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posted by CoolHand on Friday October 09 2015, @02:57AM   Printer-friendly
from the now-that's-what-we-call-a-dev-environment dept.

A town in New Mexico is about to join the ranks of these ghost towns, as the builders of the futuristic city have no intention of letting anyone live there.

Telecommunications and tech firm Pegasus Global Holdings is planning to build a full-scale American town in the New Mexico desert, a place which they hope to open to researchers developing technologies for modern living.

Pegasus plans to spend $1billion creating the 15-square-mile town, called CITE, with construction to begin sometime next year and opening as early as 2018.

CITE will include a town big enough for 35,000 people, with a business district downtown surrounded by terraced housing suburbs - but no one will ever live there.

Instead, companies will have the opportunity to test such innovations as driverless vehicles and natural disaster-proof homes in a human-free, practically risk-free, environment.


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  • (Score: 5, Touché) by goody on Friday October 09 2015, @03:10AM

    by goody (2135) on Friday October 09 2015, @03:10AM (#247231)

    Why don't they just use Detroit? It would be a lot cheaper and from what I've seen on TV there are a lot of human-free neighborhoods.

    • (Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Friday October 09 2015, @03:14AM

      by dyingtolive (952) on Friday October 09 2015, @03:14AM (#247234)

      Because 1980s Robocop won't stand for it, and there's not much anyone can do about that.

      --
      Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @02:37PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @02:37PM (#247433)

        Nonsense. The new ED 210 will deal with him.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @11:56PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @11:56PM (#247647)

      or Ordos City [wikipedia.org] in China

  • (Score: 2, Troll) by jasassin on Friday October 09 2015, @03:18AM

    by jasassin (3566) <jasassin@gmail.com> on Friday October 09 2015, @03:18AM (#247235) Homepage Journal

    I bet there will be over 35,000 Mexicans squatting there before the fucking thing is finished.

    --
    jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
    • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @03:23AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @03:23AM (#247237)

      It would make a nice dump site.

    • (Score: 2, Funny) by BigotDetectorGoesBing! on Friday October 09 2015, @06:00AM

      by BigotDetectorGoesBing! (5877) on Friday October 09 2015, @06:00AM (#247277)

      Bing!

    • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday October 09 2015, @03:26PM

      by bob_super (1357) on Friday October 09 2015, @03:26PM (#247459)

      It's part of Trump's plan to distract them while he builds his wall.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @03:41AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @03:41AM (#247246)
    It's a full-scale model of a town.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @11:49PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @11:49PM (#247642)

      "It must have been just a cardboard cutout of a man
      Top-forty cast off from a record stand."

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @04:24AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @04:24AM (#247259)

    The Brand New $1billion Boondoggle in New Mexico Where Nobody Will Ever Live

  • (Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday October 09 2015, @04:48AM

    by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Friday October 09 2015, @04:48AM (#247265) Homepage Journal

    Four thousand homeless in Portland alone with winter coming on.

    --
    Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @08:18AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @08:18AM (#247304)

      Should these homes for the homeless also feature free electricity, free water and sewer service, and perhaps free booze, meds, and/or doctors for the people of which presumably some are homeless for want or excess of such things? Oh, let's not forget bus fare from Portland to Wherever, New Mexico...

      • (Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday October 09 2015, @10:07AM

        by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Friday October 09 2015, @10:07AM (#247335) Homepage Journal

        some rice and beans would do.

        --
        Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @11:08AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @11:08AM (#247348)

          Would do what?

          • (Score: 3, Insightful) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday October 09 2015, @12:12PM

            by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Friday October 09 2015, @12:12PM (#247359) Homepage Journal

            when there is a refugee crisis in some foreign land, the international aid agencies - often the US - respond with tents, blankets, medical supplies, food and water.

            But when we have a refugee crisis in the US? "Not in my backyard".

            --
            Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
            • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 10 2015, @09:10AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 10 2015, @09:10AM (#247731)

              Somewhere around two hundred people to one contacted their US "representatives" in the federal gov't and demanded said gov't not hand banksters a blank check for the TARP bailout and related scams. Instead of money that could have been spent on providing "three hots and a cot" for homeless people in Portland and elsewhere, "representatives" handed banksters a blank check and blew all the available cash on, what I assume was hookers and blow.

