John Mason’s Commentary:

Interesting website you have you got. Pity there's not more photos as I love derelict sites.

Thought you might be interested in Tobacco Dock in East London, which used to be a warehouse until being converted into a very under-used shopping centre (similar in footfall to South China Mall):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco_Dock

http://www.nothingtoseehere.net/2006/08/tobacco_dock_london.html

I remember visiting this shopping centre a few times back in the early Nineties.

If you would like an article about it (with photos), then I could write one for you if you like? Otherwise, enjoy the links!

Regards,

John Mason,

London

ps. Not quite the same thing, but you might find this site interesting too:

http://www.derelictlondon.com

Mark Freedman’s Commentary:

This one definitely deserves a mention on your website.

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World's biggest mall a retail ghost town

South China Mall is like 'Disneyland and Vegas' in a city of six million people -- but most of them can't afford to shop there

Bloomberg News

Published: Tuesday, May 01, 2007

The world's largest shopping centre looks almost deserted on a recent afternoon. While schoolchildren ride the sidewinder and roller-coaster, there are few shoppers and fewer tenants at South China Mall in central Dongguan, a city of six million north of Hong Kong.

"They did this mall all wrong," says Stephen Liu, a Hong Kong businessman visiting clients in Dongguan who came by to see the place for himself. "They never found out if there were enough people to fill it. All the Chinese in this town are factory workers; they can't afford to shop here."

That's a problem for more than just the mall's owners. South China Mall stands as a symbol of China's failure to stimulate more spending by its 1.3 billion people and to curb runaway investment in real-estate projects. The results: A record $232.5-billion trade gap with the
U.S. and increasing concern about unsustainable growth at home.

For entire article, see: http://tinyurl.com/2rz8h4