*LAVASA* was conceived by Gulabchand as India's first private hill city in 2000, following similar private developments in the U.S. like Seaside, Florida, or the Disney development of Celebration
I can't imagine how anyone with a lot of money would want to live in a villa which is crammed together in a small space with a whole bunch of identical looking villas.
I've seen a video where the local residents were interviewed, and they hated the project, because it destroyed the landscape. It also didn't have anything to do with the original style of the country and was basically just a faceless, tasteless Disneyland version.
Lesson to learn: don't make developments for the wealthy. Money dries up and they will go where they want to. Make a development for the average citizen and you'll have a community for centuries through thick and thin.
or build these housing in phases.. like that Turkey project.. Why are they building all 700+ at once instead of building only the ones that were purchased. It is just greed and stupidity. I just hope the labourers got paid.
@@matfax We already got this with suburban neighborhoods here. No uniqueness, no identity, just identical houses and blank lawns with barely any plantlife other than cut grass.
Just imagine trying to find your house after a night out with friends, when you're a bit drunk. "Why the f*** doesn't my key fit in the lock, am I at the wrong house again? For the fifth time?"
First time I hear about California City... Guess Mendelson wanted to create a similar New York City, but failed miserably.... Hard to attract residents when the main attraction/ employer is a Prison institution....
Actually, Edwards Air Force Base, which is 18 miles to the SE, is the largest employer of city residents. Mojave Air and Space Port is another employer as is Hyundai/Kia Proving Grounds which is located in the city.
I had an Abandoned project in my city, Niagara Falls, Canada. There's supposed to be a 30 story hotel, It's called "The Crowne Plaza Hotel", construction began in the 1990's, during 9/11, the project has to be delayed, after few weeks, they continue to construct, at 2005, they left the project abandoned for only a decade, leaving the abandoned parking lot behind. But in November 12th 2019, there's a proposal of a 72 story hotel and it's been approved a day later. Till this day, we'll never know when the construction will actually begin.
@@Gamefruitpulp Zappi's not gonna last long because few years ago, there's a proposal of 3 towers, which there all 30 story hotels where Zappi is, and It's been approved, but we don't know if there still doing wind study till this day.
What is the street that this project is supposed to be built on? I have a video with Niagara Falls, NY in it. It was the top 10 small cities with unusually large skylines. I found out about how much bigger and nicer the Canadian side is when researching for the vid. I would like to go there some day but it's a little ways from me. ruclips.net/p/PLE6cVwezqMRGix4FOcV7iiNGiErOA5t_W This is the one that it's in.
I worked in Mojave for almost 20 years- it was the fashionable place for rocket companies- and Cal City was always this kinda creepy mess just over the horizon. We did set a world record when Dick Rutan flew the XCOR Ez-Rocket from Mojave to Cal City, and he boasted that he holds the longest and shortest distance records.
I'm just guessing the design was not esthetically pleasing as 1 big negative that worked against it. The illustrations looked unappealing to me. Very flat. Lacking a landscaped appeal that would attract homeowners. I think it could have been designed utilizing more of the desert southwest natural elements. I'm not sure that was considered desirable at the time.
It is to make construction cheaper, it is easier and faster to build 700+ of the same thing than to make 700+ similar but different things. With how close those buildings are placed to each other it looks like the goal was to make as much money out of this project as possible, not to create something nice for whoever that was going to live there.
Burj Al Babas is creepy, the big building is so close together it looks like a cemetery from above. The housing is arranged like a slum & the villa looks like a tombstone.
Thanks for the video. In my opinion, these mega projects were not about the buildings itself but a way for the corrupt wealthy people to wash their money, because even though it was not finished, a lot of cash was flowing somewhere so someone was profiting from it. The big question is who. Like I always say, follow the money.
imagine wanting to construct a whole city from scratch just so it could be a suburb filled with single family homes and everything useful being far away from walking distance.
If that skyscraper were ever condemned to be demolished, I can only imagine how laborious and expensive it would be to dismantle it (after all, they can't just have it come down crumbling, it's too big for that).
A decent percentage of residents of Cal City were military and retired military from Edwards AFB. Went there once with the First Sargent of our unit and was amazed to see the miles and miles of streets carved into the desert with one house here, another house a half mile away over there. Before we went, he said, "You want to see the second largest city in California? Come on, I'll show you where I live! Cal City!"
I've seen a video about this project where some locals were interviewed, and they seemingly hate the entire project, because it destroys the landscape and doesn't give them any benefits like jobs or something like that.
In fact, goldin tower was such a failure that soon after its abandoning, government essentially banned all construction of super tall skyscrapers. Anything taller than 200 meters requires special approval from government to proceed.
