"If you build it, they will come" is a favorite adage of the ambitious everywhere. But it hasn't quite turned out to be true in China, where multiple ghost cities — extravagant GDP-boosting construction projects unwanted by the market, but built anyway by the government — lie empty and dormant.

Some of these projects are truly epic in their scale and vision. As Bloomberg reports, the northern Chinese port city of Tianjin is currently in the process of building a replica of Manhattan.

The development — built in Yujiapu, a former fishing village — has failed to attract tenants since the first building was finished in 2010, leaving one commercial real estate investor telling Bloomberg that "investing here won't be better than throwing money into the water."