              So, short of charging the White House lawn, what else do you want? Or expect?

    • (Score: 2) by isostatic on Friday October 09 2015, @12:38PM

      by isostatic (365) on Friday October 09 2015, @12:38PM (#247370) Journal

      No profit in it.

      Problem is with globalisation there's no way a new deal could work now, even if the politicians worked for the people. The west has a ropey few decades to go through as living standards across the world even out. They will increase in bumfuck Indonesia, but will massively decrease in the west. Some lucky ones will of course profit from this, but not everyone can.

      We're undergoing a global rebalance which means that the GDP will, instead of being clustered in the top 1% (the west), it will be in the top 0.01%. The bulk, 98.99% of the world, will make small gains paid for from the 0.99% that used to be known as the west.

      Protectionism might do the trick. Some massive amounts of slaughter that doesn't deatroy everything and targets the least productive in the world would probably help to an extent, but you're talking genocide at levels never conceived of before.

      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday October 09 2015, @08:30PM

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday October 09 2015, @08:30PM (#247576) Journal

        Problem is with globalisation there's no way a new deal could work now, even if the politicians worked for the people. The west has a ropey few decades to go through as living standards across the world even out. They will increase in bumfuck Indonesia, but will massively decrease in the west. Some lucky ones will of course profit from this, but not everyone can.

        It's a problem for the developed world and a tremendous benefit to the rest of the world.

        We're undergoing a global rebalance which means that the GDP will, instead of being clustered in the top 1% (the west), it will be in the top 0.01%. The bulk, 98.99% of the world, will make small gains paid for from the 0.99% that used to be known as the west.

        GDP is useless as a measure of wealth. Also, your "small gains" were two thirds of the world [voxeu.org] seeing a 30% or greater increase in their wealth over the twenty year period, 1988-2008.

        Protectionism might do the trick.

        Look at the cases where protectionism actually worked. A key common factor was relatively low worker rights and wealth coupled with massive build up of manufacture and similar industries.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @11:54PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @11:54PM (#247645)

          Look at the cases where protectionism actually worked.

          What would be a good place to read about those?

          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday October 10 2015, @01:10PM

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday October 10 2015, @01:10PM (#247758) Journal
            Not sure. Maybe Wikipedia would have pointers. But I would look at Japan from 1853 onwards. It built itself up from a primitive backwater which was forced to open trade with the rest of the world (but still managing to maintain a considerable degree of protectionism in the process) to a world power in about 60 years and then did it again after the Second World War (again with a degree of protectionism). Here, I have a couple of reading suggestions, The Reckoning [amazon.com] which delves into the parallel history of the Ford and Nissan automobile manufacturers, including discussing the considerable difference between the corresponding labor unions at each company (the US labor unions were routinely at odds with Ford and the long term health of the business while the Japanese labor union was effectively an extension of the company).

            Another book on the subject is Zaibatsu: The Rise and Fall of Family Enterprise Groups in Japan [amazon.com] which discusses the Japanese business environment from the beginning of Meiji Japan in 1853 through to the Second World War. Zaibatsus were huge family conglomerates that often had tremendous levels of integration and have since morphed into the keiretsu of modern Japan (for example, the "Big Six" [wikipedia.org], each with a large bank at its core). One notable lesson is the surprisingly low value of being purely a "political merchant" in the long run. When you are connected to the government, you can obtain some very powerful and very profitable advantages. But the problem is that your people don't stay in control. And as a result, the more that you milked the process and made enemies, the worse it is for you when those enemies assume power. Meanwhile businesses which have a sound business relatively independent of politics tend to fare well in the long run, though at the time they often leveraged that with some degree of political maneuver.

            Another lesson is the value of properly educated human capital, especially in leadership positions. The zaibatsus went to great lengths to train their business leaders in the best schools in Europe (which was the place to be prior to the rise of US academia around the beginning of the 20th Century). The Reckoning also mentions Japanese efforts to pick up modern management techniques from the US after the Second World War.

            A number of East Asian countries have followed this path, such as Taiwan, South Korea, China, and Vietnam.

