Note the big boulevard and roundabout worthy of Speer's Berlin.
Any of you ever heard about California City, CA? Some guys over at Kern County Recorder's Dept told me about it.
California City is in the high desert between Mojave and Ridgecrest. In land area, it is the largest incorporated city in CA. Why, then, have you never heard of it?
Because it was incorporated and laid out two real-estate bubbles ago as a Retirement Community for out-of-state Snowbirds. They incorporated as a city, laid out and graded all the streets (over dozens of square miles), and started selling Primo California Real Estate. Then the first buyers/investors actually saw the site. Barren desert as far as the eye could see, with unpaved streets bulldozed through the hardpan. Needless to say, the boom went bust. Fast.
It's still out there, all those unpaved streets laid out in the desert, with a single deteriorating street of model homes (like a long-abandoned set from Over the Hedge) on the highway between Ridgecrest and Mojave. Good location for a horror or post-holocaust movie.
This shows how much land was subdivided for building, but I do not think it will be developed anytime soon. Talk about dusty!
4 comments:
I wonder if I could just take my tent out there and squat on the land. Squatters rights ? oh which reminds me I need to go squat right now!!
If you go squat with your tent, let me know. I'll get a picture from the air!
Speaking of "squatting" they do look like holding ponds for the sewer treatment plant?
DinOR
Note the big boulevard and roundabout worthy of Speer's Berlin.
Any of you ever heard about California City, CA? Some guys over at Kern County Recorder's Dept told me about it.
California City is in the high desert between Mojave and Ridgecrest. In land area, it is the largest incorporated city in CA. Why, then, have you never heard of it?
Because it was incorporated and laid out two real-estate bubbles ago as a Retirement Community for out-of-state Snowbirds. They incorporated as a city, laid out and graded all the streets (over dozens of square miles), and started selling Primo California Real Estate. Then the first buyers/investors actually saw the site. Barren desert as far as the eye could see, with unpaved streets bulldozed through the hardpan. Needless to say, the boom went bust. Fast.
It's still out there, all those unpaved streets laid out in the desert, with a single deteriorating street of model homes (like a long-abandoned set from Over the Hedge) on the highway between Ridgecrest and Mojave. Good location for a horror or post-holocaust movie.
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