In some ways cities are great but they
can also be expensive
dirty and overpopulated that's why you
may think that having an abandoned city
all to yourself would be a dream come
true
he would have infinite space and would
never have to wait in traffic ever again
but once you learn the dark backstories
and secrets behind these abandoned
cities you'll rethink that
from ford car companies abandoned city
in brazil
to chinese cities built for millions
which house
zero people plymouth monserrat
monserrat is a beautiful island in the
caribbean but venture far enough into
this island and you'll find the city of
plymouth
in the early 90s 4 000 people lived here
but
one day in 1995 everyone in it was told
they had to leave
immediately this was because of a very
large volcano near the city
it was on the verge of erupting so
everyone had to leave
the volcano had caused minor damage but
two years later in 1997 the volcano
completely erupted the souffrey hills
volcano covered plymouth in 40 feet of
ash
and the volcano is still active to this
day that's why any tourists are told not
to go to this city
you can take a boat tour and see the
outskirts of this place
but a few people have snuck in and taken
some amazing and daring photos
it's so sad this beautiful city had to
be abandoned but in hindsight maybe it
wasn't the best idea to build a city
right by an active
volcano hashima island japan this is an
abandoned city located on an island
in the 1970s japan was building their
economy one of the ways they did this
was coal production and lots of this
happened on hashima island
the island was a great place it had all
the amenities you could imagine in a
normal city only everyone in it was a
coal miner
5 000 coal miners lived on this island
east of japanese mainland
but over the years as japan modernized
petrol began beating coal
and this caused coal plants to shut down
meaning the island was abandoned
one day in the 1970s all of the coal
miners left
on boats because the island was owned by
the coal company they didn't give them
much notice
because of this all of these structures
are still on this island
today the japanese government says you
can't visit this island on your own
but rare guided tours of some portions
of the island are done
but have no fear google have actually
made a virtual tour of this abandoned
island
this island also is rumored to be
haunted that may sound crazy but it has
a pretty dark past before it was used as
a coal mine
during world war ii it was used as a
forced labor site
this is where prisoners of war would
have to mine coal all day
ghost cities china this is not just
one city if you go to china you'll find
many mega cities
these are built to house millions of
people but the population is a big fat
zero these ghost cities are made of
fancy villas high rise apartments
lakes parks and roads the only thing
missing is
people there's around 50 of these ghost
cities in china but construction of
these continues
but why is this well it's because of
china's economy it's no secret that
they're the fastest growing economy in
the world
and they will soon kick the usa off the
number one spot
however their economy is driven by debt
this means
local governments try and stimulate
their economies by building more and
more
they hope this will stimulate the
property market creating a housing
bubble it's said that china has around
70 million empty apartments
but you would not want to go to one of
these ghost towns for one
all of the architecture looks the same
so you may get lost and not be able to
find your way out
not only that if anything bad happened
to you there's no one around to help
there are no citizens or police for
miles around these cities
and because some are still in the
process of being built there's many
dangerous construction apparatuses all
over the place
cool man scope namibia for much of the
19th century col manskop in namibia had
nothing going on
but everything changed for the city in
1908
that's when a diamond was found in the
area this sparked a gigantic
diamond mine this created lots of jobs
money and
industry not long after the city had
movie theaters
schools casinos and even an ice factory
but the thing about diamonds is they're
pretty rare
this meant that as the diamond supply
went down so did the population
today call manskop has zero diamonds and
it also has
zero people as there's no jobs here most
of the buildings have sand
tall enough to cover your knees anyone
can go here and explore
but that's if you don't mind the
eeriness of this ghost town
all of the houses are filled up with
sand and the same is the case
for the diamond mine which is now
nowhere to be seen
fort landia brazil when is a company too
powerful
is it when they control too much of the
market is it when they're a monopoly or
is it when they have
their very own city well that's exactly
what henry ford
the founder of ford tried to do in the
1930s
ford decided to make a city in brazil
they wanted a way to make
cheap rubber and they decided that they
would use the natural resources from the
amazonian jungle
because no one lived in the jungle
except tribes they had to build their
own city which they named ford landia
the goal was to make super cheap rubber
in brazil they would then
ship all of this over to the united
states where they would use it on their
cars
but it turned out that fordlandia was a
famous example of blue sky thinking
henry ford had a poor understanding of
the ecological challenges
it turns out it's not so simple to
extract rubber from the amazon jungle
who would have thought it would be hard
to set up a city in the world's most
dangerous jungle well ford did not and
that's why this city was abandoned in
1934. today you can see the abandoned
factory
and water tower you can also find a few
of the houses they built for the workers
but most of these have decayed and
become destroyed over time
bodhi california today california is
known for sunny beaches and surfing but
during the late 1800s the gold rush was
going on
and bode california was a city where the
streets were almost
paved with gold well not exactly paved
but there was gold underneath it
that's why thousands of miners lived and
worked in bowling at the city's height
there were 65 saloons that's the
equivalent to a city with 65 nightclubs
today
but over the years the gold rush went
away as all of the gold was mined up
by 1942 the only thing that existed in
bodhi was
the post office and later that year it
closed down as well
now many people visiting the yosemite
national park explore bodhi california
it's a pretty eerie gold rush town and
because it's been abandoned it really
looks like a cowboys town the buildings
and relics of vehicles are original
and it seems like the perfect spot to
film a spaghetti western
pripyat ukraine the date was the 26th of
april 1986.
reactor number four's core at the
chernobyl nuclear plant exploded
and this meant that the 50 000 residents
in the nearby pripyat had to leave
they had pretty much no time to pack
their belongings and had to leave in a
matter of hours
it used to be a great soviet city there
was a fair ground and also large
apartments
there were also factories in the area
too meaning many people lost their jobs
when chernobyl happened
but today the only thing living in the
city is nature everywhere is totally
overgrown and it's still too
contaminated for anyone to live in it
the radiation has fallen enough for you
to walk around for a few hours
but if you lived here this would be
terrible for your health
so when will this place be safe again
well the actual nuclear plant will be
safe in twenty thousand years
and the surrounding area for example
prepyat will be safe in
three thousand years according to
experts although by then will likely be
living on mars
varosha cyprus in the nineteen seventies
cyprus was said to be a millionaires
playground the world's top celebrities
would visit
and there were boats luxury cars and
hotels all over the place
but all of that changed in august of
1974.
that was when turkey invaded cyprus
ferocious
15 000 residents fled the city because
they thought they would return once the
war was over they left all of their
valuables and livelihoods behind
but there's been ongoing tensions in the
region ever since
and that's why no one has ever ventured
back to this city recently there was
talk of trying to get this place going
again
but they worked out it would cost 12
billion to make the decrepit buildings
livable again
so we likely won't see this former
luxury city open anytime soon
north brother island new york
did you know that there's an abandoned
island in new york
the 20-acre island is totally isolated
in the 1800s it was a pandemic hospital
to quarantine people with
smallpox but by the 1960s it was totally
abandoned
today trees and vegetation have taken
over the island
and the city of new york has banned
anyone from going onto it
but now it's time to make your voice
heard comment below which of these
abandoned cities you would want to go to
if any
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