            Another remarkable example was Paraguay of the mid-19th century. After 1811 when the state gained its independence from Spain, they conducted a policy of isolationism combined with hardcore industrial development and a powerful dictatorship. By 1860, they were the greatest and most professional military power of South America. They then squandered that in a six year war that resulted in the complete ruin of the country and the loss of a considerable fraction of the population. They had a great military, but a very lousy strategic position combined with the hubris of declaring war on three different capable foes at the same time.

            I don't know any good recommendations for books on Paraguay of the time.

            But I would say here that the key common attributes of these approaches was:

            1) Selective isolationism and protectionism, particularly one-way trade barriers.
            2) Extremely competitive internal markets.
            3) Weak worker rights and protections. Any labor unions were often cooperative partners of the employers.
            4) Aggressive education and training of workers and business leaders.

            In that light, over the years there have been a number of people threatening to implement protectionism in the US. My view is that while the US probably adequately covers point 4) (and by initial conditions, point 1), it is woefully inadequate on the other two points. Workers need to take a big haircut or it doesn't work. Similarly, the thicket of oligopolies needs to be kicked into a much more competitive effort. In the absence of both currently, I think protectionism would merely be an epic fail. At least with global trade, you are getting something in return for the long term squandering of your future. That's more than can be said for current protectionism schemes.
    • (Score: 3, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Friday October 09 2015, @12:56PM

      by Phoenix666 (552) on Friday October 09 2015, @12:56PM (#247373) Journal

      I honeymooned in Cappadocia [google.com] and thought at the time they could probably absorb the entire homeless population of the United States and not have to build any additional infrastructure because it's already there. They have vast cave cities that are unoccupied. They have all the essentials like ventilation, plumbing, water, and even pits so you can trod grapes and make your own wine. They're quite comfortable, too. We stayed in a cave hotel in Goreme that was lovely. The tuff [wikipedia.org] is quite insulating--when you rap it with your fist it sounds hollow and you can dig out additional chambers very quickly even with stone tools.

      --
      Washington DC delenda est.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @02:45PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @02:45PM (#247437)

        So, ship the homeless off to their own isolated colony, like a leper colony? How would they subsist? Self-governance? How about essential city services? Or are they to figure all this out Mad Max style?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @02:41PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @02:41PM (#247434)

      What private entity can do that for free? This is no different than a developer building an office park to rent out the buildings to tenants.

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @05:36AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2015, @05:36AM (#247271)

    the opportunity to test such innovations as driverless vehicles and natural disaster-proof homes in a human-free, practically risk-free, environment

    No, it will be used to test zombie invasions. A few of the people will be infected with virus(es) and let free. Then they will study how the virus spreads and what happens to those who were not infected initially. With the amount of guns and weapons they have, how long they could defend themselves from the hordes. And with the amount of food they had, how long could they hold out before becoming cannibals themselves.

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Gravis on Friday October 09 2015, @08:10AM

    by Gravis (4596) on Friday October 09 2015, @08:10AM (#247300)

    from TFA:

    'Technologies are not merely artifacts, they are social systems intermediated by materials and devices,' says Professor Steve Rayner, co-director of the Oxford Programme for the Future of Cities. 'The idea of "testing" complex socio-technical systems without the people is bound to yield misleading results because real people frequently interact with materials and devices in ways that are not anticipated by the designer.'

    For example, Rayner said: 'There are many reports of people defeating energy-saving devices in buildings because they want fresh air and prop doors open.'

    • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday October 09 2015, @07:13PM

      by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Friday October 09 2015, @07:13PM (#247533) Journal

      While true, therre are lots of things too dangerous to test with people in residence. So all that argument means is that after they are tested in a human-free setting, then they need to be tested with humans present. If your driverless car doesn't work when the streets are empty, it's not very likely to work when kids are chasing balls into the street.

      --
      Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
  • (Score: 1) by Fauxlosopher on Friday October 09 2015, @08:14AM

    by Fauxlosopher (4804) on Friday October 09 2015, @08:14AM (#247301) Journal

    ... raises even more eyebrows in 2015 than it did in 2012, I'd imagine. So I infer from a Fox Snooze article [foxnews.com] from 2012.