In Germany there are two such projects but I'm not sure if they really qualify as Megaprojects. One is the Transrapid (a train powered by magnetic levitation). It failed because there was no one was interested in building the required infrastructure. However it was technically working. The other was the Cargolifter (a large blimp supposed to carry cargo). It failed due to investors bailing but the hangar still remains (as a large Spa called Tropical Island). The hangar itself was the largest freestanding steel-dome construction at it's time (and maybe even now). It's large enough to fit the Eiffel Tower on its side.
I wouldn't consider the Transrapid a failed megaproject, they never really started building it and it actually never entered planing stage (until China bought it and built it).
@@MyRegardsToTheDodo Transrapid has a 27km test track which was even commuting on a regular basis between 2 towns (mainly touristic travels though). There are multiple generations of working trains as well.
@@KozKalanndok That's like calling the Wuppertal Schwebebahn a failed superproject, because no other city addapted it (which was actually the engineer's plan). It was a pitch that never found a buyer.
Really cool video...by the way: you could make a serie of the never build towers in Dubai...but I think it would be an immense job. As nearly every second building in Dubai is cancelled.
All the billions wasted on these projects. Imagine how many people that could have helped, or even how much necessary infrastructure built, or architectural beauties renovated, restored or even rebuilt.
It's not a complete waste. The billions spent on these projects did end up somewhere. Some of it landed in the pockets of local construction workers who were able to use their earnings to buy things for themselves and their families. Some of it went to taxes to fund infrastructure and public services. It went to building materials and supplies distributors who used some of their earnings to pay their own employees and to pay their suppliers. Who further used it to buy more supplies and pay more employees. Is that the most efficient way to distribute money? Probably not, but it is a bit of a silver lining that shows at least 100% of the money wasn't wasted.
The project in Turkey is insane. So much waste. At least California City was more or less just land and some infrastructure. Even with a massive underground aquifer, I wonder if a full blown LA-like city in the Mojave would be able to exist with all the water/drought issues in California? I'm guessing the tower in China will be completed in time. It may take a definite economic upswing for the Chinese and Turkey projects to ever be completed and occupied. With the war, that feels like it could be years away. It's too bad the homes in Turkey cannot be cannibalized, moved and reconstructed more modestly elsewhere.
I don't think that Chinese one will ever be completed. The problem with leaving something uncompleted and exposed to the elements for a long period of time is that you can't just start building again. The interiors and infrastructure (like in the Turkish project) start to corrode and rot and that can't just be ignored....
The aquifer in California city was overstated they are now on water from the Los Angeles aquaduct and have been for decades. The jobs in the area come from Edwards Air Force Base, Mojave airport, US Borax and some from the prison. Additionally Honda and Hyundai both have test facilities in the area. Long term houses have turned out to be a good investment there. It will probably never grow to the original plans as there is not nearly enough water for a city that size. As to the lack of palm trees the winter climate can be very harsh at night with most nights below freezing, not conducive to most palm varieties. At one time the main thoroughfare was 3 miles of rose bushes but the water demands saw them removed. It is pretty affordable for California while still in an area that can provide a middle class income. You either like the desert or you don't but it does not lack for recreation options.
@@johnvannewhouse The Turkish villa project will never be completed either. There is no real interest in those villas, because they're essentially in the middle of nowhere and nobody who could afford living there would actually want to live there (why should they?) and by now you'd probably have to tear them down and start rebuilding entirely (I don't know if the earthquake in Turkey a few days ago affected the structures and I am pretty sure nobody is actually interested enough in them to check now). There were some investors, but no real customers and the investors pulled out.
Cities are built by people. Not on person. A community of people who all live somewhere (usually by water because we need water to live) and THEY build the community. Ultra rich megalomaniacs never seem to understand this. Everyone keeps saying they want to be the next LA or London or Tokyo, but all these places weren’t built all in one go with everything in place. They were built over hundreds of YEARS by people building communities. How do you build a city? Have it be near water, preferably on an ocean coastline for easy trade access with other countries and wait hundreds of years as the community builds itself. There.
I would love to get a copy of the proposed map of what they thought California City would actually look like if everything had been built as it had been envisioned.
hundreds of identical fairy tale style manors is just plain creepy. they look like american mcmansions, but even those monstrosities sometimes have yards...
These empty castle-like structures in Turkey could potentially find some use as temp. housing given how many buildings collapsed in the recent Earthquake in Turkey.
