YouTubers explore Malaysia’s eerie $100bn city where security guards outnumber residents
Picture this: a city built for a million people, costing a mind-boggling $100 billion, yet it’s so quiet you could hear a pin drop.
We’re talking about Forest City, Malaysia – a sprawling, perfectly manicured urban landscape that feels less like a bustling metropolis and more like a scene from a sci-fi movie where everyone just vanished.
Digital creators Yes Theory recently pulled back the curtain on this modern marvel-turned-mystery, taking its online followers on a journey through a landscape that perfectly blends grand ambition with spectacular failure.
Just a short hop from the bustling metropolis of Singapore, Forest City – which was meant to house up to one million people – stands as a stark, unsettling paradox, a monument to dreams that went both incredibly big and incredibly wrong.
A city built for ghosts?
Yes Theory’s adventure into Forest City was, in their own words, “the strangest city on planet Earth”.
They went in “fairly blind,” wondering, “Will this place survive or is it likely to fall into decay forever?” What they found was surreal.
Pristine buildings, lush gardens, even shops and restaurants – but almost no one was there.
“I cannot believe how big that is,” one creator exclaimed
“That’s an entire city and nobody lives there. Barely anyone.”
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This aerial photo taken on June 16, 2022 shows a general view of Carnelian Tower (left) and condominiums at Forest City, a development project launched under China’s Belt and Road Initiative, in Gelang Patah in Malaysia’s Johor state.
It was meant to house up to a million people and be fully settled by 2035.
Two of Yes Theory’s content creators are left near speechless by the emptiness as they are driven to their hotel. Source: Yes Theory/YouTube
The team’s initial experience was unsettling.
They were staying on the 41st floor of a massive apartment block, but “there’s like nobody else here”.
Looking up at the towering buildings at night, they noted: “The only person that we said hi to works here but every single restaurant is completely empty. It’s fully built out … It looks beautiful here. Volleyball courts. It has everything to be a great place.”
Yet, the emptiness was palpable.
One local even shared spooky tales of hearing “moving of furniture” in empty apartments, leading to whispers of “ghosts”.
This eerie vibe was so strong that one of the Yes Theory crew admitted: “I’ve been up all night so no ghost can take me.”
The city gives off an unsettling “abandoned holiday resort” vibe.
On the deserted beach, there’s a sad-looking children’s playground, a rusty old car, and, in a truly symbolic touch, a concrete “staircase to nowhere.”
The empty water park. Source: Yes Theory/YouTube
Even the beaches are empty and waiting for visitors that will likely never come.
Imagine overlooking an entire city that’s near empty. Source: Yes Theory/YouTube
Oh, and watch out for crocodiles – there are signs warning you not to swim.
Inside the fancy shopping mall, most of the stores are shut, some just empty construction sites. In a moment that perfectly captures the surreal nature of Forest City, an empty children’s train endlessly chugs around the mall, playing
“Heads, shoulders, knees and toes” in Chinese on a loop.
When night falls, those massive apartment blocks, meant for hundreds, show no more than a handful of lights.
It’s “surreal,” as one resident described it.
Adding to the unease was the constant surveillance.
“The vibe is a little weird,” they observed.
“There’s like a lot of security guards everywhere. They’ve come up multiple times asked us if we’re filming and told us we’re not allowed to … It feels like we’re being watched everywhere … there’s more security guards than there are people here.”
The grand vision that crumbled
So, how did this happen? Back in 2016, Country Garden, China’s biggest property developer at the time, unveiled Forest City as a massive $100 billion project under China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative.
The Chinese property market was booming, and the plan was to build an eco-friendly paradise with golf courses, a water park, offices, and all the trimmings, eventually housing nearly a million people. It was marketed as “a dream paradise for all mankind”.
Country Garden CEO Mo Bin even declared at the development’s Singapore launch that Forest City was a model for “cities of the future” – a vision they hoped to spread globally.
He boasted that Country Garden’s success in China gave them a huge pool of capital to enter housing markets worldwide, including Australia, where the company was already active at the time.
A man sits in the hallway in front of empty Forest City Outlet Mall.
A security guard in one of the empty malls. Source: Yes Theory/YouTube
A collection of townhouses sit empty. Source: Yes Theory/YouTube
But here’s the catch: Forest City was really aimed at wealthy Chinese buyers looking for a second home abroad.
The prices were way too high for most ordinary Malaysians.
Fast forward almost a decade, and Forest City is now a stark reminder that China’s property troubles aren’t just a Chinese problem – they’ve got global ripple effects.
It is estimated that only about 15 per cent of the project has actually been built with an estimated 9000 people currently calling the city home.
As one of the Yes Theory crew put it, “To think that billions can be invested into a project that goes nowhere is just hard to fathom.”
The unexpected rebirth
Yet, amid this emptiness, something truly wild is brewing.
Beyond the few residents and security guards, the biggest sign of life comes from “The Network School”.
This isn’t your average school; it’s a “frontier community for techno-optimists” who are trying to create a “decentralised country”.
Their big idea? To build “parallel societies” with their own education, media, currency, and even tax laws, for people who aren’t happy with their current societies.
The Network School has set up camp in one of the empty hotels. Source: Yes Theory/YouTube
Donovan Sun, a founder of the Network School speaks to the online explorers. Source: Yes Theory/YouTube
Donovan Sun, a founder of the Network School, explained their rationale: “There are many talented hardworking smart dedicated people in a lot of these countries around the world … it’s harder and harder for some of them to get visas to enter the US. Now if you look at Malaysia, 99 per cent of the world can get in without visa.”
He added: “If you could provide the right channel or the right place for them to come maybe you could accomplish a lot if they just have the right platform.”
And Forest City, with all its ready-made, empty infrastructure, could be their perfect blank canvas.
