$1 Billion Ghost Town New Mexico
May 10, 2012 by staff · Leave a Comment
$1 Billion Ghost Town New Mexico, A new town located near Hobbs, N.M., will be outfitted with nearly $1 billion worth of cutting-edge technology, from advanced wireless networks to self-flushing toilets. Too bad nobody will be living there to enjoy it.
According to the Associated Press, Pegasus Holdings will be building the town on 15 square miles just west of Hobbs, which has a population of around 43,000. It will be called the Center for Innovation, Testing and Evaluation, more ominously known as The Center, which sounds like a scary lab that might exist on Lost. Pegasus says it’s designed to be a giant sandbox for researchers:
The Center will provide the opportunity for “end-to-end” testing, evaluation and demonstration of new intelligent and green technologies and innovations emerging from the world’s public laboratories, universities, and the private sector with the goal of determining the direct and indirect benefits and costs the innovations tested would have on our existing infrastructure.
In normal towns, constantly changing the infrastructure and testing for “t*rror*sm vulnerability” are generally looked down upon by neighborhood homeowners associations. Here at The Center, researchers will be able to test things like self-driving cars without making anybody nervous.
Apparently the town is being modeled after Rock Hill, S.C., complete with houses outfitted with plumbing and appliances. The “smart city” will require an initial investment of around $400 million and will eventually cost around $1 billion to complete, according to Bob Brumley, senior managing director of Pegasus Holdings.