Heartly Appreciate your research and hardwork with top notch video making. Keep uploading keep growing. I would be waiting for your next upcoming videos. ☺️👍
Burj Al Babas could be a nice place for Syrian refugees, in two years that megaproject would turn into an awesome win win situation for everyone. Better than living in tents and faster to rebuild since most houses are half way or almost completed. At this point, EU could not deny Turkey as a member any longer.
Where I was growing up, there was supposed to be a 10 story hotel which got put on hold due to the 2008 financial crisis. It remained unfinished for several years before getting demolished. A new hotel of similar size was built in its place though.
The Golden Finance 117 in China took me by surprise. I thought I was all caught up, but how did I not know about the Guinness world record winner for tallest unoccupied tower? I'm slightly ashamed of myself now. *(Sad)*
There is a lot of propaganda that Chinese ghost districts, cities, buildings are a myth. But it turns out, not so much myth. The first derelict sky scraper I saw was in Tianjin in 1999, not this one of course, but that city is probably cursed.
I grew up in Los Angeles in the 60s and I remember the hype around California City. I've driven by the offramp off of I14 where signs still point to California City, but I never got off. Guess I will next time I'm in the area. Great video by the way.
Define "affordable " how much of an " affordable house/project" is actually fees and permits and more fees added on by the government that cries "CRISIS!!"
Burj al babas is so ridiculous. Their target is rich oil executives, but there is not even a backyard and frontyard for each villa. Which rich people would want to live in a cramped looking houses like that
Wow, imagine having the spare cash to be able to choose what house you'd like - and buying something as sh*t as one pretend castle (out of 500 identical ones) in Burj Al Babas.
When you spend that sort of money for a house, even a supposed mini-villa, you do not want to be in a place with hundreds of them exactly the same. What were they thinking?
I live a few miles from California City. I watched them build roads with no houses. It's a place for criminals to go unnoticed. A few years ago they built a new freeway that bypassed the town of Mojave. It's to far from anything. It's got a desert Tortoise sanctuary.
That's exactly what I thought...and not only that....a large city! I guess the idea was to rake in the cash at the beginning and then bail before the s**t hit the fan...something like what happened at the Salton Sea.
It wasn't a good idea to make them looks so similar. But, I like the fairytale appearance of the houses. I have seen video of people exploring these houses and it's pretty haunting at times. I would mind owning one if the place was at least 1/2 occupied. Tear down the rest or make them into duplexes and provide them to poor families... perhaps.
Why would someone want to live in a mini castle, even if you call it a "villa"? Kind of defeats the purpose of having a castle. Then, there's 500 other ones that look identical. And they block each others view! Who designed this?
Hundreds of identical looking villas? That was never going to work. I’m no developer but wouldn’t it have made more sense if he built and sold a handful at a time?
Out of the megaprojects presented, I think California City is the one that have the best potential to actually move ahead. Both of the other projects will require an extremely expensive reconstruction phase making them not likely to ever be done anything with, except maybe being buldozed to make room for something else.
Funny, This video encapsulates a specific portion of my life. I am a union ironworker so I built large construction projects, a few years ago I was on the largest Solar project in the world in Mojave CA back in 2021. I rented a room for during the week from a guy in that barren wasteland "utopia" California City and that place suuuuuuuuuuckkks. I moved away ASAP and just started driving the 2 hours everyday each way from home instead of subject myself to that hellhole. Hopefully I will be on a solar project out there working soon though! there are tons coming up soon. Lots of green energy projects going in that area now and more in the future.
Need to include North Korea's Ryugyong Hotel, which would have had over 7,000 rooms. It cost a good bit of NK's economy, but still sits unfinished and empty, towering over the area's landscape.
"Turning Saudi Arabia into a touristic hub." Whoever came up with this idea clearly has no clue what the rest of the world associate SA with. I'd choose to do tourism in an abandoned slaughterhouse before I decide to go there.
To add context to the Turkish castle town project; "Burj al Babas" is not a Turkish name. It's Arabic; and not even Arabic romanized into Turkish style of spelling, but Arabic standard romanized into English. So it's safe to assume it was meant to be sold to oil rich Arabs only. In that case I'm glad it failed.
You describe the Turkish villas as 'crumbling' after only three years sitting vacant. It sounds like it won't take much effort for nature to totally reclaim the land.
If they will never complete the tower, are they going to demolish it as the nature crumbles it? And if they'd ever decide so, how that would actually happened? I mean, they can't just detonate it. Maybe piece by piece slowly from the top? How they go about destroying these mega projects in general? 🤔
@@virgiliovargas3052 Wait until you here about the planned farming areas outside the city, apparently to be achieved with genetically engineered crops. Yep, and with a little genetic engineering humanity will be able to walk on water....
