“In the past years, dozens of housing communities were built all over Iran”, says photographer Manolo Espaliú, who has been documenting Iran’s Maskan-e Mehr houses building project, once called “the finest undertaking since Adam” by former President Mahmud Ahmadinejad. “Billions were pumped into the economy to erect 17 new cities and some 1.5 million housing units. One of the main goals of building the Maskan-e Mehr communities was reversing migration to the larger cities, where living standards are deteriorating due to traffic, pollution and high rents.

Of course Iran isn’t alone in failed construction projects. China’s own ghost cities, Egypt’s unfinished hotel ruins in the desert and Turkey’s fake city of French Chateaux all come to mind.
Of course Iran isn’t alone in failed construction projects. China’s own ghost cities, Egypt’s unfinished hotel ruins in the desert and Turkey’s fake city of French Chateaux all come to mind. - As early as 2014, The Guardian was reported that the towers of Pardis City: Phase 11 “are the ghosts of a sprawling construction scheme once touted as a crowning achievement of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s presidency, but now blamed for some of the Iranian economy’s most pressing structural problems”. The satellite photographs from 2019 show that not very much has changed. Still no cars, no people, no sign of life.