China's ghost cities

While many vacant town and cities were once thriving with life, many cities in China have never been occupied by many people if anyone. Developers have began building cities containing houses, apartments and even sky scrapers with no one to live there. The developers hope for people to move from the old cities to start a new life in the new ones. The problem is many of these developers are running out of money to finish the cities leaving them deep in debt with over 64 million apartment in China that are vacant.

Daniels - Maryland

The town Daniels in Maryland was first formed in 1810 when Thomas Ely and his family moved to the area and built a textile mill. The community was first known as Elysville. In 1853 the town was purchaced by the family of James S Gary and was then renamed as Alberton in the honor of James' son Albert. It wasn't until 1940 The Daniels Company bought the entire village including the textile mill and changed the towns name to Daniels. By the 1960s around 90 families lived in Daniels. In 1968 the residents were given a notice to move due to the textile mill closing which forced the housing to be terminated. The town has been empty ever since which was lucky because in 1972 a tropical storm, Agnes, hit the Patapsco River Valley and completely destroyed the remaining buildings of Daniels leaving rubble and rusty cars.

Bennet Collage

Bennet Collage in New York was once a school for girls, enrolling 120 pupils each year. The girls would be educated at high school for four years then an additional two years at higher education. May. F. Bennet, a schoolteacher moved her girls here in 1907 at the building was a hotel prior to the school. The higher education element of the building brought problems for the school as they attempted to convert the two year higher education into four years higher education. This brought the school into debt and then later shut in 1977 due to bankruptcy. The building has been empty with no use since. in 1933 the building was placed on the national register of historic places but in 2014, despite many community protests, the building will soon be demolished.

These pictures of Bennet Collage have three key elements that I think give an abandoned and disturbing feel.

1) - The Sky. In two of the images the sky has been edited in two different ways. In the first image the clouds have been edited too high light the clouds and how dark they look. The second way is that the image has either been taken at dusk or dawn. The image has then been manipulated to make the colours in the sky a lot more prominent. Both of these editing techniques are setting a frightful feel too the whole picture.

2) - The Architecture of the building. You can tell the building is old due to the shapes of the roof and the wood paneling on the outside of the building.

3) - Maintenance. The growth of the trees, bushes and wildlife is taking back over its land. It is obvious that no one has been maintaining the growth of the plants suggesting the place is abandoned. Also the maintenance of the building externally, smashed windows and decaying structure, suggests the building has been left too rot.