October 11, 2019 Comments Off on Fake cities around the world Views: 583 Urban Trekker

From the Wizard of Oz to Harry Potter, books and movies are an inexhaustible source of fictitious realms and creativity. Creators of good fiction have that spell-bounding capability to deliver compelling fictitious universes their consuming audiences simply wish they were real, authentic destinations to visit one day.

However, there are also places that we assume are authentic yet were either created simply out of wartime necessity or other purposes such as for testing new technologies. In the most bewildering cases, some countries such as China have created replicas (read deep fakes) of some of the world’s most praised cities and landmark cities. This trend in architecture has picked the name that of Duplitecture.

Fake war-time cities

Wartime necessities: A fake city atop the roof of the Boeing Factory in Seattle

During WWII, one of the deceiving tactics among Allies to confuse the enemy was indeed building fake cities. The Boeing Factory in Seattle had built one such fake city atop its roof with the aim to strategically deter Japanese bombers.

“Houses, streets and plants were assembled like stage props out of plywood, clapboard, chicken wire and burlap, covering the plant’s roof during World War II. If any Japanese bombers made it this far east, the hope was that their pilots would mistake this for a quiet residential neighborhood,” according to a source.

In Europe, the French wanted to protect their precious capital city Paris from being battered by air raids, so they went on to build a fake Paris north of the real one. Some of the replica buildings created there reportedly included Champs-Élysées and the Gare du Nord station.

Left, A map showing fake roads and a camouflage railway that was lit up at night to give the illusion of a moving train. Photo: London news

“It was situated on the northern outskirts of Paris and featured sham streets lined with electric lights, replica buildings and even a copy of the Gare du Nord – the station from which high-speed trains now travel to and from London,” also writes the Telegraph.

Saving Helsinki, Daughter of the Baltic

Finns also used similar cunning deceptive tactics to protect their capital Helsinki. Finland was involved in WWII since the very start, but it was only after the Tehran Conference in 1943 and the imminent collapse of the Eastern front that the country had real reasons to fear over a siege of its capital.

The Soviets believed a bombing campaign would make Finland end its relation with Germany, so bombers were sent to Helsinki on February 6, 1944 in what would be a series of night air raids. However, Finns managed to keep their capital little damaged from the 16,000 bombs released on the occasion.

Bofors anti-aircraft gun firing at enemy bombers. Taivaskallio, Helsinki. November 1942

Prior to the attack, Finland’s army installed searchlights on the eastern outskirts of Helsinki, deceiving the Soviet bombers to throw bombs away from the city. In addition, fires were lit on the numerous unpopulated islands found in the greater area around the capital. The plan worked and most explosives shattered the burning islands now thought to be city structures or simply fell dead in the water.

Virtual Fake: Argleton’s appearance on Google maps

Fake cities can take many forms and in the case of the mystery British city of Argleton, its name demarcated a non-existent settlement on Google Maps. This fake town was first caught on the maps in 2009, in West Lancashire, England, and remained there for a few years until it was removed.

One consideration has been that Argleton was added purposely on the map as a copyright trap, or “paper town” in order to hook any copyright violations, although usually such entities are done in a less conspicuous manner.

Google Maps screenshot showing the non-existent settlement of Argleton.

There has been a lot of debates about the town’s intriguing name, which could be an anagram of “Not Real G” (where G perhaps stands for Google) or “Not Large.” On a further note, “Argle” does echo the word Google and is also a metasyntactic variable or a placeholder name computer programmers sometimes use.

It could be also that Argleton appeared on the map as a blameless error. Nearby the pin, viewers of the Google map can see the name of Aughton. Perhaps someone misspelled that to Argleton.

Fake cities for tech: Sweden’s AstaZero

Another more recent fake city example includes Sweden’s AstaZero, which appears to have storefronts but is only ever used as a testing ground.

AstaZero’s storefronts and test dummies, Source: NewAtlas.com

Found in the Swedish locality of Sandhult, AstaZero was designed by Volvo and was billed as “the world’s first full-scale test environment for future road safety.” In fact, the name AstaZero stands for Active Safety Test Area. The area that comprises AstaZero is devised to simulate all modes and situations road traffic.

The storefronts are nothing more than props to add real-city feeling. Other props used in AstaZero include pedestrian and animal dummies, remote-control vehicles and traffic signs to name three. AstaZero began its operation in 2014.

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Tags: Fake cities, Fake Helsinki, Fake Paris, Fake Seattle