It sounds a little silly to build a miles-wide arrangement of islands, made entirely of sand, in the approximate shape of the Earth (as seen in the picture). It sounds even stranger when the developer encourages the prospective owners of the islands to "terraform" them as they see fit; to move the sand around to create harbors and coves, while an accompanying digital representation shows 50 years of mature vegetation sprout up like mold on bread.

But it's all too real for Dubai World, the company who's now staring $26 billion worth of debt in the face after a global economic downturn. Who knew that all that sand could just wash back into the ocean?

Speaking of epic development failures, you can't forget the South China Mall. At 7-million-square-feet of retail space, the mall--meant to house more than 1,500 tenants--has fewer than a dozen, even though it opened in 2005. It's truly a creepy place: in a documentary hosted on the PBS website, you see workers who are endlessly cleaning canals meant to ferry visitors from one place to the next, employees standing in front of an entrance that's never used, and a food vendor with his head resting on an open book, fast asleep. It's not quite the "eruptive vent of wealth" that the mall claims itself to be.

Some failures hit closer to homes, both in a developmental and geographic sense. Take this unfortunate development in California, which left the city with unfinished neighborhoods and families whose down payments disappeared when the developer couldn't complete the homes. Nationwide the vacancy rate for homes is still at 11.1%--despite the fact that the median sale price of homes is about $178,000 for the third quarter of 2009 compared to $221,000 for 2006 (which you would think would mean more buyers).

It seems that failures of developing too much, too quick can not only happen on the grandest of scales, but on a personal and sometimes painful level as well.

--Brandon