I’m a huge fan of virtual tourism using Google Maps, and every so often, I come across something haunting or unusual. Today I came across California City, CA, an eerie image of American idealism that never got off the ground.
Incorporated in 1965, it was a massive exercise in real estate speculation and growth. Spanning over 203 square miles (double the size of the capitol city, Sacramento), California City was to be a giant oasis in the Mojave Desert. It’s technically the third largest city in California and the eleventh largest in the country. However, it ended up a desolate and unfulfilled dream.
Scrolling around the embedded map below shows a massive skeleton of streets, cul-de-sacs, and parks. The city was to have been built around a central park with a twenty-six-acre artificial lake. This article from the LA Times in 1990 explains the history of the ghost city in the desert. Source: DailyMeh.
Embedded Google Map:
