Creepy New New Mexico Town Is To Be Built, And Fast

This just creeps me out:

The $200 million Center for Innovation, Testing and Evaluation would be built with all the dressings of a typical midsize American city. There would be houses, office buildings, roads, highways, gas stations, banks and even a shopping mall, all connected by working utilities and telecommunications infrastructure. But no one would live there. The only people around would be experimenters and workers in an underground control center who run all the city's systems.

Over the next six months or so, Pegasus will figure out what technical systems the center would have, design the town and then figure out just where in New Mexico it's going to build it. Pegasus hopes to break ground in June 2012 and have the city up and running two years later.

Look, if they want to experiment on a real New Mexico city without the inconvenience of real people in it, why don't they just use Rio Rancho?

(Was that my outside voice?)

But seriously, even a fake city will have a big environmental footprint. Where's all the water supposed to come from? All those flushing toilets, you know. And they are rushing this thing through FAST! Start construction by June? Are they crazy?

Why don't they use former company towns? There are a few underpopulated places like that lying around the state. Probably too many real people there, despite all the houses decaying into dust.

Brumley envisions it as a place where people developing new technologies could run large-scale experiments in real-world conditions that — for practical, financial, bureaucratic or safety reasons — they wouldn't be able to do elsewhere. "People can go there and experiment without restrictions," he says.

Probably out-of-control robots chasing homeless squatters and illegal drug runners in the wee hours of the morning. Lasers and car bombs and AK-47's and tumbleweeds in the desert. Like something out of 'Blade Runner'.

And what do the politicians have to say about this?:

“I am confident this innovative project would provide a great boost to New Mexico’s economy,” Governor Susana Martinez said. “We are pleased to be able to offer the resources, open spaces, and talented workforce required to make this effort a success. My administration is committed to an ongoing relationship with Pegasus that will allow the Center to thrive and create New Mexico jobs.”

“I want to thank Governor Susana Martinez for her support. We were drawn to New Mexico by her and her administration’s encouragement of private-sector led, technology-based projects,” Brumley added. “That along with the state’s leadership in science and technology, strong university system, national laboratories, military bases, renewable energy resources, developing commercial space industry, motivated work force, and land availability made New Mexico an ideal location for The Center.”

A couple of kissing zombies, those two!