Editing Ghost town (section)

==Reasons for abandonment==
Factors leading to the abandonment of towns include depleted [[Natural resource|natural resources]], economic activity shifting elsewhere, railroads and roads bypassing or no longer accessing the town, human intervention, disasters, massacres, wars, the shifting of politics or fall of empires, and volcanic eruptions.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Graves |first1=Philip |last2=Weiler |first2=Stephan |last3=Tynon |first3=Emily |ssrn=1540770 |title=The Economics of Ghost Towns|publisher=Social Science Research Network |date=25 January 2010 |url=https://deliverypdf.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=684088071004067013109110097081000109026012051033042091108126102074072026068074109121101122062000122051045124005097017079079068005049095084082016095126116029096040089005081122078000004012011118127071092100119092103006112075095069119085120083121085&EXT=pdf&INDEX=TRUE |journal=Journal of Regional Analysis & Policy |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240105221845/https://deliverypdf.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=684088071004067013109110097081000109026012051033042091108126102074072026068074109121101122062000122051045124005097017079079068005049095084082016095126116029096040089005081122078000004012011118127071092100119092103006112075095069119085120083121085&EXT=pdf&INDEX=TRUE |archive-date= Jan 5, 2024 }}</ref> A town can also be abandoned when it is part of an [[exclusion zone]] due to [[Plymouth, Montserrat|natural]] or [[Chernobyl Exclusion Zone|human-made causes]].

=== Economic decline ===
[[File:Abandoned farmhouse, overgrown.jpg|thumb|right|As farms [[Intensive farming|industrialize]], smaller farms are no longer economically viable, leading to rural decay.]]

Ghost towns may result when the single activity or resource that created a [[boomtown]] (e.g., nearby mine, mill or resort) is depleted or the resource economy undergoes a "bust" (e.g., catastrophic resource price collapse).   A [[gold rush]] often brought intensive but short-lived economic activity to a remote village, only to leave a ghost town once the resource was depleted.

Boomtowns can often decrease in size as quickly as they grew.  Sometimes, all, or nearly all, of the population can desert the town, resulting in a ghost town.  The dismantling of a boomtown can often occur on a planned basis.  Mining companies nowadays will create a temporary [[company town]] to service a mine site, building all the accommodations, shops and services required, and then remove them once the resource has been extracted. Modular buildings can be used to facilitate the process.

In some cases, multiple factors may remove the economic basis for a community; some former [[mining town]]s on [[U.S. Route 66]] suffered both mine closures when the resources were depleted and loss of highway traffic as US 66 was diverted from places like [[Oatman, Arizona]], onto a more direct path.  Mine and [[pulp mill]] closures have led to many ghost towns in British Columbia, Canada, including several relatively recent ones: [[Ocean Falls]], which closed in 1973 after the [[pulp mill]] was decommissioned; [[Kitsault]], whose [[molybdenum]] mine shut down after only 18 months in 1982; and [[Cassiar, British Columbia|Cassiar]], whose [[asbestos]] mine operated from 1952 to 1992.

In other cases, the reason for abandonment can arise from a town's intended economic function shifting to another, nearby place. This happened to [[Collingwood, Queensland]], in [[Outback]] Australia when nearby [[Winton, Queensland|Winton]] outperformed Collingwood as a regional centre for the livestock-raising industry. The railway reached Winton in 1899, linking it with the rest of [[Queensland]], and Collingwood was a ghost town by the following year.  More broadly across Australia, there has been a shift towards [[fly-in fly-out]] arrangements over building a [[company town]], in order to avoid the development of ghost towns once a mining resource has been fully extracted.<ref name="aso">{{cite encyclopedia |last1=Peace |first1=Adrian |date=2015 |title=Australia, Sociocultural Overviews: Australian Settler Society |url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780080970868120227 |encyclopedia=International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences |edition=Second |pages=239–244 |doi=10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.12022-7 |isbn=9780080970875 |access-date=21 October 2022}}</ref>

The Middle East has many ghost towns and ruins that were created when the shifting of politics or the fall of empires caused capital cities to be socially or economically unviable, such as [[Ctesiphon]].

