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The Evergrande crisis —China Evergrande Group (HKG:6666) (OTCMKTS:EVGPF) — has brought to light how China has more than 30 million unsold properties that could serve as the home to 80 million people. Mark Williams, chief Asia economist at Capital Economics, estimates that the “ghost town” phenomenon in the country could account for the entire population of Germany. Evergrande Crisis And “Ghost Town China” As reported by CNN, a further 100 million properties are estimated to have been bought but not occupied, “which could accommodate roughly 260 million people, according to Capital Economics estimates.” The issue reflects key aspects of the...

Visiting a ghost town is one of the closest things we have to time travel. If left undisturbed, the town remains suspended in time; perpetually stuck in the year it was abandoned. Fortunately, some ghost towns have been incorporated into state and national parks, which tend to leave them in their state of natural ruin—the most famous example being the former gold mining town of Bodie, California. But there are at least 3,800 ghost towns located throughout the United States (in a variety of conditions), and on occasion, entire towns are up for sale. While owning your own ghost town...

TexGrill Thread: In recent years, Chinese State-owned Enterprises (SOEs) have embarked on an over-saturation of the market. Chinese SOE steel firms especially have produced a glut of global steel. To resolve the dilemna, Beijing had embarked on a grand urbanization nationwide scheme that called for central planners to build huge cities in the middle of nowhere. Needless to say, the Chinese didn't take the bait and move to those ghost towns. Now, urban planners are scrapping the ghost towns and building ghost malls on nearly every street corner in the major (non-ghost) cities of China. But they're called 'Department Stores'...

Over 65 M completed new homes sit unused in China,  along with public buildings/accompanying infrastructure... If the Chinese property bubble pops... what then? The massive public projects under way in communist China today include sprawling housing developments, retail shopping districts, and 'forests' of skyscrapers. Since they were built to support the country's ongoing economic boom and real-estate rush, all these tower block condos, economic centers, and recently-built neighborhoods should be bustling with hard-working Chinese newcomers from the countryside... or so you'd think.But satellite pictures taken earlier this year revealed that China's odd unused-housing stock glut has only gotten worse, if anything: they indeed...

These amazing satellite images show sprawling cities built in remote parts of China that have been left completely abandoned, sometimes years after their construction. Elaborate public buildings and open spaces are completely unused, with the exception of a few government vehicles near communist authority offices. Some estimates put the number of empty homes at as many as 64 million, with up to 20 new cities being built every year in the country's vast swathes of free land. The photographs have emerged as a Chinese government think tank warns that the country's real estate bubble is getting worse, with property prices...

The hottest market in the hottest economy in the world is Chinese real estate. The big question is how vulnerable is this market to a crash. One red flag is the vast number of vacant homes spread through China, by some estimates up to 64 million vacant homes. We've tracked down satellite photos of these unnerving places, based on a report from Forensic Asia Limited. They call it a clear sign of a bubble: "There’s city after city full of empty streets and vast government buildings, some in the most inhospitable locations. Click here to see the ghost towns

Prypiat is an abandoned city in the Zone of alienation in northern Ukraine. It was home to the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant workers, abandoned in 1986 following the Chernobyl disaster. Its population had been around 50,000 prior to the accident.

<p>Mayor says few jobs are retained in a move that will hurt the town financially.</p> <p>JUNEAU -- Pelican Seafoods has laid off most of its work force, an action city leaders called a huge blow for the small Southeast Alaska town.</p>