Ian
priscilla 1Abandoned Cities
August 17th 2009 10:19
Nothing attracts tourists like a ghost town, especially those which retain some interesting architecture, stories and folklore. Today let's look at a number of better known abandoned cities and towns from around the world. This information and images sourced from WebUrbanist. Read more here.
The origins and much of the history of this slow-built settlement in Tuscany remain unknown, constructed in pieces over many centuries. In the 1100s it was owned by the Benedictine abbey of San Pietro dei Monti. Today the beautiful small town-on-the-bluffs features a castle at the top and partially walled city sprawled on the olive-treed hillside around - but all are completely abandoned. Due to seismic instability the residents were moved out decades ago, leaving behind a perfectly preserved but piecemeal museum of modern and medieval history. Still, visit it soon: the next earthquake in the area may be the last this old town ever sees.
Hashima is one of the most remarkable of a series of hundreds of deserted Japanese islands. Once a thriving coal-mining city its population density grew to be the highest on the planet, with workers crammed vertically in ever-growing buildings and walked daily through ever-narrowing streets. Following a drop in coal production the entirely island amazingly shut down though most of its structures still stand. Currently the island is being renovated to create safe tourist paths through the rubble and tilting buildings but for now daring (and illegal) exploration is possible only by hiring a willing private boat driver to take a look.
During the heat of conflict in World War II, a few informants told German troops that one of their own officers was being held in a nearby French town. What ensued was a terrible massacre that only spared a handful of men and women who managed to escape. Children and women were rounded up into a church and burned alive, men were shot in the legs to die slowly in a barn. Today, the remains of the old city still stand as a memorial to the events of that terrible day and the new commune of Oradour has been relocated to a nearby area.
No list of abandoned cities and deserted towns can be complete without some discussion of one of the strangest and most infamous example: Centralia. This once-thriving town had a mine (coal seam) fire decades ago … but it never went out. Warning signs that something was still wrong included: smoking highways, heated underwater gas tanks and person-swallowing sinkholes. Over time most of the town’s residents have moved on though a few insist on staying despite the slowly-spreading and still-burning fire that creeps below.
Bodie was a quintessential frontier town of the Old West, complete with dozens of saloons, a red light district and a Chinatown. Stories of its history include tales of barroom brawls, stagecoach robberies and other Wild West debauchery. Founded during the Gold Rush the town thrived through the early 20th Century but was subsequently deserted and now is preserved and partially restored to its original state.
Yashima is a high and open plateau on one of the main islands of Japan. During peak economic years in the 1980s investors decided to create a resort village complete with a half-dozen hotels, curio shops and a rail line to the top of the peak of the city. When the economy fell on harder times and they could not bring in the tourist dollars the entire village was shut down, leaving many shops with eerie remnant collections of collectible tourist goodies and leaving furniture and other relics in the hotels and other support buildings.
Kowloon Walled City was a loophole, a glitch never meant to exist. It grew organically devoid of building codes and largely absent of legal oversight, a kind of organic tent city times one thousand. As it grew without rules some areas were cut off entirely from natural light and air, crime ebbed and flowed and everything grew densely packed until the government finally intervened - evacuating the city and demolishing what remained.
Abandoned Medieval Town of Balestrino, Italy
Abandoned Island City of Hashima, Japan
Abandoned City & Commune of Oradour, France
Abandoned Town of Centralia, Pennsylvania
Wild West Ghost Town of Bodie, California
Abandoned Resort Town of Yashima, Japan
Deserted Walled City of Kowloon, Hong Kong
| 54 |
| Vote |
subscribe to this blog
