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A “ghost town” will be build from scratch in the State of New Mexico, USA, to be used as a testbed for future Smart City technology. The city will be built by Pegasus Holdings and its New Mexico subsidiary, CITE Development. The Centre for Innovation, Technology and Testing (CITE) is being billed as a first-of-its kind smart city. This experimental smart city will be constructed next to Hobbs, Lea County, near the Texas-New Mexico border.
The initial development cost is estimated at $400 million, although the overall investment in the project is estimated to exceed $1 billion. Construction will begin by June 30. The town will be modelled on the real city of Rock Hill, South Carolina, complete with roads, houses and commercial buildings, old and new. No one will live there, although it would be possible, as houses will include all the necessities, like appliances and plumbing.
Smart city researchers will use this scientific “ghost town” to look at everything from intelligent traffic systems and next-generation wireless networks to automated washing machines and self-flushing toilets. The point of the town is to enable researchers to test new technologies on existing infrastructure without interfering in everyday life. For instance, while some researchers will be testing smart technologies on old grids, others might be using the streets to test self-driving cars.
The original article can be found here.