Do you know about similar failed projects in your country? Let us know! 😄👇
Ok sup
You can talk about the Hellinikon Project. It isn't an abandoned project in Greece but it is a worth a try mentioning it!
@@finleylinsen7509 🤓
*LAVASA* was conceived by Gulabchand as India's first private hill city in 2000, following similar private developments in the U.S. like Seaside, Florida, or the Disney development of Celebration
johor forest city in malaysia
I can't imagine how anyone with a lot of money would want to live in a villa which is crammed together in a small space with a whole bunch of identical looking villas.
exactly, not even a garage??
@@SunriseLAW That's VERY different.
Exactly what I thought. The (medium-) rich might want to show off as being superior, and how can you do that in identical villas?
I've seen a video where the local residents were interviewed, and they hated the project, because it destroyed the landscape. It also didn't have anything to do with the original style of the country and was basically just a faceless, tasteless Disneyland version.
It looks so so shit. Like they gave an intern the design pencil. Could’ve been a lot better
I suddenly don't feel so bad now about the cities I create in Cities Skylines
Buhahhah 😂😂😂 creativity be bold
I have a neglected colony on Mars.....I m sorry for the colons I put there.
@@chocomojo9552 they must be shitting themselves
😂😂😂😂
Cities Skylines, but when you place down plots, nobody moves in...
Lesson to learn: don't make developments for the wealthy. Money dries up and they will go where they want to. Make a development for the average citizen and you'll have a community for centuries through thick and thin.
Are you listening Hamilton Ontario?
1000%
or build these housing in phases.. like that Turkey project.. Why are they building all 700+ at once instead of building only the ones that were purchased. It is just greed and stupidity. I just hope the labourers got paid.
You sound like you've constructed many many of these projects. Thank you Babu.
@@darkangelkate3950 what happen in Hamilton, Ontario?
Not even kidding - that neighbourhood with all the Turkish villas is genuinely creepy, it would be my idea of hell to drive around that place.
Do it at night in the middle with no GPS /phone reception >:3
It really is. Who wants to live in a city where every house looks the same?
Maybe adding a few strip malls like california city will lighten the mood
@@matfax We already got this with suburban neighborhoods here. No uniqueness, no identity, just identical houses and blank lawns with barely any plantlife other than cut grass.
Just imagine trying to find your house after a night out with friends, when you're a bit drunk. "Why the f*** doesn't my key fit in the lock, am I at the wrong house again? For the fifth time?"
Burj Al babas look like a setting for a zombie apocalypse movie
As a citizen of Kern County, I always wondered why an inhospitable place like California City existed. Thank you, Top Luxury
How is life in Bakersfield? The weather seems sub tropical.
To me California City looks like a giant Rattle Snake Ranch!
I never even heard of it until this video.
First time I hear about California City... Guess Mendelson wanted to create a similar New York City, but failed miserably.... Hard to attract residents when the main attraction/ employer is a Prison institution....
Actually, Edwards Air Force Base, which is 18 miles to the SE, is the largest employer of city residents. Mojave Air and Space Port is another employer as is Hyundai/Kia Proving Grounds which is located in the city.
The prison came after the city had already failed and he'd long since left the effort. It was never part of the "plan".
Yeah building a giant city in the desert is not exactly sustainable
The prison is extremely new and wasn't part of Mendelssohn's plan. That is a recent attempt to bring jobs.
@@johnr797 Las Vegas?
I love how they show in California City how they prioritize utilities. Park, airport, prison
I had an Abandoned project in my city, Niagara Falls, Canada. There's supposed to be a 30 story hotel, It's called "The Crowne Plaza Hotel", construction began in the 1990's, during 9/11, the project has to be delayed, after few weeks, they continue to construct, at 2005, they left the project abandoned for only a decade, leaving the abandoned parking lot behind. But in November 12th 2019, there's a proposal of a 72 story hotel and it's been approved a day later. Till this day, we'll never know when the construction will actually begin.
Zappi's across the street has good Italian food though 😂
@@Gamefruitpulp Zappi's not gonna last long because few years ago, there's a proposal of 3 towers, which there all 30 story hotels where Zappi is, and It's been approved, but we don't know if there still doing wind study till this day.
@@bonzillafilmsgamingsreviews noooo!
me too
What is the street that this project is supposed to be built on? I have a video with Niagara Falls, NY in it. It was the top 10 small cities with unusually large skylines. I found out about how much bigger and nicer the Canadian side is when researching for the vid. I would like to go there some day but it's a little ways from me.
ruclips.net/p/PLE6cVwezqMRGix4FOcV7iiNGiErOA5t_W
This is the one that it's in.
