via BBC News – Ordos: The biggest ghost town in China.
This picture is taken from an article published on March 17th on the BBC news magazine. It portrays the city of Ordos in Inner Mongolia. 10 years after construction, the new city stands largely empty. The author, Peter Day, tells us:
“The story started about 20 years ago, with the beginning of a great Mongolian coal rush. Private mining companies poured into the green Inner Mongolian steppe lands, pock-marking the landscape with enormous opencast holes in the ground, or tunnelling underground. Local farmers sold their land to the miners, and became instantly rich.
Jobs burgeoned. Ceaseless coal truck convoys tore up the roads. And the old city of Ordos flourished as the money flowed in. The municipality decided to think big, too.
It laid out plans for a huge new town for hundreds of thousands of residents, with…
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