The rise of real-estate speculation and the resulting possibility of [[real-estate bubble]]s (sometimes due to outright overbuilding by land developers) may also trigger the appearance of certain elements of a ghost town, as real-estate prices initially rise (whereupon affordable housing becomes less available) and then later fall for a variety of reasons that are often tied to economic cycles and/or marketing hubris.  This has been observed to occur in various countries, including Spain, China, the United States, and Canada, where housing is often used as an investment rather than for habitation.<!---Clarification added to reflect the reality that all forms of real estate can be used by speculators as investments. And, real-estate people are always eager to make money. The end result of this assemblage of activities might not always be a formal ghost town, but it can come close to it. Incidentally, one example of a ghost down in non-remote location is an abandoned subdivision that can be found near Davis–Monthan Air Force Base in California.--->

=== Human intervention and infrastructures ===
[[File:Famagusta-Varosha 2007.JPG|thumb|upright=1.35|Prior to the [[Turkish invasion of Cyprus]] in 1974, [[Varosha, Famagusta|Varosha]], now falling into ruin, was a modern tourist area.]]

Railroads and roads bypassing or no longer reaching a town can also create a ghost town. This was the case in many of the ghost towns along Ontario's historic [[Opeongo Line]], and along [[U.S. Route 66]] after motorists bypassed the latter on the faster moving highways [[Interstate 44|I-44]] and [[Interstate 40|I-40]]. Some ghost towns were founded along railways where [[steam train]]s would stop at periodic intervals for repairs or to take on water, but [[dieselization]] or [[rail electrification|electrification]] negated the need for the trains to stop. [[Amboy, California]], was part of one such series of villages along the [[Atlantic and Pacific Railroad]] across the [[Mojave Desert]]. In other cases, railroads replaced rivers or [[canal]]s as the primary means of overland transport, causing the decline of towns that depended on river or canal traffic; one such town was [[Granville, Indiana]], located on the [[Wabash and Erie Canal]]. 

River re-routing is another factor, one example being the towns along the [[Aral Sea]].

Ghost towns may be created when land is [[eminent domain|expropriated]] by a government, and residents are required to relocate. One example is the village of [[Tyneham]] in Dorset, England, acquired during World War II to build an artillery range.

A similar situation occurred in the U.S. when [[NASA]] acquired land to construct the [[John C. Stennis Space Center]] (SSC), a rocket testing facility in [[Hancock County, Mississippi]] (on the Mississippi side of the [[Pearl River (Mississippi–Louisiana)|Pearl River]], which is the [[Mississippi]]–[[Louisiana]] state line). This required NASA to acquire a large (approximately {{convert|34|sqmi|adj=on|disp=or}}) [[buffer zone]] because of the loud noise and potential dangers associated with testing such rockets. Five thinly populated rural Mississippi communities (Gainesville, Logtown, Napoleon, Santa Rosa, and Westonia), plus the northern portion of a sixth ([[Pearlington, Mississippi|Pearlington]]), along with 700 families in residence, had to be completely relocated away from the facility.

[[File:Akarmaraghosttown.jpg|thumb|[[Akarmara]], a [[mining town]] in Abkhazia/Georgia, was abandoned in the early 1990s due to the [[War in Abkhazia (1992–93)|War in Abkhazia]].]]
Sometimes the town might cease to officially exist, but the physical infrastructure remains. For example, the five Mississippi communities that had to be abandoned to build SSC still have remnants of those communities within the facility itself. These include city streets, now overgrown with forest flora and fauna, and a one-room schoolhouse. Another example of infrastructure remaining is the former town of [[Weston, DuPage County, Illinois|Weston, Illinois]], that voted itself out of existence and turned the land over for construction of the [[Fermilab|Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory]]. Many houses and even a few barns remain, used for housing visiting scientists and storing maintenance equipment, while roads that used to cross through the site have been blocked off at the edges of the property, with gatehouses or barricades to prevent unsupervised access.

