History Main / GhostCity

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'': In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E75TheMidnightSun The Midnight Sun]]", UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity has been mostly evacuated due to the extreme heat as people are looking for cooler regions elsewhere.

** [[UsefulNotes/{{Houston}} Greater Houston]] during Hurricane Rita, before the storm moved north, due to the largest mass movement of civilians during peacetime. Any hurricane will result in a portion of the population moving to higher ground, helping to fulfill this trope for localized areas, but after seeing what happened to New Orleans the Houstonians understandably wanted to avoid it. To this day local citizens are still divided on whether to refer to 'Texodus' as an understandable precaution, a dry run for the next Cat 4/5, a panic-induced fiasco, or a combination of all of the above.

* ''Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaStrikers'': The area where Subaru and Teana had their B Rank Mage exam is mentioned in the [[AllThereInTheManual side-materials]] to be a city sector in Central Mid-Childa that had been completely abandoned after the [[MineralMacGuffin Relic-triggered]] airport fire several years ago.

* In ''ComicBook/{{Supergirl}}'' story "ComicBook/TheUnknownLegionnaire", the ComicBook/LegionOfSuperHeroes travels to a remote planet and explores several cities built and abandoned by the Llorn civilization many centuries ago, taking notice of the collapsed towers, cracked buildings and decaying ruins.

* ''Anime/DragonBallZ'': There was Ginger Town, which is only seen after Cell absorbs every resident. After that, Earth became a GhostPlanet when Buu slaughters [[EverybodysDeadDave every living thing]] except for Goku and Hercule.

* ''Anime/DragonBallZ'': These tend to come up a lot. Notably, there was Ginger Town, which is only seen after Cell absorbs every resident. After that, Earth became a GhostPlanet when Buu slaughters [[EverybodysDeadDave every living thing]] except for Goku and Hercule.

* ''Literature/KinosJourney'': Kino comes across one of these, with only one inhabitant. It turns out that the country was destroyed by rabid democracy following the death of a tyrannical king, as only direct vote by the entire people was seen as accepted way to make decisions, and the losing side was always deemed as "dangerous elements" and executed.

* ''ComicBook/GreenLantern'' has Coast City, which was rebuilt, but no one wanted to live there after the Henshaw incident.

%%* ''ComicBook/TheSmurfs'': The Smurf Village during the period of when most of the Smurfs were turned into [[AnthropomorphicFood vegetables]] in "Salad Smurfs".

* ''Fanfic/AbraxasHrodvitnon'': Berezniki is rapidly turning into this while ''sinking into the earth'' due to the Many's and [[spoiler:Ghidorah]]'s activities, and the same is happening to other towns in the region. When Monarch, Godzilla, Mothra, Rodan, Scylla, Methuselah, Barb, and Thor arrive on the scene to do battle against [[spoiler:Ghidorah]], there is absolutely no-one left in the town for Monarch and the Russian military to evacuate: Everyone there has either [[spoiler: already been [[TheAssimilator assimilated into The Many]] or [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere has already fled]]]].
* Celestia's journey in ''Fanfic/AskNotTheSparrow'' takes the group to the ruins of a scorched city [[spoiler:that she accidentally destroyed when she first tried to control the sun over a thousand years ago.]]

* The titular island city in ''Toys/{{Bionicle}} 2: Legends of Metru Nui'' gradually becomes this as its people are forced into stasis spheres, seemingly for their protection but of course it's all part of [[BigBad Makuta]]'s EvilPlan to wipe their memories, and the protagonists, the six Toa, [[YouCantThwartStageOne are too late to stop it]]. By the end, the only inhabitants are the Vahki enforcer robots and the heroes who are trying to flee Makuta. In the {{sequel}}/{{interquel}} ''Web of Shadows'', the returning Toa find the city in ruins, overrun by wild beasts and the [[GiantSpider Visorak]] [[TheSwarm horde]], and only the six small reclusive Rahaga are there to offer the Toa guidance. In later story material, the city remains empty for the next thousand years as the Rahaga and Turaga Dume, the former governor Makuta had usurped, try to slowly rebuild it and recapture the wildlife, while the Matoran are evacuated to the island Mata Nui.

* ''Film/AvengersEndgame'' reveals that five years after Thanos [[Film/AvengersInfinityWar used the Infinity Stones to wipe out half the universe]], several big cities such as New York and San Francisco have been mostly abandoned by residents, with several buildings and homes being completely dark and empty or overgrown with foliage and garbage. There ''are'' people still living in said areas, but not nearly as much as there should be.

* The end of ''Film/ResidentEvil2002'' shows that Raccoon City has become one due to the ZombieApocalypse. This is elaborated upon further in ''Film/ResidentEvilApocalypse''.

* The film version of ''Film/SilentHill'' was inspired by the RealLife example of Centralia, Pennsylvania.

* Creator/SamuelRDelany utilizes this to create the setting for ''Literature/{{Dhalgren}}'', but unlike most uses of this trope, the cause and nature of the disaster are not pursued and don't seem even to be known to the remaining inhabitants. The topic does not seem much to interest them.

* Narak from ''Literature/TheStormlightArchive'' is an unusually degraded example of this trope. It used to be the capital of Natanatan, one of the Ten Silver Kingdoms, but it was depopulated during the Last Desolation, and millennia of weathering has so degraded it that only the listeners even recognize that it used to ''be'' a city. Everyone else just mistakes it for oddly shaped rock formations.

%%* Shadar Logoth in ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime''.%%Administrivia/ZeroContentExample

* Seasons 1 and 2 of ''Series/BattlestarGalactica2003'' feature plenty of these as Sharon and Helo make their way to Delphi. While major cities like Caprica City were nuked properly and thoroughly, other cities such as Delphi and several unnamed ones are surprisingly intact. It is later revealed that the Cylons left these cities intact deliberately so that they could settle.
* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' Season 7 has Sunnydale become this so that they can have a NoEndorHolocaust ending. Essentially, things got so bad towards the end that TheMasquerade was dropped completely and everyone (human and demon alike) [[ScrewThisImOutOfHere packed up and booked it.]]
* ''Series/DoctorWho'' has done this several times.

%%* ''Series/{{Heroes}}''
* ''Series/HisDarkMaterials'': In "[[Recap/HisDarkMaterialsS2E1TheCityOfMagpies The City of Magpies]]", Cittàgazze appears this way to both Lyra and Will. They later come upon other a few children who are squatting there, who reveal the adults fled from the Spectres, monsters who apparently eat souls and are invisible to and uninterested in children. The city actually has many of them, Lyra and Will just can't see them.
* ''Series/LifeAfterPeople'' shows what would happen to all those ghost cities as they slowly revert back to the wild.

* The city backgrounds in ''VideoGame/MortalKombat3''.

* Mountain Glenn from ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'' also shows up as a level in ''VideoGame/RWBYGrimmEclipse''. The characters are asked to investigate it to find out more about Merlot Industries and why it suddenly came back after shutting down with the fall of Mountain Glenn.