In Malaysia, they built an "eco-city of the future" for $100 billion. But instead of 700,000 residents, only 10,000 live there.
Forest City rises on four artificial islands in the very south of Malaysia. The project was presented as an ecological marvel, a paradise garden for 700,000, and potentially a million residents. Today, this futuristic metropolis of 30 square kilometers stands virtually empty, resembling the set of a post-apocalyptic film.
The story of Forest City began in 2016, when Country Garden, the largest Chinese developer, riding the wave of the construction boom in China, announced the launch of a megaproject worth $100 billion.
As part of the global "One Belt, One Road" initiative, the company planned to create an ideal living environment - a city without cars on the surface, with vertical gardens, smart technologies, its own water parks, golf courses and international schools.
According to the original plans, Forest City was to become a new window to Asia for the middle class from China: close to Singapore, with sea air, parks and expensive apartments on the coast. For most local Malaysians, housing prices in this elite enclave were simply unaffordable.
Why it didn't work out
However, problems began almost immediately after the laying of the first stone. Just a year later, in 2017, the Chinese government radically changed the rules for the withdrawal of capital abroad, effectively cutting off the flow of money from potential buyers. This was the first blow to the project's economy.
Soon, political problems were added to the economic ones: after the change of power in the country in 2018, the project lost some of its political support, and its focus primarily on foreign buyers began to look increasingly problematic.
The final chord was the COVID-19 pandemic, which stopped tourism and construction, followed by a large-scale crisis in the Chinese real estate market, which put the developer on the verge of bankruptcy with debts of hundreds of billions of dollars.
Ghost Town
Today, Forest City is a surreal sight. According to official data, only about 15% of the planned volume has been built, but even these buildings remain unoccupied. Out of hundreds of thousands of expected residents, only about 10,000 people have moved to the city.
The atmosphere in the city, according to rare visitors and residents, is alarming and even frightening. Majestic residential towers, designed for thousands of apartments, stand as dark monoliths. With the onset of night, the light comes on in literally a few windows per skyscraper, which only enhances the feeling of loneliness.
People who have tried to live there describe to journalists this as an experience of living in a ghost town: endless empty corridors, a silence that makes you uneasy, and a complete lack of social life. Many tenants, unable to withstand the psychological pressure of emptiness, leave after a few months, even if it means losing their deposits.
The city's infrastructure operates in "zombie" mode. In a huge shopping center built to serve crowds, most of the premises are either closed or remain construction sites.
On the beach, which was supposed to be a resort gem, there are signs warning of crocodiles, making swimming impossible.
Ecological Paradox
However, the problems of Forest City lie deeper than just the lack of people. The very name "Forest City" sounds like a grim irony, since a unique real ecosystem was destroyed for the construction of this "eco-paradise".
Construction began in a protected area of the highest rank, where the largest seagrass meadows and valuable mangrove forests in Malaysia were located. The developer began pumping sand for artificial islands in January 2014, without even obtaining a mandatory environmental assessment. This led to irreversible consequences: the single ecosystem was divided into parts, the water became cloudy, and local fishermen immediately began talking about falling catches and the loss of traditional fishing grounds.
The situation escalated into an international scandal. Singapore sent a diplomatic note to Malaysia, fearing that changes in underwater currents would cause erosion and damage the infrastructure of the strategic Second Link bridge that connects the two states. After protests, the scale of the project had to be reduced, but the unique nature of the region had already been damaged.
Moreover, the rush during construction created a threat to the buildings themselves. Experts noticed that the artificial land did not have time to properly stabilize before the construction of heavy skyscrapers. As a result, cracks began to appear in the walls of hotels, showrooms and on the roads - the land under the ambitious metropolis is slowly sinking, which calls into question the safety of the entire complex in the future.
Finding a Way Out
Nevertheless, the Malaysian authorities are not ready to give up on Forest City. In order to breathe new life into the project, a special financial zone began operating in 2024. Generous tax incentives for businesses and a simplified visa regime for foreigners were added to the existing duty-free trade status. The calculation is simple: to turn the ghost town into a lively financial hub between Malaysia and Singapore, attract offices, services and tourists - and thus return movement to the empty quarters.
According to recent reviews, this strategy is beginning to give the first, albeit weak, signals of hope.
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