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Yeah its like they sold them to people based on individual photos but people would never have expected them to be all crunched together and identical like that.

Yeah its like they sold them to people based on individual photos but people would never have expected them to be all crunched together and identical like that. The article puts the failure down to the economy but there's no way anyone would have actually wanted to live in this place. Like you say - the people that did the layout for this development had no idea what they were doing. Or the plan got iteratively worse - e.g. there were going to be 10 different house types but it got whittled down to 1. Everything was going to be very spread out but then they progressively had to plan for less and less land.

stickfigure 5y ago
Have you ever been to Irvine? Or Elk Grove?
djrogers 5y ago
Hard to say that nobody would buy these, when they had already sold half of them before the project was finished. I don’t think I’d enjoy it, but obviously there are some people who thought this would make a nice vacation home.
- bradknowles 5y ago
  Good place for an international criminal to sink a lot of money and then sell it for a “loss” to someone that is owed. Real estate as money laundering is a well known tactic, and developments of the sort described are a perfect vehicle for them. Hell, almost all of London is a perfect vehicle for them, but that’s a different rant.
cm2187 5y ago
In Canary Wharf, in London, they are building a dozen resi sky scrapper at the same time, some within a few meters from each others. All the marketing material shows rendering of the view from the sky scrapper assuming none of the others is built. All sold off plan to the other side of the world where they will get a surprise on completion.
aikinai 5y ago
> Yeah its like they sold them to people based on individual photos but people would never have expected them to be all crunched together and identical like that. That seems to be exactly what they did based on this photo of their brochure[0]. [0] https://www.loveproperty.com/galleries/109137/burj-al-babas-tour-the-ghost-town-of-abandoned-fairytale-castles?page=3 https://www.loveproperty.com/galleries/109137/burj-al-babas-...
- codeulike 5y ago
  That powerpoint is fascinating, looks like work had resumed but then the pandemic hit

stickfigure 5y ago

Have you ever been to Irvine? Or Elk Grove?

djrogers 5y ago

Hard to say that nobody would buy these, when they had already sold half of them before the project was finished. I don’t think I’d enjoy it, but obviously there are some people who thought this would make a nice vacation home.

bradknowles 5y ago
Good place for an international criminal to sink a lot of money and then sell it for a “loss” to someone that is owed. Real estate as money laundering is a well known tactic, and developments of the sort described are a perfect vehicle for them. Hell, almost all of London is a perfect vehicle for them, but that’s a different rant.

cm2187 5y ago

In Canary Wharf, in London, they are building a dozen resi sky scrapper at the same time, some within a few meters from each others. All the marketing material shows rendering of the view from the sky scrapper assuming none of the others is built. All sold off plan to the other side of the world where they will get a surprise on completion.

aikinai 5y ago

> Yeah its like they sold them to people based on individual photos but people would never have expected them to be all crunched together and identical like that. That seems to be exactly what they did based on this photo of their brochure[0]. [0] https://www.loveproperty.com/galleries/109137/burj-al-babas-tour-the-ghost-town-of-abandoned-fairytale-castles?page=3 https://www.loveproperty.com/galleries/109137/burj-al-babas-...

codeulike 5y ago
That powerpoint is fascinating, looks like work had resumed but then the pandemic hit