I worked in Mojave for almost 20 years- it was the fashionable place for rocket companies- and Cal City was always this kinda creepy mess just over the horizon. We did set a world record when Dick Rutan flew the XCOR Ez-Rocket from Mojave to Cal City, and he boasted that he holds the longest and shortest distance records.
I drove through Cal City a year ago… all I can remember was that I was glad when I drove out and it was in my review… Lancaster isn’t much better!
His rocket was not able to fit in Maccas drive thru and hence the downward spiral..
I'm just guessing the design was not esthetically pleasing as 1 big negative that worked against it. The illustrations looked unappealing to me. Very flat. Lacking a landscaped appeal that would attract homeowners. I think it could have been designed utilizing more of the desert southwest natural elements. I'm not sure that was considered desirable at the time.
Why would millionaire want to live on a carbon copy of 700 other identical houses in the same block?
Why do the rich live in the same block.
Why make the villas identical? That just looks insane.
Thats what im saying. Architecture should never be identical
Wait until you visit Irvine CA or any new development in California really...
While not to my taste some people crave the conformity
It's not only that the villas are all identical, they're also literally in the middle of nowhere. There is nothing there you can actually do.
It is to make construction cheaper, it is easier and faster to build 700+ of the same thing than to make 700+ similar but different things. With how close those buildings are placed to each other it looks like the goal was to make as much money out of this project as possible, not to create something nice for whoever that was going to live there.
Underrated channel. Thank you for your great editing, quality, and general research. 10/10.
Burj Al Babas is creepy, the big building is so close together it looks like a cemetery from above.
The housing is arranged like a slum & the villa looks like a tombstone.
I can't impart your opinion to modern urban environments elsewhere.
No rich person will buy identical villas, especially when they build near each other.
The Turkey one looks like somebody enabled a cheat code in Age of Empires 2 to build rows upon rows of identical castles.
Castles in AoE 2 are not that ugly. This gives more of AoE 3 vibes.
AEGIS
True! 😂 Damn Age of Empires II was an amazing game! I played it for thousands of hours... So simple but yet well made.
@@petrmaly9087true 😂
Thanks for the video. In my opinion, these mega projects were not about the buildings itself but a way for the corrupt wealthy people to wash their money, because even though it was not finished, a lot of cash was flowing somewhere so someone was profiting from it. The big question is who. Like I always say, follow the money.
Yeah, these are meant to fail. It's just a way to launder money.
imagine wanting to construct a whole city from scratch just so it could be a suburb filled with single family homes and everything useful being far away from walking distance.
The American Dream. Being able to access everything by walking... What, are you a communist?
......
Because that is what Los Angeles was and it was booming.
If that skyscraper were ever condemned to be demolished, I can only imagine how laborious and expensive it would be to dismantle it (after all, they can't just have it come down crumbling, it's too big for that).
They would like like they did in Manhattan with the old Union Carbide building. Dismantle floor by floor.
I had exactly the same thought at first moment .
A decent percentage of residents of Cal City were military and retired military from Edwards AFB. Went there once with the First Sargent of our unit and was amazed to see the miles and miles of streets carved into the desert with one house here, another house a half mile away over there. Before we went, he said, "You want to see the second largest city in California? Come on, I'll show you where I live! Cal City!"
You confirmed my guess that Edwards employed many of the residents of Cal City.
Having a city of the same weird Disney looking houses was just a strange idea.
I've seen a video about this project where some locals were interviewed, and they seemingly hate the entire project, because it destroys the landscape and doesn't give them any benefits like jobs or something like that.
@@MyRegardsToTheDodo It also just looks ugly.
@@rickhughesprints at first glance it looks like a cemetery.
@@MyRegardsToTheDodo I've seen Storror playing hidden and seek on it hahaha
In fact, goldin tower was such a failure that soon after its abandoning, government essentially banned all construction of super tall skyscrapers. Anything taller than 200 meters requires special approval from government to proceed.
My town has the Monorail, the giant magnifying glass, the skyscraper made of popsicles, and that escalator to nowhere. D’oh!
Springfield?
Thanks for sharing that California City never herd of this before and I studied architecture in California
These series should never stop 😊
Thank you!
I know right? This is awesome to watch.
really well done
If you liked this one, we just uploaded another 5 most useless megaprojects video 🤓
With the way businessmen invest and build shit, we'll never run out of useless crap for episode topics x.x
Love this series, always new and interesting projects😍
This series is always one of the highlights of RUclips when it gets uploaded for sure.
That skyscraper will become a safety issue with bits falling off. The demolition costs will be immense.
