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The Unbuilt Streets of California's Ghost Metropolis

47 points by yitchelle 7y ago

Rerarom 7y ago
.
- Rerarom 7y ago
  Okay, I'm sorry. I just wanted to mark the page somehow.
  - noonespecial 7y ago
    Upvote it. Click on your own HN username at the top of the page. "Upvoted submissions" is a list of all of the submissions you've upvoted.
    - Thorrez 7y ago
      Additionally there's a favorite button. Favorites are public, upvotes are private.
aazaa 7y ago
> Although areas of California City have not developed as expected, California City has grown from 3,200 people in 1985 to over 14,000 in 2018. Cerro Coso Community College closed escrow on 22 acres (8.9 ha) in the heart of California City for a Community College to serve Edwards AFB, California City, Mojave, Boron, North Edwards and the entire high desert in the Antelope Valley. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_City,_California https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_City,_California Many of southern California's big cities used to fit a similar description. I wouldn't be surprised if in 20 years California City was the fastest growing metro area in California, with residents drawn by the low cost of real estate, good schools, a new UC campus, booming aerospace industry, and proximity to Los Angeles.
- blincoln 7y ago
  It's in the middle of the desert. Looking at it on a map, it's something like 100km from the coast, and ~50km from any major lakes. That means it's even more dependent on bringing in water from elsewhere than LA is. At least LA could theoretically build a bunch of desalinization plants along the coast if they don't find another solution to their water shortages vs. their increasing population. California and the rest of the Southwest should be abandoning places like California City, IMO, not building them up.
  - the_watcher 7y ago
    I grew up in the inland Southern California desert (Palm Springs area). Ironically, it's is more able to water itself than LA because of an aquifer that gets replenished by snowmelt annually (also, last I checked, they make the golf courses buy water rather than tapping the aquifer). There are more sources of water than just proximity to a visible body of it.
  - aazaa 7y ago
    > California and the rest of the Southwest should be abandoning places like California City, IMO, not building them up. Maybe, but history has repeatedly followed a different path. Southwestern desert cities find a way to get water. How that happens is another matter, but the water eventually comes. Also, I'm not completely sure about the claim that places like California City should be abandoned. Living in the desert means that you're not, for example, living in a forest. Clearing forests for urban development reduces CO2 capacity and increases reflectivity, both of which can contribute to global warming. Also, desert urban areas are ideally position to benefit from advances in solar energy technology. They can use that source almost every day of the year. Cities can be located very close to the source. Inexpensive land means that large-scale facilities can be built nearby.
  - jillesvangurp 7y ago
