the video shared their own thoughts by taking to the YouTube comment section.
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One user wrote: “That’s a paradise city to live for introverts! So green, near the water, no neighbors.”
Another said: “This is karma for building unaffordable housing for local people or people who actually want to build a life in Malaysia.”
A third person commented: “As someone who prefers to be alone and loves to be surrounded by greenery, I find forest city very tempting.”
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And a fourth added: “It’s like trying to keep up a front of having ‘a fully functioning city’ when really it’s just largely a hollow empty , but well maintained shell waiting to be filled during holiday season … that never comes…”