Featured Image Credit: Samsul Said/Bloomberg via Getty Images
One of the world's most fascinating cities lies in the southern Malaysian state of Johor, as the once-utopian Forest City has turned into a $100,000,000,000 failure in less than ten years, and many liken it to a 'post-apocalyptic' ghost town.
It was a project spearheaded by China's largest property developer, Country Garden, who wanted to create an eco-friendly paradise in one of the most densely populated areas in the world — what could go wrong.
Around $100 billion was invested into the mega project, as per the BBC, and it was officially unveiled in 2016 around ten years after it was first announced, and was expected to be able to house around 700,000 people in its 1.09 square mile vicinity.
However, that would not be the case once it was finally opened though, as only a small fraction of those apartments were actually sold, and the latest reports indicate that roughly 7,000 to 9,000 people still live in the city as permanent residents.
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This is seemingly down to a number of factors including but not limited to the COVID-19 pandemic, political instability in Malaysia, and the general marketing of the city which appeared to target wealthy individuals from China as opposed to locals from Malaysia.
One man interviewed by the BBC who had bought his own apartment in Forest City moved out within a year of experiencing the 'ghost town', declaring: "I didn't care about my deposit, I didn't care about the money. I just had to get out."
What is it actually like to explore the city that seemingly nobody lives in though? Thankfully one YouTube couple took it upon themselves to visit Forest City when they realized they were nearby, and it's stranger than you might expect.
Matt and Julia are known for their globetrotting adventures having quit their jobs in the UK to travel full time, yet there's a good chance they've never quite been to anywhere like this before.
Despite the apartments themselves looking very nice, Julia recounted quite how hostile some of the employees of the Forest City were to any form of questioning, as even simple requests like the price or size of the accommodation had them suspected of being from the media.
"It's a really bizarre place to be, I can't quite convey how it feels to be here and walk around," Matt explains. "We've heard so much about it but when you're inside it and you see the scale of everything that's been built but also the scale of how empty it is, it's just so bizarre, so, so bizarre."
It's not hard to see the potential or beauty of the project, yet having that contrast between the grandeur of the design yet the emptiness that remains makes it understandably one of the strangest places you can visit across the world.
"This reminds me of the set of a post-apocalyptic sci-fi movie," writes one comment underneath the video. It looks creepy, intriguing, and oddly beautiful. The foliage is gorgeous. The black mold and crocodiles though, make the place a hard pass for me."
This might be fascinating for a YouTube video, but it's easy to get why few people decided to move there, and those that did were quick to look for a route out again.