I was thinking about possible demolition during the video. How to do that and not put in danger those living under it?
It would probably be cheaper to just finish it than to demolish it.
It's north korea over again.
Love your work!
These are the best series
Now please useful biggest projects 🤗
In Germany there are two such projects but I'm not sure if they really qualify as Megaprojects. One is the Transrapid (a train powered by magnetic levitation). It failed because there was no one was interested in building the required infrastructure. However it was technically working. The other was the Cargolifter (a large blimp supposed to carry cargo). It failed due to investors bailing but the hangar still remains (as a large Spa called Tropical Island). The hangar itself was the largest freestanding steel-dome construction at it's time (and maybe even now). It's large enough to fit the Eiffel Tower on its side.
I wouldn't consider the Transrapid a failed megaproject, they never really started building it and it actually never entered planing stage (until China bought it and built it).
@@MyRegardsToTheDodo Transrapid has a 27km test track which was even commuting on a regular basis between 2 towns (mainly touristic travels though). There are multiple generations of working trains as well.
@@KozKalanndok That's like calling the Wuppertal Schwebebahn a failed superproject, because no other city addapted it (which was actually the engineer's plan). It was a pitch that never found a buyer.
😲😲😲😁
Really cool video...by the way: you could make a serie of the never build towers in Dubai...but I think it would be an immense job. As nearly every second building in Dubai is cancelled.
I would definitely just move into an abandoned mini castle!
I would imagine that every Olympic Village and FIFA stadium would qualify.
All the billions wasted on these projects. Imagine how many people that could have helped, or even how much necessary infrastructure built, or architectural beauties renovated, restored or even rebuilt.
My thoughts excacly!
It's not a complete waste. The billions spent on these projects did end up somewhere. Some of it landed in the pockets of local construction workers who were able to use their earnings to buy things for themselves and their families. Some of it went to taxes to fund infrastructure and public services. It went to building materials and supplies distributors who used some of their earnings to pay their own employees and to pay their suppliers. Who further used it to buy more supplies and pay more employees.
Is that the most efficient way to distribute money? Probably not, but it is a bit of a silver lining that shows at least 100% of the money wasn't wasted.
The project in Turkey is insane. So much waste. At least California City was more or less just land and some infrastructure. Even with a massive underground aquifer, I wonder if a full blown LA-like city in the Mojave would be able to exist with all the water/drought issues in California? I'm guessing the tower in China will be completed in time. It may take a definite economic upswing for the Chinese and Turkey projects to ever be completed and occupied. With the war, that feels like it could be years away. It's too bad the homes in Turkey cannot be cannibalized, moved and reconstructed more modestly elsewhere.
I don't think that Chinese one will ever be completed. The problem with leaving something uncompleted and exposed to the elements for a long period of time is that you can't just start building again. The interiors and infrastructure (like in the Turkish project) start to corrode and rot and that can't just be ignored....
@@johnvannewhouse agreed. Combine with their economic downturn, real estate bubble burst, and shrinking population, its a no go
The aquifer in California city was overstated they are now on water from the Los Angeles aquaduct and have been for decades. The jobs in the area come from Edwards Air Force Base, Mojave airport, US Borax and some from the prison. Additionally Honda and Hyundai both have test facilities in the area. Long term houses have turned out to be a good investment there. It will probably never grow to the original plans as there is not nearly enough water for a city that size. As to the lack of palm trees the winter climate can be very harsh at night with most nights below freezing, not conducive to most palm varieties. At one time the main thoroughfare was 3 miles of rose bushes but the water demands saw them removed. It is pretty affordable for California while still in an area that can provide a middle class income. You either like the desert or you don't but it does not lack for recreation options.
@@johnvannewhouse The Turkish villa project will never be completed either. There is no real interest in those villas, because they're essentially in the middle of nowhere and nobody who could afford living there would actually want to live there (why should they?) and by now you'd probably have to tear them down and start rebuilding entirely (I don't know if the earthquake in Turkey a few days ago affected the structures and I am pretty sure nobody is actually interested enough in them to check now). There were some investors, but no real customers and the investors pulled out.
@@MyRegardsToTheDodo All good points. Thanks!
Cities are built by people. Not on person. A community of people who all live somewhere (usually by water because we need water to live) and THEY build the community. Ultra rich megalomaniacs never seem to understand this. Everyone keeps saying they want to be the next LA or London or Tokyo, but all these places weren’t built all in one go with everything in place. They were built over hundreds of YEARS by people building communities.
How do you build a city? Have it be near water, preferably on an ocean coastline for easy trade access with other countries and wait hundreds of years as the community builds itself. There.
