Mall of Misfortune or Mall of Madness

A colleague emailed me this story which I think is quite apt following my post on “Dubai Waterfront”; and which is a clear indictment of the insanity of man’s greed and excesses.

You can read the full story – “Mall of Misfortune” from “The Nation” here.

With 7 million square feet (that’s nearly TWICE the size of Mid Valley MegaMall, the largest shopping mall in Malaysia) of floor space, it is the largest retail and entertainment development in the world – and it is empty! Developed by Hu Guirong, an instant-noodle billionaire in China after his team had spent two years traveling the world – France, Italy, Nevada – in search of ideas (but not their heads) and by the end of which was designed by design consultants, Ian Thomas of the Thomas Consulting Group in Vancouver. Suddenly super-rich egomaniac chinaman cowboy developer meets slick talking foreign conman consultants and this is the result. Change the race and it sounds like a familiar Asian story with a similar sad ending story. *sigh*

Here are more photos taken from the news story on this “Mall of Madness”! And captions are, I think, unnecessary. What a waste and how insane - just like what is happening at my work place! *sigh*