Comments on: California City

By: Tom

Tom — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 04:31:47 +0000

CC is hardly a ghost town especially during sept-may. More and more people are RVing and off roading at that time. I would guess there are 800-1000 campsites during the weekends and forget about going Thanksgiving, New Years and Memorial day. Too many folks out there in the desert then.

By: Michael Patrick

Michael Patrick — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 06:52:32 +0000

California City’s huge partially-built street network is somehow fascinating to me. There are some other developments that have also caught my eye. They typically seem intended to be rural cities, so to speak, with each house having a couple of acres.

Take a look at the “Subdivision Road Pattern” here near Rio Rancho, New Mexico.

There’s California Valley, California, which is practically in the middle of nowhere but also has a road network.

Here’s Lehigh Acres, Florida, which has a rather huge street network but loads of streets with little or no development on them. The area around Port Charlotte, Florida, is in a similar situation. Actually, South Florida is full of these quasi-developments because of speculation. Developers legally created a tremendous amount of official lots that they could sell, and a few were built, but far more were not. So these counties now have lots of dispersed residences that can’t be served by utilities because running lines out there is too expensive and don’t have well-maintained roads because there are too many roads to maintain and too few people to pay for them. That’s to say nothing of environmental problems resulting from such dispersion. From Google Maps, it looks like a mess.

Here’s an article with some history on this kind of development in this area. And here’s a research paper called “Planning in the Wake of Florida Land Scams” that discusses the problem and some solutions.

By: Rob

Rob — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 13:45:39 +0000

Neat link. I remember coming across all these “ghost streets” meticulously laid out in the desert a few months ago and wondering what the story is. There’s something strangely compelling about the very suburban street plan of cul-de-sacs and crescents, traced out over otherwise unaltered desert!

Is it possible to drive around on these unfinished streets? The Wiki page says they are “crumbling paved streets” but on the aerial pics they look like dirt roads.

By: John Brent Musgrave

John Brent Musgrave — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 17:43:08 +0000

To add to Robin’s comment on Salton City. I recall taking the charter bus from San Diego to Salton City [via Palm Springs of course] in 1959 as part of the promotion [so the marketing pre-dates the 1960s by a few years at least]. My mom bought into it, and I inherited the “dream property” a few years ago. I’ve not seen it since 1959, but I assume it doesn’t look much different now than 50 years ago.

By: Tom

Tom — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 16:01:38 +0000

12,000 isn’t exactly a ghost town. You would think that many shoppers would be able to support a grocery store. Or does everyone shop at the PX on the air force base?

I think it’s interesting that every home has a fenced in yard. Is that to keep desert creatures out?

By: Matt Fox

Matt Fox — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 19:51:05 +0000

Speaking of Salton Sea. What the heck did Google do to the Salton Sea. Looks like they erased all the natural colors and replaced with boring grey color.

By: Robin

Robin — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 17:11:55 +0000

A similar non-lived in city is Salton City, about half way down on the west side of the Salton Sea, California. The idea for the development came from the Holly Corporation in the (mid?) sixties. All the roads have names and there are a few folks living there. The Salton Sea proved far to salty to realize the recreation potential so the City remains just an idea. Has a Salton City Airport, too.

By: Kirk

Kirk — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 10:02:46 +0000

I lived in Cal City for a few months in 2005 while working on an internship in Mojave. When I was there, there was a grocery store — Cal City Market — just a block away from our apartment It’s near the corner of Cal City Blvd and Neuralia Rd, Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth

In the same plaza is the Green Tea Chinese Restaurant and Bar; stop in some time and say hello to Arthur for me. And I used to go running east of town on Castle Butte, Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth

There’s not much out there (photo: http://picasaweb.google.com/kirk.kittell/2005LifeInMojave/photo#5084284383576394098), but it was an excellent jumping off point to go to Death Valley — still one of my favorite places in the world.

By: Matt Fox

Matt Fox — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 22:14:50 +0000

he he….I actually lived in a mobile home park in CA City for a few months back in 1970s while we waited for a house to become available at Edwards. I seem to remember a lot of old run down hangars and warehouse buildings near CA City, but don’t see them anymore. I remember the lake in middle of town well. We used to go there and feed the ducks.

Matt

By: nova72

nova72 — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 19:39:10 +0000

A bit further south…at Air Force Plant 42 here is a good shot of a U2 Spyplane
Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth

@Rob The Mythbusters have also utilized the Space Port in some of the myth busting adventures.

@dr. R Could be homes for elderly or retired. Another reason could be location and availability of water/sewer.
The city is “master planned” similar to Washington D.C. which was also a “master planned” city. This means that the city has been carefully planned and laid out from the very beginning. Given the location near the airport it could be the master plan showed that area to be developed for higher-density residential development.