AP
In this Aug. 22, 1990, file photo, a woman walks past the site of the Ryugyong Hotel under construction in Pyongyang, North Korea. Sign in red reads "Let's all together struggle heroically!"
When construction began on the Ryugyong Hotel in 1987, the North Korean government envisioned it as a reflection of the government's power and capabilities. At 985 feet tall, it would become the largest tower in the nation.
While the billion-dollar skyscraper has topped out, North Korea has mysteriously abandoned the project.
It's not uncommon for megaprojects like the Ryugyong Hotel to go wrong, due to various reasons like massive budget and construction timeline overruns, botched designs, corruption, and failures to fill the units.
Let's take a look at several megaprojects around the world that may have, to varying degrees, disappointed their cities