
A Giant, Fake City in the Middle of the Desert - ohjeez
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/05/a-giant-fake-city-in-the-middle-of-the-desert/391652/?single_page=true
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marze
So there must be a real reason this is being planned, besides the obviously
fake reasons mentioned.

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fiatmoney
"Pegasus Global Holdings, through its operating subsidiaries and special
purpose vehicles, is an international technology development firm. We have
demonstrated expertise in defense, security, telecommunications, and
Intellectual Property capture through its ability to source globally “market-
ready” IP from public and private innovators, enablers, and incubators."

Between that lovely back-of-the-Economist description and the CVs of their
management team [1] (DoD, DoD, "aerospace", nuke industry, etc.) it's at least
clear they're a Deep State affiliate.

[1]
[http://www.pegasusglobalholdings.com/management.html](http://www.pegasusglobalholdings.com/management.html)

~~~
ackalker
I cannot help but say that this reminds me (an awful lot) of the Umbrella
Corporation. Except for its involvement in bioengineering that is, but who
knows what's yet to come.

The truth may yet turn out to not be that much stranger than fiction after
all.

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ChuckMcM
Of course they could have a research facility underground, and then call it
"Raccoon City" :-) But that might give it away...

If they build it I suppose it might show up in some movies or TV shows, would
make an ideal sort of place for anytown USA. And of course if you're building
an urban surveillance system or a hunter killer manhack drone, well testing
that in a "normal" city would cause too many questions to be raised now
wouldn't it :-)

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ndomin
> Meant to simulate a town with a population of 35,000—about the size of
> Bennington, Vermont

because we all know how big Bennington is.

~~~
achille2
It's hard to find a universally recognized small town of that size. Could you
name one?

~~~
kens
Setting aside small towns, I find it a bit alarming how many huge cities I
know nothing about, places like Tianjin, Dhaka, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad, and
Yangon. (Of course if everyone but me is familiar with these cities, I'm sure
you'll let me know...) My theory is that the "culturally important" cities
that everyone knows (Moscow, Cairo, London, etc.) lags by decades behind the
actual growth of cities. Of course, renaming places like Rangoon to Yangon
also doesn't help.

Take a look at the list of big cities and see how many you know:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_proper_by_popula...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_proper_by_population)

~~~
_nedR
What jumped at me was the fact that list seems significantly
inaccurate/unrepresentative. For example, Delhi which has a population of 11
million according to its wikipedia article is missing entirely from the list
(It would be between 10 and 14 rank as it stands now). The article is
controversial due to conflicts in the definition of the boundaries of a city,
but by any definition, Delhi should definitely be up there.

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derefr
[http://nightvale.wikia.com/wiki/Pine_Cliff](http://nightvale.wikia.com/wiki/Pine_Cliff)
?

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umanwizard
Based on the title, I thought this was about Phoenix.

~~~
thrownaway2424
Vegas.

~~~
zatkin
Is it really that bad? I heard it's just very dirty and people only go there
to throw away money.

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techdragon
We used to build this sort of thing to blow it up. Now we use a
supercomputer... I imagine the goal is much the same just less radioactive, a
very realistic "city" where everything from self driving cars and better home
insulation to heat seeking drones and urban warfare tools, can be put to the
test for a price.

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jmount
26 square miles? Seems way too big for a simulated population of 35,000. San
Francisco is 47 square miles and has a population of around 800,000.

edit- I take that back. Los Gatos is 11 square miles and about 30,000 people.
So it is in the ballpark.

~~~
tritium
...and 5 x 5 miles (plus one additional square mile), in terms of area, isn't
very big at all.

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JoeAltmaier
...that apparently isn't going to be built? Sounds like a publicity stunt.

~~~
joe_the_user
Uh yeah,

The plan sounds wildly implausible because of the immense expense involved. A
modern house today costs crudely about 295K to build. To build housing for
35,000 would start at about 10 billion but would probably be several times
that for the other amenities. Add to that the fact that, because this won't be
a city, everything will be built by companies from out of town, further
increasing the costs.

Just as much, unoccupied dwellings and infrastructure require maintenance,
sometimes more maintenance than occupied areas since cars driving on streets
is what stops grass (or tumble-weeds) from growing, etc.

Moreover, what would it be a model of? The lack of residents would also mean
everything would be fairly different from an occupied city.

Testing autonomous vehicles sounds reasonable but it's hard to see that or
other hypothetical uses needing an entire purposes built city. A "smart grid"
test would require a working power grid. Would you have an unoccupied city
with a continuously operating power-grid?

If nothing else, this implausible plans makes me think how interdependent and
hard-to-simulate a real, working city is.

[1] [http://www.fixr.com/costs/build-single-family-
house](http://www.fixr.com/costs/build-single-family-house)

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venomsnake
That is a cruel joke to the future archaeologists ...

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easturner
Hobbs New Mexico is an extremely active area for fracking. I would imagine the
fracking activity has haulted the OrGinal location.

