This is definitely one of the more unique stories we’ve ever discussed. Plans have gone through for a US$1 billion city in Lea Country, USA just west of Hobbs. The city will house no people, nor will it be responsible for directly producing anything. Instead, the purpose of the Center for Innovation, Technology and Testing (CITE) will be a mock-city where new technologies can be safely tested without affecting or interfering with the everyday life of a populace.
CITE will be a complete city, with Housing, Commercial Buildings, Highways, Backstreets and everything else that makes up the average modern city covering 39 square Km in total (roughly 15 square miles). Structures will include functioning amenities, appliances and electricity. Building design will range from older and traditional designs to new-tech smart houses, in order to provide a wider range of test variables. Essentially it’ll be designed to look like just any other city, being specifically modelled after Rock Hill, S.C, except it’ll be eerily empty of residents.
$1 billion might seem like a lot at first, but when you compare it to something like Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram for the same amount it starts to sound a little less insane. After all, the potential benefits of an entire city dedicated to testing new technologies is huge, whereas Instagram is just an easy way of taking funky looking square photos and showing them to your friends.
A few already suggested uses of the city have been named, most exciting of which is probably automated traffic systems. A ghost city is the perfect place to safely test out how an automatic traffic network might function, the effects it would have on transport and how it might compare efficiency-wise to our current methods. Of course viable automatic cars are still probably decades away, but allowing testing on this level could help shave years off of that number.
Other suggestions have been automated toilets and washing machines and testing new smart network technologies on both old and new grids.
There’s also the potential for testing out ‘smart homes’, houses which are built with smart networks in mind. The potential here is to control various aspects of your home, i.e. lighting or temperature, from a smart device such as your phone, tablet or even TV without having to actually move. There is also the potential to link appliances such as kitchen items like ovens and stoves to smart gadgets as well. One could conceivably turn off or adjust the temperature of an oven from a phone or a wall console in another part of the house. There are so many potential uses for testing out smart technologies on a city-wide scale that we can’t even possibly begin to start listing them all.
This is first-of-a-kind undertaking for tests on such a large scale. Frankly we think it’s awesome and we can’t wait to see what comes of it. After all, our governments spend billions every year on all kinds of research from defence to unlocking the secrets of the universe. Why not add some more every-day testing in there as well to help society move along and a faster technological pace? It’s only logical that smart and automated grid systems get a chance to work out their kinks before they start testing within local populations.
As for immediate benefits, the project is expected to create over 250 permanent jobs and 3500 indirect jobs during the design and construction processes which is good news for the people of Hobb County.
A whole city just to test out new technologies. Damn that’s cool.
Image Credit: User ChrisM70 on Flickr
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