Location Selected For $1 Billion Ghost Town

Hugh Pickens writes "Although a fully operation city with no people sounds like the setup for a dystopian sci-fi novel, the Boston Globe reports that the Center for Innovation, Testing and Evaluation will develop a $1 billion scientific ghost town near Hobbs, New Mexico to help researchers test everything from intelligent traffic systems and next-generation wireless networks to automated washing machines and self-flushing toilets on existing infrastructure without interfering in everyday life. Bob Brumley, senior managing director of Pegasus Holdings, says the town will be modeled after the real city of Rock Hill, South Carolina, complete with highways, houses and commercial buildings, old and new. Unlike traditional cities, City Labs will start with its underground 'backbone' infrastructure that will allow the lab to monitor activity throughout the 17-mile site. Since nobody lives in the Center's buildings, computerized systems will mimic human behavior such as turning thermostats up and down, switching lights off and on, or flushing toilets. The Center's test facilities and supporting infrastructure may require as much as 20 square miles of open, unimproved land where the controlled environment will permit evaluation of the positive and negative impacts of smart grid applications and integration of renewable energies for residential, commercial and industrial sectors of the economy. 'It's an amusement park for the scientists,' adds Brumley."

Re:Wouldn't it be easier....

[Nidi62]

Obviously the scientists would rather live in the desert than in Rock Hill, SC. Having gone to college only about 20-30 miles away over the border in North Carolina, I wouldn't want to live in that area either.

China has ready-made cities to use.

[BobK65]

Why not just lease one of China's ghost cities? http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1339536/Ghost-towns-China-Satellite-images-cities-lying-completely-deserted.html [dailymail.co.uk]

Re:So why no people?

[Dcnjoe60]

"What reason is there not to have actual people living in it?"

Duh, so they can nuke it in case of a robot uprising.

Or more likely so nobody is around to see what they are really doing there. They've built cities in the past for secret research. The Manhattan Project comes to mind.

What happened....

[ash11888]

...to all the traditional slash-dotters I know?!? Do you people not do your research? If you paid attention to who it was and did a little, few minute research, you would find out that this is a global private company. They can do whatever the frak they want with their money. Before you start to go off on the "gov't," do some research to find out.