Advertisements, advertisements. How were these projects sold to unsuspecting home-buyers and investors? You can see the glittering presentations and inflated promises on TV and social media every day. Some of those who have taken bait are even second time suckers who have not learned their lesson. They thought they were just unlucky the first time. Regulations have been tightened. It should be all right now. Otherwise, how could the neighbours be making so much money from properties?
In this video, Mr Shi shows us the situation at Chong Qing’s Xiushan County. There are quite a number of abandoned construction projects here – towering apartment blocks. Even the security guard has left his post.
Residents have made use of the areas around the abandoned projects to grow vegetables and even rear chickens. The surrounding blocks are occupied but rubbish piles are everywhere in the vicinity. And it seems that the tower blocks are not the only abandoned buildings. There are many more smaller abandoned projects, all turned into rubbish dumps and farming plots. The proud slogans seem like insults. The estate is called Long Qiao Shui An. The once glitzy showroom is now deserted. Construction was halted back in February 2015 . If you can read Chinese, you can see how confidently the projected was launched at a road show in 2013. The authorities did not step in to shut the business down until 2018.
Next to the railway station, another prime location, there’s yet another abandoned project. Other than a few red flags, there are no aviation warning lights on top of the abandoned buildings.
Scenes like this are definitely not exceptional as Mr Shi has shown in numerous other videos. The most regrettable thing about these monuments of greed, excesses and irresponsibility, is that the land that these abandoned projects are standing on used to be productive farmland. Many people lament the problem of food shortage in China.