without any threat to people

Since no one will live in the town, researchers can test their

They plan to open up the town, named CITE, to researchers experimenting in the fields of transport,


The American west is littered with ghost towns - frontier villages that were abandoned with the end of the Gold Rush.

A town in New Mexico is about to join the ranks of these ghost towns, as the builders of the futuristic city have no intention of letting anyone live there.

Telecommunications and tech firm Pegasus Global Holdings is planning to build a full-scale American town in the New Mexico desert, a place which they hope to open to researchers developing technologies for modern living.

Pegasus plans to spend $1billion creating the 15-square-mile town, called CITE, with construction to begin sometime next year and opening as early as 2018.

CITE will include a town big enough for 35,000 people, with a business district downtown surrounded by terraced housing suburbs - but no one will ever live there.

Instead, companies will have the opportunity to test such innovations as driverless vehicles and natural disaster-proof homes in a human-free, practically risk-free, environment.

Scroll down for video

Pegasus Global Holdings, a telecommunications and tech firm, is planning on building a full-scale American town where researchers can test experiments like a driverless car in a human-free environment

The city, called CITE, will be large enough to fit a population of 35,000 but no one will live there. It's expected to cost $1billion to build

Instead, companies will have the opportunity to test such innovations as driverless vehicles and natural disaster-proof homes in a human-free, practically risk-free, environment.

'The vision is an environment where new products, services and technologies can be demonstrated and tested without disrupting everyday life,' Pegasus Managing Director Robert Brumley told CNN.

Nataly Gattegno, a designer at Future Cities Lab in San Francisco, says the city would help speed up experiments to finalizing a product.

'It sounds like rapid simulations and evaluations would be possible with CITE, which would allow us to cycle through tests much faster,' Gattegno said.

However, some researchers are more wary about what a person-less city can really say about any invention.

'Technologies are not merely artifacts, they are social systems intermediated by materials and devices,' says Professor Steve Rayner, co-director of the Oxford Programme for the Future of Cities. 'The idea of "testing" complex socio-technical systems without the people is bound to yield misleading results because real people frequently interact with materials and devices in ways that are not anticipated by the designer.'

For example, Rayner said: 'There are many reports of people defeating energy-saving devices in buildings because they want fresh air and prop doors open.'

Brumley hopes that CITE will become a place not unlike Silicon Valley, where companies in the private and public sector merge to innovate.

According to Pegasus Global Holdings' website, the company has been working in technology development for the past 10 years and is a 'recognized leader in telecommunications in North America And Europe'.

'Pegasus is also a U.S. Government authorized prime vendor and manufacturer of defense equipment and technologies,' according to the website.

'The vision is an environment where new products, services and technologies can be demonstrated and tested without disrupting everyday life,' Pegasus Managing Director Robert Brumley told CNN.

The city will have all of the conveniences of a modern middle-sized American town such as a fake mall, church and parks