Either that or have it be your nation's capital (see Canberra, Washington DC and Brasilia)
"remains a useless mega project in the Middle of the desert " I have the slight feeling that we're gona hear that from the line
it is even ironic that this video comes in the side of youtube in every video about the saudi arabia the line, lol
We won't because it won't get beyond those renderings
I would love to get a copy of the proposed map of what they thought California City would actually look like if everything had been built as it had been envisioned.
hundreds of identical fairy tale style manors is just plain creepy. they look like american mcmansions, but even those monstrosities sometimes have yards...
Burj al Babas would be an epic airsoft/ paintball field if those were even popular there.
These empty castle-like structures in Turkey could potentially find some use as temp. housing given how many buildings collapsed in the recent Earthquake in Turkey.
They weren't homes and resort to rich people. You need to solve survival.
I am living in Turkey and I didn't hear that project before. Thank you for useful informations :)
Was waiting for this part 3
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Thanks a lot!
Burj Al Babas could be a nice place for Syrian refugees, in two years that megaproject would turn into an awesome win win situation for everyone.
Better than living in tents and faster to rebuild since most houses are half way or almost completed.
At this point, EU could not deny Turkey as a member any longer.
Not all refugees can pay 500k for the house but we can easily pack those houses with 6-8 families
Very interesting to learn about California City
Some of these buildings are going to make great movie sets
The environmental damage caused by these oligarchs' greed is unbelievable!
SADLY 😭 to see so many humans on the street without a home and this hundreds of homes almost finished and rotting away! 😲🥺🤔
Where I was growing up, there was supposed to be a 10 story hotel which got put on hold due to the 2008 financial crisis. It remained unfinished for several years before getting demolished. A new hotel of similar size was built in its place though.
where was this at?
@@irongoatrocky2343 Chandler, Arizona
The Golden Finance 117 in China took me by surprise. I thought I was all caught up, but how did I not know about the Guinness world record winner for tallest unoccupied tower?
I'm slightly ashamed of myself now.
*(Sad)*
test your knowledge of the most useless megaprojects with our latest video 🤓
There is a lot of propaganda that Chinese ghost districts, cities, buildings are a myth. But it turns out, not so much myth. The first derelict sky scraper I saw was in Tianjin in 1999, not this one of course, but that city is probably cursed.
I grew up in Los Angeles in the 60s and I remember the hype around California City. I've driven by the offramp off of I14 where signs still point to California City, but I never got off. Guess I will next time I'm in the area. Great video by the way.
The castle village would be a brilliant location for a Wes Anderson Movie
Building a bunch of suburban roads in the middle of the desert is such an american mood
whenever I see these abandoned luxury properties I get so frustrated imagining how much affordable housing could be built in their place
They should convert the Burj Al Baba into an affordable housing commune.
Define "affordable " how much of an " affordable house/project" is actually fees and permits and more fees added on by the government that cries "CRISIS!!"
Those Turkish houses remind me of the McMansions you see in the USA. Utterly hideous.
13:33 "if you want to know more about other fail megaprojects.." just... wait for Neom, The cube and other Saudi Araby megaprojects and ideas hahaha
Speaking of megaprojects left abandoned. I forgot to flush the number 2! Thanks for the reminder, running upstairs now
Burj al babas is so ridiculous. Their target is rich oil executives, but there is not even a backyard and frontyard for each villa. Which rich people would want to live in a cramped looking houses like that
Wow, imagine having the spare cash to be able to choose what house you'd like - and buying something as sh*t as one pretend castle (out of 500 identical ones) in Burj Al Babas.
A great way to hide from paparazzi
Amaravathi in Andhra Pradesh - india is also like this
yes. it was a plan to fail
imagine living in a tower with 128 floors and u need to get down to get ur uber eats
U should include port city , Colombo Sri Lanka
I’m pleasantly surprised figured it would be another story of an abandoned town in California
$500k for a trophy property is a joke! Burj Al Babas might have taken off if they'd charged $10M.
When you spend that sort of money for a house, even a supposed mini-villa, you do not want to be in a place with hundreds of them exactly the same. What were they thinking?
1:29 You just planted Madrid in the middle of the desert 😂!!!
Burj Al Babas is great, but not all wealthy people want the identical house as they owned and so close to each others :)
I grew up in Cal City, so seeing this (and other people covering it) is always weird to me 😅
Please stop making high-quality, entertaining videos on weekends so I can just go back to sleep.
P.S.: don’t
Ca City Area. Its 110 in Summer and freezes in the Winter and the wind blows. No water or plants on the surface, and weirdos all around.
