Ordos, First Ghost Town Implodes, As China Crisis Looms

First, the coal industry, a pillar of this Mongolian city's economy, lost momentum. Then the bubble in the local real estate sector burst. Many buildings in the city are vacant at present, and now Ordos has a new nickname, "the ghost city."

Ordos in inner Mongolia has regularly been cited as the quintessential example of China’s unsustainable construction-led economy.

Posters of the Chinese character for good luck adorn shops bolted shut in the northern city of Ordos, where cranes stand silently above half-finished developments and doors on workers’ dormitories...