====Flooding by dams====
Construction of dams has produced ghost towns that have been left underwater. Examples include:
* [[Kensico, New York]] was replaced by the [[Kensico Reservoir]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Halpern |first=W. Dyer |date=2011-01-24 |title=The Lost Village of Kensico |url=https://westchestermagazine.com/life-style/the-lost-village-of-kensico/ |access-date=2024-07-18 |website=Westchester Magazine |language=en-US}}</ref>
* [[Loyston, Tennessee]], U.S., inundated by the creation of [[Norris Dam]] and reconstructed on nearby higher ground.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Watts |first1=Jennifer |title=Underwater Ghost Towns of Tennessee |url=https://tnmuseum.org/junior-curators/posts/underwater-ghost-towns-of-tennessee |website=Tennessee State Museum |access-date=26 February 2023}}</ref>
* [[St. Thomas, Nevada]], U.S., flooded by up to 70 feet of water by [[Lake Mead]] following construction of the [[Hoover Dam]].<ref>{{cite web |title=St Thomas Nevada - Lake Mead National Recreation Area (U.S. National Park Service) |url=https://www.nps.gov/lake/learn/nature/st-thomas-nevada.htm |website=National Park Service |access-date=26 February 2023}}</ref>
* [[Stiltner, West Virginia]], inundated by the creation of [[East Lynn Lake]] in 1969.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Thompson |first1=Robert |title=The Lost Town of Stiltner |url=https://www.herald-dispatch.com/wcn/wc_news/the-lost-town-of-stiltner/article_9f834abc-d8d6-503c-8abe-8bb6a9c387f8.html |website=The Wayne County News |accessdate=30 May 2019}}</ref>
* [[The Lost Villages]] of [[Ontario]], flooded by [[Saint Lawrence Seaway]] construction in 1958.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Wheeler |first1=Maggie |title=The Lost Villages |url=https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/the-lost-villages |website=The Canadian Encyclopedia |publisher=Historica Canada |access-date=26 February 2023}}</ref>
* [[Nether Hambleton]] and [[Middle Hambleton]] in Rutland, England, which were flooded to create [[Rutland Water]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Hambleton, Upper Hambleton, Middle Hambleton, Nether Hambleton |url=https://epns.nottingham.ac.uk/browse/Rutland/Hambleton/53286f79b47fc40c0d000400-Hambleton%2C+Upper+Hambleton%2C+Middle+Hambleton%2C+Nether+Hambleton |website=Survey of English Place-Names |publisher=English Place-Name Society |access-date=26 February 2023}}</ref>
* [[Ashopton]] and [[Derwent, Derbyshire|Derwent]], England, flooded during the construction of the [[Ladybower Reservoir]].<ref>{{cite web |last1=York |first1=Chris |title=Two Lost Derbyshire Villages Have Been revealed By Low Water Levels At Ladybower Reservoir |url=https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/derwent-derbyshire_uk_5befe523e4b07573881ece57 |website=HuffPost UK News |date=17 November 2018 |publisher=Huffington Post |access-date=26 February 2023}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Ladybower |url=https://www.peakdistrict.gov.uk/visiting/miles-without-stiles/ladybower |website=Peak District National Park |access-date=26 February 2023}}</ref>
* The [[Tignes Dam]] flooded the village of Tignes in France, displacing 78 families.<ref>{{cite web |title=Village Destroyed as New Dam Floods Reservoir |url=https://www.britishpathe.com/video/VLVA436HY83AJ25IFMIA88LM67F2B-VILLAGE-DESTROYED-AS-NEW-DAM-FLOODS-RESERVOIR/query/Tignes |website=British Pathe |publisher=Reuters |access-date=26 February 2023}}</ref>
* [[Mologa]] in Russia was flooded by the creation of [[Rybinsk reservoir]] in 1940.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Mandraud|first=Isabelle|date=30 Jan 2015|title=Sunken towns of the Volga revive memories of Stalinist-era Russia|work=The Guardian|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/30/mologa-russia-flooded-rybinsk-reservoir-dam}}</ref> 
