Why Would A Company Spend $US200m To Build A Ghost Town?

New Mexico, where people go to cook crystal meth and disappear into the maw that isn’t quite Mexico, is going to get another claim to fame: a brand new, $US200 million 50sqkm city with no residents. A modern day ghost town.

It could fit 35,000 people if people were allowed to live there but that’s not the point for this ghost town. Instead, the purpose is to let anyone test anything on a city wide scale without the interference of nosy citizens. Think of it as one gigantic lab, only it’ll have highways, houses, old buildings, new buildings instead of coats and beakers.

The ghost town, which they refer to as The Center, is the brain child of Pegasus Global Holdings, a Washington DC-based company. There won’t be any people living at The Center but other companies can see how their solar panels play out on a larger scale, how new traffic systems work in real life simulations, how Wi-Fi will translate between old and new buildings and so much more. It’s an actual blank slate city to manipulate however they’d like. A playground for research.

The centre is supposed to be the first of its kind ’round the US and will be finalised in the next few months. I wonder how quick it’ll transform to a squatter town though. [Washington Post]

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