I live a few miles from California City. I watched them build roads with no houses. It's a place for criminals to go unnoticed. A few years ago they built a new freeway that bypassed the town of Mojave. It's to far from anything. It's got a desert Tortoise sanctuary.
Imagine building a city based on a non-renewable water source.
That's exactly what I thought...and not only that....a large city! I guess the idea was to rake in the cash at the beginning and then bail before the s**t hit the fan...something like what happened at the Salton Sea.
They could've maybe recycled the water like where I live in Orange County, which also has a massive aquifer under my feet.
Hi, pls cover Forest City in Malaysia
It wasn't a good idea to make them looks so similar. But, I like the fairytale appearance of the houses. I have seen video of people exploring these houses and it's pretty haunting at times.
I would mind owning one if the place was at least 1/2 occupied. Tear down the rest or make them into duplexes and provide them to poor families... perhaps.
If Superman hadn't prevented Lex Luther's earthquake, California City would be thriving.
Why would someone want to live in a mini castle, even if you call it a "villa"? Kind of defeats the purpose of having a castle. Then, there's 500 other ones that look identical. And they block each others view! Who designed this?
Please add “Torre de David” the tallest slum in Latin America that happens to be an abandoned skyscraper. Located in Caracas, Venezuela.
I thought everyone was forced to leave this building.
Hundreds of identical looking villas? That was never going to work. I’m no developer but wouldn’t it have made more sense if he built and sold a handful at a time?
9:57 turn it into a paintball arena. Or a test site for MOABs.
So much for 'If you build it, they will come.'
I've heard that Fontainbleu is looking at Goldin Finance 117, after their success in Vegas
Anybody who'd want to live in a castle wouldn't want to live in knockout castle with thousand identical castles all around.
Out of the megaprojects presented, I think California City is the one that have the best potential to actually move ahead. Both of the other projects will require an extremely expensive reconstruction phase making them not likely to ever be done anything with, except maybe being buldozed to make room for something else.
Because California City never got to the point where there was much to tear down.
It'd be so cool if California City was successful. I would wanna go there
It’s quite popular for off road vehicle riding and camping. Kinda a neat little spot to see what could have been.
Funny, This video encapsulates a specific portion of my life. I am a union ironworker so I built large construction projects, a few years ago I was on the largest Solar project in the world in Mojave CA back in 2021. I rented a room for during the week from a guy in that barren wasteland "utopia" California City and that place suuuuuuuuuuckkks. I moved away ASAP and just started driving the 2 hours everyday each way from home instead of subject myself to that hellhole. Hopefully I will be on a solar project out there working soon though! there are tons coming up soon. Lots of green energy projects going in that area now and more in the future.
A good wake up called for greedy developers who think the world is mainly populated by wealthy residents.
People with money aren't going to want exactly the same house as their neighbours. These developers don't think it through.
It is interesting that such a tall structure was abandoned.
Are any of those Vila's still standing... plenty of people who could use some shelter like that given recent events.
Need to include North Korea's Ryugyong Hotel, which would have had over 7,000 rooms. It cost a good bit of NK's economy, but still sits unfinished and empty, towering over the area's landscape.
"Turning Saudi Arabia into a touristic hub." Whoever came up with this idea clearly has no clue what the rest of the world associate SA with. I'd choose to do tourism in an abandoned slaughterhouse before I decide to go there.
To add context to the Turkish castle town project; "Burj al Babas" is not a Turkish name. It's Arabic; and not even Arabic romanized into Turkish style of spelling, but Arabic standard romanized into English. So it's safe to assume it was meant to be sold to oil rich Arabs only. In that case I'm glad it failed.
You describe the Turkish villas as 'crumbling' after only three years sitting vacant. It sounds like it won't take much effort for nature to totally reclaim the land.
If they will never complete the tower, are they going to demolish it as the nature crumbles it? And if they'd ever decide so, how that would actually happened? I mean, they can't just detonate it. Maybe piece by piece slowly from the top? How they go about destroying these mega projects in general? 🤔
Hi! How are you?
It's the start of a new week again. I wish you good health and good things this week as well.
Thank you very much.
"Luxury Housing" is the bane of existence. We don't need more LuXuRy housing, we need more affordable, sustainable, sensible housing.
Depressing 🙌🏼🔥
I can't wait to see "The Line" featured here
The Line is only one part of the NEOM Project. There are actually three other areas, though they are slightly less insane.
@@petergray7576 I can't wait then to see the entire NEON project feature here
@@virgiliovargas3052 Wait until you here about the planned farming areas outside the city, apparently to be achieved with genetically engineered crops. Yep, and with a little genetic engineering humanity will be able to walk on water....