Over time many places all over the world have been abandoned. In ancient times a lot of communities were abandoned and there were no clues to why or what may have happened. A good example of this were the cliff dwellers in the United States. You hear a lot of theories why they left their villages and left a lot of deserted buildings. This kind of thing has happened time and time again, right up to the present. In the present we find abandoned homes that may be on the front lines of an area where there are a lot of attacks or ghost towns such as those found in the old west. We usually know why people left those towns, it was mostly because the gold or silver ran out and there were no more jobs. In South America the causes of the abandoned cities from the time of the Incas and their predecessors is much harder to determine. Some look like they could still support farming and their irrigation systems seem to be functional if cared for.

What is it that fascinates some of us so much about abandoned places? I know that I always love to go into abandoned buildings and most people I know also get a kick out of it. As an American there are really not many very old structures around to explore. It isn't like Europe where one may find a Roman building or old castle, I think that this has given Americans a heightened sense of adventure where old structures are concerned. We consider a building that may be from colonial times very old, In Europe or Asia they would laugh at this concept. What do you think an Egyptian would say if you took him to see a building that was about 200 years old? Even showing him a castle from the 1200s, if we had one, would not impress him that much.

Abandoned Warehouse
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The following abandoned building just kills me. There are so many people that can't afford to buy a home and here is a building in California that was left to rot, that has a waterfront view. Depending on the exact location of the building, this home could have been worth quite a few dollars, yet here it is and it has all but fallen down, oh my.

Private parties are not the only ones that abandon buildings and even towns, in the U.S. you will find many abandoned structures that were formerly government owned. What are people going to think in hundreds of years from now when they come across things like abandoned missile silos? If one is discovered 1,000 years from now, will they even know what they are? How about 5,000 years from now? The government is good at abandoning structures and there are plenty around. Sometimes when an entire base is abandoned it comes with a huge cleanup bill. When that base is on foreign soil, I believe that the government is even more careful with the cleanup.

Titan Underground Complex and Silo
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Sometimes we find an abandoned building project. What I am talking about here is a building or a building complex that was never finished. I have seen several of these in my lifetime, but it still amazes me that someone would stop in the middle of building something, especially a government. An example of an unfinished abandoned project is the St. George;s Cathedral in Bermuda. It is said that a storm damaged it while it was under construction and after that there wasn't enough interest in the project to continue. I think that it might have been more of a money issue. It could be that the damage repair would have had to come from the people in that parish and they were just tapped out from funding the church building.