    LA doesn't have water problem but a governance problem that is causing them to not address their water supply issues by e.g. making obvious investments to produce all the water they could ever need using a combination of desalination, recycling, and less waste. Desalination plants have been in use across the world for decades and would be an obvious solution for LA as well. Cost for desalinated water is in the order of a couple of dollars for a thousand gallons.
ycombonator 7y ago
I have a friend in India who drove me to this place several years go https://www.google.com/maps/place/Narne+East+City/@17.4581504,78.7771605,4285m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0xbdb53d28316ae86!8m2!3d17.462147!4d78.775956 https://www.google.com/maps/place/Narne+East+City/@17.458150... The place apparently has been a ghost town for almost 30 years.
- gumby 7y ago
  It's kind of an Indian tradition. Consider that Fatehpur Sikri was abandoned over 400 years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatehpur_Sikri https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatehpur_Sikri
- xeromal 7y ago
  Do you know where I could read about what befell this city?
- Thorrez 7y ago
  That doesn't seem as remote. It's only a 27 minute drive to a populated edge of Hyderabad (Canara Nagar, Peerzadiguda). Whereas from California City it's an 81 minute drive to San Fernando, the nearest populated edge of Los Angeles.
dade_ 7y ago
Tiny in comparison, but I inherited land in Valle vista, near Kingman, AZ. To me, the history from the documents was more interesting the land. https://www.google.com/maps/search/valle+vista+kingman+az/@35.403877,-113.8593372,14z?gl=ca https://www.google.com/maps/search/valle+vista+kingman+az/@3...
sandworm101 7y ago
SimCity is real and it lives in California.
fortran77 7y ago
Take a look there on Google street view. It looks so odd. A few nice houses (and some not-so-nice ones) next to barren streets and unpaved roads.
- byproxy 7y ago
  That's a lot of rural California, really.
ChuckMcM 7y ago
We drive by it on our way to Vegas. I always felt it was ripe of either building a "company town" or a giant battle simulator for counter strike fans. As a company town it would work for some company that wanted to co-locate tech workers, a campus, and maybe a factory in such a way that they would be tempted by "live in Calfornia economically!" and realize that they were kind of stuck where they were. As a battlefield simulator its wide open spaces with a bit of underground 'works' (for things like effects and replenishment) could make it a more active entertainment destination than Universal Studios or Disneyland.
elandrum 7y ago
This seems like a great place to hold another Burning Man...
- cbsks 7y ago
  There are still almost 15,000 people living there. It’s not really a suitable place for a Burning Man.
- proverbialbunny 7y ago
  There are quite a few festivals out in that neck of the woods. Eg, https://www.wastelandweekend.com/ https://www.wastelandweekend.com/
mrb 7y ago
The first photograph in the article was taken from an helicopter at this exact spot: https://www.google.com/maps/@35.1988405,-117.7584448,1342a,35y,108.09h,47.32t/data=!3m1!1e3 https://www.google.com/maps/@35.1988405,-117.7584448,1342a,3...
mzs 7y ago
The Hyundai-Kia Proving Grounds are there. https://www.hyundainews.com/en-us/releases/380 https://www.hyundainews.com/en-us/releases/380 https://goo.gl/maps/xL6rr9tuEZYyTPuE8 https://goo.gl/maps/xL6rr9tuEZYyTPuE8
based2 7y ago
unbrowsable

