A better idea might be to take a place that is very inhospitable but already has a sizeable human presence, like the site of the EELT https://en.wikipedia.org/w

A better idea might be to take a place that is very inhospitable but already has a sizeable human presence, like the site of the EELT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremely_Large_Telescope https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremely_Large_Telescope . This region is politically stable. It has to be for the extremely large investment of the EELT. Then take a few square kilometers of desert in the vicinity and try to build a self sustaining city there for the EELT employees. Maybe it can grow into a tourist attraction. You would have to be extremely careful not to create light pollution though.