£80 billion 'ghost city' has 'staircase to nowhere' and crocodile infested waters

Across the water from Singapore is the mega-city project Forest City, a Chinese initiative to build a $100 billion (£80 billion) coastal city designed to house up to a million people.

Forest City was supposed to be an eco-friendly city complete with golf course, water park, restaurants and all the other things you'd need in a place where hundreds of thousands of people would be expected to live.

Announced back in 2016, what started as an attempt to build an eco-friendly city has instead produced an eerie ghost town.

According to the BBC, only about 15 percent of Forest City has actually been built and what has been built is sitting at around one percent occupancy.

Meanwhile, Chinese property developer Country Garden is facing debts of almost $200 billion (£160 billion), so even though they've told the Beeb they're 'optimistic' they'll finish the whole thing it does look a bit like a disaster.

MOHD RASFAN/AFP via Getty Images

So how did this happen? If you build it they will come, as the adage goes, so why isn't it built and why is nobody coming?

The BBC reports that Forest City was aimed at selling properties in Malaysia to Chinese buyers, essentially allowing them to buy a second home.

Despite being built in Malaysia the place is too expensive for most of the people there, the best they could do is hope to rent it from the people who actually could afford to buy something there.

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Forest City being built on reclaimed islands didn't appeal to some buyers, while the disruption caused by the pandemic hasn't helped things either, and now the place is a ghost town it's hardly appealing to anyone looking for a place to buy.

Nobody wants to buy the thousands of flats which have been built in the middle of nowhere, meaning the money from sales that would go into funding the rest of Forest City isn't forthcoming.

MOHD RASFAN/AFP via Getty Images

Nazmi Hanafiah, an IT engineer who actually moved to Forest City, told the Beeb he'd had enough of the place after six months, saying it was 'creepy' and there was nothing to do there.

That's not entirely true, you can be the solitary soul walking on an abandoned beach and then walk up a concrete 'staircase to nowhere'.

Don't go into the water though, as apparently it's infested with crocodiles so they might kill you.

If you were hoping for a spot of retail therapy then you're out of luck, as a lot of the shops have closed down and some aren't even built yet.

For those wishing to indulge their sense of optimism they could go and stare at the model of what the developers hope Forest City will look like if it's ever completed.

Just be sure to be home before dark as with barely anyone living there the place is almost devoid of lights switched on, so you'll have a hard time seeing anything.