Africa's own ghost city.

[busydude]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-18646243

A giant new Chinese-built city has sprung up on the outskirts of Angola's capital Luanda.

Nova Cidade de Kilamba is a brand-new mixed residential development of 750 eight-storey apartment buildings, a dozen schools and more than 100 retail units.

Designed to house up to half a million people when complete, Kilamba has been built by the state-owned China International Trust and Investment Corporation (CITIC) in under three years at a reported cost of $3.5bn (£2.2bn).

But on a recent trip back to Luanda, the BBC's former Angola correspondent Louise Redvers discovered that most of the buildings currently lie empty, as this footage she recorded shows.

 

[RearAdmiral]

I was in Ghana and China was throwing up some large buildings there too...

 

[JTsyo]

$3.5 billion seems cheap for that much housing. That's only $7K per unit if it houses 500K.

 

[overst33r]

Keep on inflating that GDP

 

[rh71]

sim city makes it too easy.

Only a handful of the commercial units are occupied, mostly by utility companies, but there are no actual shops on site, and so - with the exception of a new hypermarket located at one entrance - there is nowhere to buy food.

food supply first, then people? Or the other way around? Oh and there's that whole affordability thing.

Keep on inflating that GDP

negatives for doing this?

 

[OlafSicky]

So why do they do it ? Is this some sort of scam to raise the price of materials or to provide jobs for the unemployed, perhaps corruption the official in charge skimming off the top?

 

[The_Dude8]

apparently there are ghost city in spain and ireland as well.

 

[overst33r]

negatives for doing this?

You're growing on paper, but you're not actually growing because there's no demand for the cities. Their citizens can't afford it. How can that be a good thing?

 

[TallBill]

How retarded.

 

[OutHouse]

So why do they do it ? Is this some sort of scam to raise the price of materials or to provide jobs for the unemployed, perhaps corruption the official in charge skimming off the top?

its only to give the impression that there are jobs and that government is progressive and to give the illusion of a flourishing economy...

they knew from the start that nobody is going to buy a 150-200K apartment when the fast majority of the people are literally dirt poor.

build it to employ people the demolish it to employ people. rinse and repeat

 

[rh71]

You're growing on paper, but you're not actually growing because there's no demand for the cities. Their citizens can't afford it. How can that be a good thing?

it's a giant waste, but nobody gets hurt? That's what I want to know.

And if it's for the sake of creating work, wouldn't the workmanship be piss poor with little regulation? These are being bought by the "rich" though and you know they won't stand for that. It's complete with road work, electric, and plumbing.

 

[CPA]

it's a giant waste, but nobody gets hurt? That's what I want to know.

And if it's for the sake of creating work, wouldn't the workmanship be piss poor with little regulation? These are being bought by the "rich" though and you know they won't stand for that. It's complete with road work, electric, and plumbing.

Nobody gets hurt? It's a government funded project. Where does the government get that money - from fleecing it's citizens. If China was so prosperous, why do the majority of it's citizens live in poverty? Because the government still holds the purse strings. No one gets hurt, indeed.

 

[uhohs]

China is building projects like these in exchange for oil and other natural resources. They're pillaging the f$#% out of Africa.

 

[brianmanahan]

"i love africa" - val kilmer

 

[rh71]

Nobody gets hurt? It's a government funded project. Where does the government get that money - from fleecing it's citizens. If China was so prosperous, why do the majority of it's citizens live in poverty? Because the government still holds the purse strings. No one gets hurt, indeed.

so if the gov't weren't doing this, they'd be taking less money from their citizens? If reducing taxes is not happening here (and where I'm from it's certainly not), what makes you think the commies would do it (I can't believe you asked the bolded above)? It's money they've already been taking.

They're applying it to the good of their economy for their (the government's) own gain, since they evidently have an abundance.