The $100 billion ghost city experiment that lasted less than two years

Forest City was meant to become a futuristic metropolis near Singapore, but its empty towers and quiet streets earned it a very different reputation. That unusual setting later attracted a group of technology entrepreneurs who saw the underused development as an opportunity to test a new way of living and working. In 2024, Network School arrived with a community built around technology, startups and the ideas of Balaji Srinivasan’s The Network State. Participants lived, worked and learned together inside the development. Yet the experiment faced practical problems, including living conditions, licensing issues and scrutiny from Malaysian authorities. Less than two years after it began, Network School was ordered to cease operations.How Forest City’s ghost-town reputation helped attract a new technology communityForest City was conceived as an enormous mixed-use development in Johor, close to the Singapore border. The project included high-rise residential buildings, hotels, retail areas and recreational facilities, with plans originally aimed at accommodating hundreds of thousands of people. According to the BBC, around $100 billion has been associated with the development over the...