KANGBASHI
Inner Mongolia 2010
Inner Mongolia 2010
The Kangbashi District of Ordos, Inner Mongolia is one of the wealthiest regions in China mainly due to vast reserves of coal and natural gas. Planned and built just in five years thanks to the massive investments by the PRC on building and infrastructure (160 Billion Dollars). Kangbashi was designed to be the showcase urban center of Ordos City, a relatively wealthy coal-mining hub that’s home to 1.5 million people. A public-works project Kangbashi full of office towers, administrative centers, government buildings, museums, theaters and sports fields and filled with all the amenities that signal a prosperous and modern boom town, has only one thing missing in it: people. Foreign observers are concerned and worried that this is a reflection of yet another real estate bubble that is about to burst at some point. I was captivated by the idea of being alone in such a big newly build city in the middle of nowhere in Mongolia. This was an experiment for myself as I felt loneliness in overpopulated cities that is oppressive. In this case it was almost liberating.