* Many ancient villages were abandoned during construction of the [[Three Gorges Dam]] in China, leading to the displacement of many rural people.<ref>{{cite web |title=Three Gorges Dam |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Three-Gorges-Dam |website=Encyclopedia Britannica |publisher=Britannica |access-date=26 February 2023}}</ref>
* In [[Guanacaste Province]], Costa Rica, inhabitants of Arenal and Tronadora were forced to relocate in 1978 to make room for the human-made [[Lake Arenal]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=La Nacion Costa Rica |url=https://lanacioncostarica.pressreader.com/article/281496460663685 |access-date=2023-06-01 |website=lanacioncostarica.pressreader.com}}</ref>
* [[Old Adaminaby]] in New South Wales, Australia, was flooded by a dam of the [[Snowy River Scheme]].<ref>{{cite web |last1=Elder |first1=Bruce |title=A Complete Guide to Adaminaby, NSW |url=https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/history-culture/2022/12/a-complete-guide-to-adaminaby-nsw/ |website=Australian Geographic |date=9 December 2022 |access-date=26 February 2023}}</ref>
* Construction of the [[Aswan Dam|Aswan High Dam]] on the [[Nile River]] in Egypt submerged archaeological sites and ancient settlements, such as [[Buhen]] under [[Lake Nasser]].<ref>{{cite news |last1=Harford |first1=Tim |title=The Spectacular Failures and Successes of Massive Dams |work=BBC News |date=11 March 2020 |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-51459930 |access-date=26 February 2023}}</ref>
* [[Tehri]] was drowned after the construction of the [[Tehri Dam]] in the Indian state of [[Uttarakhand]].<ref>{{cite web |title=New Tehri - Overlooks The Gigantic Tehri Lake And Dam {{!}} Uttarakhand Tourism |url=https://uttarakhandtourism.gov.in/destination/new-tehri |website=Uttarakhand Tourism}}</ref>
* [[Aceredo]] and five other villages in the region of [[Galicia (Spain)|Galicia]], Spain, drowned by the construction of [[Alto Lindoso Dam]] downstream in Portugal in 1992<ref name="Pontevedra 2012">{{cite news  | last=Pontevedra | first=Silvia R. | title=Memoria de un pueblo ahogado | website=[[El País]] | date=14 December 2012 | url=https://elpais.com/sociedad/2012/12/14/actualidad/1355517771_214178.html | language=es | access-date=21 February 2022}}</ref> (later exposed after extreme drought conditions in early 2022<ref>{{cite web | title=Ghost village emerges in Spain as drought empties reservoir | website=[[The Guardian]] |date=12 February 2022 |agency=Reuters |location=Concello de Lobios |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/11/ghost-village-emerges-in-spain-as-drought-empties-reservoir-aceredo | access-date=21 February 2022}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | last=Butterfield | first=Michelle | title=Incredible photos show Spanish ghost village emerge after 30 years underwater  | website=Global News | date=18 February 2022 | url=https://globalnews.ca/news/8628758/ghost-village-spain-drought-reservoir-aceredo/ | access-date=21 February 2022}}</ref>).
* [[Capel Celyn]], Gwynedd, Wales, was lost to the [[Tryweryn flooding|Trywern Flooding]] of 1965. This was to create a reservoir, [[Llyn Celyn]], in order to supply the English areas of [[Liverpool]] and [[Wirral Peninsula|Wirral]] with water for industry.<ref>{{Cite news |date=2015-10-21 |title=Tryweryn: Personal stories 50 years after drowning |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-34528336 |access-date=2024-10-20 |work=BBC News |language=en-GB}}</ref>
* [[Dana, Massachusetts|Dana]], [[Enfield, Massachusetts|Enfield]], [[Greenwich, Massachusetts|Greenwich]], and [[Prescott, Massachusetts|Prescott]], Massachusetts; four towns in the [[Quabbin–Swift River Valley|Swift River Valley]] of Massachusetts who were flooded to create the [[Quabbin Reservoir]] in 1938 to create a water reservoir to provide water to the growing city of [[Boston]], Massachusetts and the surrounding suburbs. <ref>{{Cite web |title=The Harvard Advocate |url=https://theharvardadvocate.com/content/drowned-towns-preserving-the-lost-communities-of-the-swift-river-valley |access-date=2025-05-20 |website=theharvardadvocate.com}}</ref> 

