I saw a documentary on this which was fascinating. The South China mall is the largest mall in the world at a whopping 7.1 million square feet of leasable space (double the Mall of America.) Yet it only has 10 shops, and over 99% of the leasable space is empty. It's been open for a few years, but it's already falling into decay as it became a ghost town before it ever got started. They're so desperate to retain the few stores they have, they stopped charging them rent. This mall is in a city no westerner has ever heard of called Guangdong. Apparently a local multi-billionaire who made a fortune marketing noodles built it in Guangdong in order to make himself a hometown hero in his birthplace. Unfortunately it's a city of factory workers who can't even afford to shop there. In a free market, this mall would have been bankrupted years ago, but a government backed investor has stepped in and decided it's "too big to fail" 
It's really the ultimate example "build it and they will come" fallacy. 
Check out the 13 minute documentary and the newspaper article http://www.pbs.org/pov/utopia/ http://www.thenational.ae/article/20...206990272/1042
It's really the ultimate example "build it and they will come" fallacy. Check out the 13 minute documentary and the newspaper article http://www.pbs.org/pov/utopia/ http://www.thenational.ae/article/20...206990272/1042