47 points by yitchelle 7y ago

Rerarom 7y ago
Okay, I'm sorry. I just wanted to mark the page somehow.
- noonespecial 7y ago
  Upvote it. Click on your own HN username at the top of the page. "Upvoted submissions" is a list of all of the submissions you've upvoted.
  - Thorrez 7y ago
    Additionally there's a favorite button. Favorites are public, upvotes are private.

> Although areas of California City have not developed as expected, California City has grown from 3,200 people in 1985 to over 14,000 in 2018. Cerro Coso Community College closed escrow on 22 acres (8.9 ha) in the heart of California City for a Community College to serve Edwards AFB, California City, Mojave, Boron, North Edwards and the entire high desert in the Antelope Valley. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_City,_California https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_City,_California Many of southern California's big cities used to fit a similar description. I wouldn't be surprised if in 20 years California City was the fastest growing metro area in California, with residents drawn by the low cost of real estate, good schools, a new UC campus, booming aerospace industry, and proximity to Los Angeles.

blincoln 7y ago
It's in the middle of the desert. Looking at it on a map, it's something like 100km from the coast, and ~50km from any major lakes. That means it's even more dependent on bringing in water from elsewhere than LA is. At least LA could theoretically build a bunch of desalinization plants along the coast if they don't find another solution to their water shortages vs. their increasing population. California and the rest of the Southwest should be abandoning places like California City, IMO, not building them up.
- the_watcher 7y ago
  I grew up in the inland Southern California desert (Palm Springs area). Ironically, it's is more able to water itself than LA because of an aquifer that gets replenished by snowmelt annually (also, last I checked, they make the golf courses buy water rather than tapping the aquifer). There are more sources of water than just proximity to a visible body of it.
- aazaa 7y ago
  > California and the rest of the Southwest should be abandoning places like California City, IMO, not building them up. Maybe, but history has repeatedly followed a different path. Southwestern desert cities find a way to get water. How that happens is another matter, but the water eventually comes. Also, I'm not completely sure about the claim that places like California City should be abandoned. Living in the desert means that you're not, for example, living in a forest. Clearing forests for urban development reduces CO2 capacity and increases reflectivity, both of which can contribute to global warming. Also, desert urban areas are ideally position to benefit from advances in solar energy technology. They can use that source almost every day of the year. Cities can be located very close to the source. Inexpensive land means that large-scale facilities can be built nearby.
- jillesvangurp 7y ago
  LA doesn't have water problem but a governance problem that is causing them to not address their water supply issues by e.g. making obvious investments to produce all the water they could ever need using a combination of desalination, recycling, and less waste. Desalination plants have been in use across the world for decades and would be an obvious solution for LA as well. Cost for desalinated water is in the order of a couple of dollars for a thousand gallons.

ycombonator 7y ago

I have a friend in India who drove me to this place several years go https://www.google.com/maps/place/Narne+East+City/@17.4581504,78.7771605,4285m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0xbdb53d28316ae86!8m2!3d17.462147!4d78.775956 https://www.google.com/maps/place/Narne+East+City/@17.458150... The place apparently has been a ghost town for almost 30 years.

gumby 7y ago
It's kind of an Indian tradition. Consider that Fatehpur Sikri was abandoned over 400 years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatehpur_Sikri https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatehpur_Sikri
xeromal 7y ago
Do you know where I could read about what befell this city?
Thorrez 7y ago
That doesn't seem as remote. It's only a 27 minute drive to a populated edge of Hyderabad (Canara Nagar, Peerzadiguda). Whereas from California City it's an 81 minute drive to San Fernando, the nearest populated edge of Los Angeles.

dade_ 7y ago

Tiny in comparison, but I inherited land in Valle vista, near Kingman, AZ. To me, the history from the documents was more interesting the land. https://www.google.com/maps/search/valle+vista+kingman+az/@35.403877,-113.8593372,14z?gl=ca https://www.google.com/maps/search/valle+vista+kingman+az/@3...

sandworm101 7y ago

SimCity is real and it lives in California.

fortran77 7y ago

Take a look there on Google street view. It looks so odd. A few nice houses (and some not-so-nice ones) next to barren streets and unpaved roads.

byproxy 7y ago
That's a lot of rural California, really.

ChuckMcM 7y ago

We drive by it on our way to Vegas. I always felt it was ripe of either building a "company town" or a giant battle simulator for counter strike fans. As a company town it would work for some company that wanted to co-locate tech workers, a campus, and maybe a factory in such a way that they would be tempted by "live in Calfornia economically!" and realize that they were kind of stuck where they were. As a battlefield simulator its wide open spaces with a bit of underground 'works' (for things like effects and replenishment) could make it a more active entertainment destination than Universal Studios or Disneyland.

elandrum 7y ago

This seems like a great place to hold another Burning Man...

cbsks 7y ago
There are still almost 15,000 people living there. It’s not really a suitable place for a Burning Man.
proverbialbunny 7y ago
There are quite a few festivals out in that neck of the woods. Eg, https://www.wastelandweekend.com/ https://www.wastelandweekend.com/

mrb 7y ago

The first photograph in the article was taken from an helicopter at this exact spot: https://www.google.com/maps/@35.1988405,-117.7584448,1342a,35y,108.09h,47.32t/data=!3m1!1e3 https://www.google.com/maps/@35.1988405,-117.7584448,1342a,3...

mzs 7y ago

The Hyundai-Kia Proving Grounds are there. https://www.hyundainews.com/en-us/releases/380 https://www.hyundainews.com/en-us/releases/380 https://goo.gl/maps/xL6rr9tuEZYyTPuE8 https://goo.gl/maps/xL6rr9tuEZYyTPuE8

based2 7y ago

unbrowsable