Lideco and the High Price of Dreaming Big

“If you build it, they will come.” Wasn’t that supposed to be the lesson, Mr. Costner? But sometimes when you build it, they don’t come… and Hanoi has had to learn that the hard way. We visited the Lideco real estate project on the western outskirts of the city, to see the ruined remains of one of Hanoi’s biggest dreams.

During our travels, we’ve visited ghost towns (such as Bayhorse, Idaho), as well as modern ruins of failed projects (like the Hotel Evropa in Macedonia). But never before ha...