=== Armed conflicts ===
[[File:Aghdam_6.jpg|thumb|left|Nature slowly reclaiming the ruins in [[Aghdam]] (2010)]]
Some towns become deserted when their populations were [[massacre]]d, deported, or expelled. Examples include Kayaköy, an ancient Greek city abandoned in 1923 as result of [[population exchange between Greece and Turkey]] and the original French village at [[Oradour-sur-Glane]] which was destroyed on [[Oradour-sur-Glane massacre|10 June 1944]] when 642 of its 663 inhabitants were killed by a German [[Waffen-SS]] company. A new village was built after the war on a nearby site, and the ruins of the original have been maintained as a memorial.
Another example is [[Aghdam]], a city in [[Azerbaijan]]. Armenian forces occupied [[Aghdam]] in July 1993 during the [[First Nagorno-Karabakh War]]. The heavy fighting forced the entire population to flee. Upon seizing the city, Armenian forces destroyed much of the town to discourage Azerbaijanis from returning. More damage occurred in the following decades when locals looted the abandoned town for building materials. It is currently almost entirely ruined and uninhabited.

=== Disasters, actual and anticipated ===
[[File:Craco il paese fantasma.jpg|thumbnail|left|[[Craco]], Italy, was abandoned due to a landslide in 1963. It has since become a popular film set.]]
Natural and human-made disasters can create ghost towns. For example, after being flooded more than 30 times since their town was founded in 1845, residents of [[Pattonsburg, Missouri]], decided to relocate after two floods in 1993. With government help, the whole town was rebuilt {{convert|3|mi|0|abbr=out|disp=or}} away.

[[Craco]], a medieval village in the Italian region of [[Basilicata]], was evacuated after a landslide in 1963. Nowadays it is a filming location for many movies, including ''[[The Passion of The Christ]]'' by [[Mel Gibson]], ''[[Christ Stopped at Eboli (film)|Christ Stopped at Eboli]]'' by [[Francesco Rosi]], ''[[The Nativity Story]]'' by [[Catherine Hardwicke]] and ''[[Quantum of Solace]]'' by [[Marc Forster]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.imdb.com/search/title?locations=Craco,%20Matera,%20Basilicata,%20Italy&ref_=ttloc_loc_14|title=Most Popular Titles With Location Matching "Craco, Matera, Basilicata, Italy"|website=Internet Movie Database|access-date=15 November 2013}}</ref>

In 1984, [[Centralia, Pennsylvania]], was abandoned due to an uncontainable [[mine fire]], which began in 1962 and still rages to this day; eventually the fire reached an abandoned mine underneath the nearby town of [[Byrnesville, Pennsylvania|Byrnesville]], which caused that mine to catch on fire too and forced the evacuation of that town as well.

