International tech firm Pegasus Global Holding will soon fill 20 empty square miles in the New Mexico desert with a big, hunkin' fake city meant to serve as an urban lab for "'end-to-end' testing, evaluation and demonstration of new intelligent and green technologies and innovations emerging from the world’s public laboratories, universities, and the private sector," according to the press release. The $200M Center for Innovation, Testing, and Evaluation will look and feel like any American city—buildings, roads, streets, suburbs, stores, running water, working eletricity, and so on—but no one will actually live there. Core 77 and a zillion others have slightly creepily likened the project to Sim City, if the video game were able to test out, say, new energy-saving thermostats or driveless trucks. Meanwhile, blog Core 77 wonders whether Pegasus will put their city-making power to good use: "No word on whether they'll tackle longstanding urban myths, like what happens when everyone flushes the toilet at the same time."
· Pegasus Global Holdings Announces Plans to Develop World’s Largest Tech Testing and Evaluation Center [Pegasus Global]
· Why is a Tech Company Building a Ghost Town in Mexico? [Pop Mech via a href="http://www.core77.com/blog/technology/tech_firm_to_build_real-life_sim_city_for_infrastructure_testing_20610.asp">Core 77]
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