Another Ghost Town built by China in Angola

This link has some interesting satellite photos, and some discussion in Portuguese.<p><a href="http://negociosangola.blogspot.com/2011/04/nova-cidade-do-kilamba-kiaxi-finalizada.html" rel="nofollow">http://negociosangola.blogspot.com/2011/04/nova-cidade-do-ki...</a><p>I wonder why they picked such an isolated spot 30 km from the capital. Angola has one of the lowest population densities in the world, surely land is not so scarce there that you need to go such a distance.<p>EDIT: well, I'm reminded yet again of how you can't rely on journalists. I took the 30 km figure from the BBC article here:<p><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-18646243" rel="nofollow">http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-18646243</a><p>However, a check of Google maps shows that this town is a mile or so away from the capital, right outside the ring road. Even from the center of Luanda, it's not 18 miles as the crow flies. Certainly not "18 miles outside the capital". Doesn't seem like an unreasonable location, now that I've seen it.<p>EDIT 2: the affordability of this by average Angolans (or any large number of Angolans) is a different story, but my guess is that given the population growth of Angola and the location next to the capital, this town will fill up one way or another, tho' possibly at a loss to the government, which is repaying the Chinese loan for this with oil revenues. Also, it seems that the vast majority of workers who built this were Chinese - apparently Angola didn't insist on local employment offsets.

As a Chinese american, this shows the house of cards that is Chinese state capitalism. China builds these types of communities as a "bribe" to exploit natural resources in the respective country.<p>There are plenty examples of ghost towns in China <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=chinese+ghost+towns&#38;hl=en&#38;safe=off&#38;prmd=imvnsu&#38;tbm=isch&#38;tbo=u&#38;source=univ&#38;sa=X&#38;ei=jS_zT4TEDKii2gXH9bXOCw&#38;ved=0CFEQsAQ&#38;biw=1280&#38;bih=624" rel="nofollow">https://www.google.com/search?q=chinese+ghost+towns&#38;hl=e...</a><p>I've visited some of these places on my trips back to China. The local governments in China are typically the ones who approve and push through these nonsensical plans.

Does anyone know why they have these small balconies below the windows? Never seen this before.

This can't be a ghost town, I saw 2 pedestrians, more than on my weeklong visit to Silicon Valley.&#60;/yada&#62;

I prefer to read over videos. Here's the article: <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-18646243" rel="nofollow">http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-18646243</a>

China is building major buildings in many other countries -- They're sometimes offered as "gifts". Makes you wonder what they expect in return..

Wonder what Paul Krugman think about this.<p>Edit. It's an honest question, these towns might turn out to be a good thing, I don't know.

The ghost towns remain empty for the first year or two. But within five years all chinese ghost towns fill up. That's what I heard. We continue to hear about ghost towns because as soon as old ghost towns are filling up, china continues to build new ghost towns for future expansion.<p>Please correct me if wrong.

One thing I hate about those kind of urbanscape is their utter blandness, even if people were to fill it up.

The footage from the video reminds me of the empty city in the movie Inception. It's pretty eerie seeing so much housing with no life.

Why does the article title say "Footage shows African 'ghost town'"?