[[File:Pripyat-today.jpg|thumb|[[Prypiat|Pripyat]], Ukraine, was abandoned after the [[Chernobyl disaster]].]]
Ghost towns may also occasionally come into being due to an ''anticipated'' natural disaster – for example, the Canadian town of [[Lemieux, Ontario]], was abandoned in 1991 after soil testing revealed that the community was built on an unstable bed of [[Leda clay]]. Two years after the last building in Lemieux was demolished, a landslide swept part of the former town-site into the [[South Nation River]]. Two decades earlier, the Canadian town of [[Saint-Jean-Vianney, Quebec|Saint-Jean-Vianney]], Québec, also constructed on a Leda clay base, had been abandoned after a landslide on 4 May 1971, which swept away 41 homes, killing 31 people.

Following the [[Chernobyl disaster]] of 1986, dangerously high levels of nuclear contamination escaped into the surrounding area, and nearly 200 towns and villages in Ukraine and neighbouring [[Belarus]] were evacuated, including the cities of [[Pripyat]] and [[Chernobyl]]. The area was so contaminated that many of the evacuees were never permitted to return to their homes. Pripyat is the most famous of these abandoned towns; it was built for the workers of the [[Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant]] and had a population of almost 50,000 at the time of the disaster.<ref name=chernobyl>{{cite book|last=Mould|first=R. F.|title=Chernobyl Record: The Definitive History of the Chernobyl Catastrophe|year=2000|publisher=Institute of Physics Publishing|location=Bristol|isbn=0-7503-0670-X|pages=103–117|chapter-url={{GBurl|id=O36UC03ODtcC|pg=PA103}}|chapter=Evacuation and Resettlement}}</ref>

==== Human health ====
[[File:Rerik-West-September-2014.jpg|thumb|upright=1.35|[[Rerik West]], Germany. Turned into a restricted area after 1992 due to ammunition contamination from a nearby abandoned [[Soviet Army]] barracks.]]
Significant fatality rates from epidemics have produced ghost towns. Some places in eastern [[Arkansas]] were abandoned after more than 7,000 Arkansans died during the [[Spanish flu]] epidemic of 1918 and 1919.<ref name="CDC">{{cite journal |url=https://www.cdc.gov/eid/content/14/8/1193.htm |volume=14 |issue= 8 |date=August 2008 |title=Deaths from Bacterial Pneumonia during 1918–19 Influenza Pandemic |last1= Brundage |first1=John F. |first2=G. Dennis |last2=Shanks |journal=Emerging Infectious Diseases |publisher=U.S. [[Centers for Disease Control]] |access-date=11 July 2010|doi=10.3201/eid1408.071313 |pages=1193–1199|pmc=2600384 |pmid=18680641}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Annual report of the Surgeon General of the Public Health Service of the United States - 1920 |location=Washington, DC |publisher=[[Public Health Service]]}}</ref> Several communities in Ireland, particularly in the west of the country, were wiped out due to the [[Great Famine (Ireland)|Great Famine]] in the latter half of the 19th century, and the years of economic decline that followed.

Catastrophic environmental damage caused by long-term contamination can also create a ghost town. Some notable examples are [[Times Beach, Missouri]], whose residents were exposed to a high level of [[dioxins and dioxin-like compounds|dioxins]], and [[Wittenoom, Western Australia]], which was once Australia's largest source of [[blue asbestos]], but was shut down in 1966 due to health concerns. [[Treece, Kansas|Treece]] and [[Picher, Oklahoma|Picher]], twin communities straddling the [[Kansas]]–[[Oklahoma]] border, were once one of the United States' largest sources of [[zinc]] and [[lead]], but over a century of unregulated disposal of [[mine tailings]] led to groundwater contamination and [[lead poisoning]] in the town's children, eventually resulting in a mandatory [[Environmental Protection Agency]] buyout and evacuation. Contamination due to [[ammunition]] caused by military use may also lead to the development of ghost towns. [[Tyneham]], in [[Dorset]], was requisitioned for military exercises during the [[Second World War]], and remains unpopulated, being littered with unexploded munitions from regular shelling.