The abandoned ‘Paradise City’ with huge tower blocks left to rot
Eerie pictures have emerged of a huge failed housing scheme left to rot.
The Mehra Mer project, located 31 miles outside Iran’s capital city of Tehran, had high hopes of becoming a ready-made community equipped with public transport, hospitals, and schools.
But nowadays the project looks like it would fit in as the backdrop of a post-apocalyptic, Mad Max-esque film.
Incredible aerial pictures show around 100 tower blocks which appear to have sprung out of nowhere from the surrounding desert, with barely any surrounding infrastructure and half-built roads that lead nowhere.
They’re part of a wider development of homes on the outskirts of Tehran called Pardis, meaning ‘paradise’ – but this name might be overselling things somewhat.
Built between 2001 and 2011, it was hoped the project would help Iran to tackle its population crisis by creating affordable homes for lower-income workers.
It was hoped the development would become a ‘Paradise City’ – but some of the first flats to be occupied turned out to have faulty sewage systems and heating, inadequate water access, and only intermittent electricity.
The progress of desolation was sped up by the 2017 earthquake which damaged or destroyed a number of buildings, leaving even more empty.
Soaring inflation rates amid Iran’s struggling economy were the final nail in the coffin for the project, as the cost of the apartments became unattainable for lower wage workers – the exact people who were supposed to benefit from the scheme.
The ecological conditions also hampered the project’s construction, and in the end developers scrapped the scheme mid-construction.
There are mountains of building materials, including thousands of plastic buckets and piles of cables and wiring, dumped in the desert.
While some of the blocks were completed, others are towers of exposed concrete with no doors or windows in some cases.
But despite how it looks, Mehra Mer isn’t completely abandoned.
The most recent census in 2016 recorded a population of just over 73,000 people, The Sun reports, but it’s thought most residents spend the majority of their time in Tehran for work, only returning to sleep.
There isn’t any public transport linking Mehra Mer to Tehran either – and the commute can take hours each way, making the satellite cities an even less appealing prospect for wannabe homeowners.
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