Forest City: Inside Malaysia’s Chinese-Built ‘Ghost City’
A year ago, the 30-year-old IT engineer moved to Forest City, a sprawling Chinese-built housing complex in Johor, on the tip of southern Malaysia. He rented a one-bedroom flat in a tower block overlooking the sea.
After six months, he’d had enough. He didn’t want to continue living in what he calls “a ghost town.”
“I didn’t care about my deposit; I didn’t care about the money. I just had to get out,” he said. We had arranged to meet in the same tower block he used to live in.
“I’m getting goosebumps just being back,” he said. “It’s lonely around here; it’s just you and your thoughts.”
China’s largest property developer, Country Garden, unveiled Forest City, a $100bn (£78.9bn) mega-project under the Belt and Road Initiative, in 2016.
At the time, the Chinese property boom was in full flow. Developers were borrowing colossal sums of money to build both homes and abroad for middle-class buyers.
In Malaysia, Country Garden’s plan was to build an eco-friendly metropolis featuring a golf course, a waterpark, offices, bars, and restaurants. The company said Forest City would eventually be home to nearly one million people.
Eight years on, it stands as a barren reminder that you do not need to be in China to feel the effects of its property crisis. Currently, only 15% of the entire project has been built and, according to recent estimates, just over 1% of the total development is occupied.
Despite facing debts of nearly $200 billion, Country Garden told the BBC it is “optimistic” that the full plan will be completed.
‘It’s creepy here’
Forest City was billed as “a dream paradise for all mankind.” But in reality, it was aimed squarely at the domestic Chinese market, offering aspirational people the chance to own a second home abroad. Its selling prices were out of reach for most ordinary Malaysians.
For Chinese buyers, the property would be an investment that could be let out to local Malaysians, such as Mr. Nazmi, or used as a holiday home.
In reality, Forest City’s isolated location—built on reclaimed islands far from the nearest major city, Johor Bahru—has put off potential tenants and earned it its local nickname, “Ghost City.”
“To be honest, it’s creepy,” says Mr. Nazmi. “I had high expectations for this place, but it was such a bad experience. There is nothing to do here.”
Forest City certainly gives off a strange atmosphere—it feels like an abandoned holiday resort.
On the deserted beach, there’s a shabby children’s playground, a rusting vintage car and, perhaps aptly, a white concrete “staircase to nowhere.” In the water, there are signs warning against swimming because of crocodiles.
In the purpose-built shopping mall, many of the shops and restaurants are closed; some units were just vacant construction sites. In a surreal touch, there is an empty children’s train doing endless laps around the mall while playing “heads, shoulders, knees, and toes” on loop in Chinese.
Next door, in Country Garden’s showroom, there is an enormous model city showing what a completed Forest City would look like. Sitting at the sales stall are a couple of bored-looking employees; the sign above them said, Forest City: Where Happiness Never Ends.
By far the biggest draw here is the area’s duty-free status. On the beach, you’ll find piles of discarded alcohol bottles and pockets of local drinkers, who provide the bulk of human activity here.
When night falls, Forest City becomes pitch dark. The enormous apartment blocks that loom over the complex each contain hundreds of apartments, but no more than half a dozen have their lights on. It’s hard to believe anyone actually lives here.
“This place is eerie,” says Joanne Kaur, one of the few residents I encounter. “Even during the day, when you step out of your front door, the corridor is dark.”
She and her husband live on the 28th floor of one of the tower blocks; they’re the only ones on the whole floor. Like Mr. Nazmi, they are renters, and, like Mr. Nazmi, they plan to leave as soon as they can.
“I feel sorry for people who actually invested and bought a place here,” she says. “If you were to Google ‘Forest City’, it’s not what you see here today.
“It should be the project that was promised to the people, but that’s not what it is,” she added.
