Archinect - News

A cannabis business is buying a small town in California with plans to transform it into the first weed "infused" tourist destination

2017-08-07T14:12:00-04:00

Nipton, California has all the makings of a stoner heaven. There’s a general store, a hotel, a campground, an endless supply of delicious water, and—for those late-night giggles—a Castle Butt Road. Perhaps that’s why American Green Inc., an eight-year-old self-described marijuana “seed-to-sale innovator,” decided to purchase the 80-acre town (population six) and turn it into “the country’s first energy-independent, cannabis-friendly hospitality destination.”

The Gold Rush was the largest mass migration in U.S history with over 300,000 people arriving in California hoping to reap its benefits. Well over a century and a half later, many of the towns along the coast, once vibrant, have been left as ghost towns as anyone taking a road trip along the 5 can attest to. However, with the legalization of marijuana sweeping the coast, some believe the newly legalized industry can usher in a 21st century version.

One company, American Green Inc., is in the process of buying the town of Nipton, CA—a remnant of the California Gold Rush—in the hopes of turning it into a weed "infused" tourist destination. The town has a rich history, bustling from the late 19th to mid-20th centuries along with the mining industry, and even boasting a hotel that played host to the silent-movie star Clara Bow, who owned a ranch nearby.

Today, the town has a fluctuating population of 20 to 70 people and offers tremendous natural resources in the form of a Pleistocene-e...

Masdar abandons its dream of becoming the first zero-carbon city

2016-02-23T14:33:00-05:00

Masdar City, when it was first conceived a decade ago, was intended to revolutionise thinking about cities and the built environment. Now the world’s first planned sustainable city – the marquee project of the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) plan to diversify the economy from fossil fuels - could well be the world’s first green ghost town. As of this year [...] managers have given up on the original goal of building the world’s first planned zero-carbon city.

Masdar City previously in the Archinect news:

Jing Jin City, China's luxury ghost town

2015-03-27T18:59:00-04:00

Artist/photographer Andi Schmied chose one of these Chinese new towns as the subject for a project that goes beyond merely capturing a desolate townscape. Jing Jin City, 100 miles from Beijing, is a luxury resort town consisting of some 4000 villas, a Hyatt Regency resort spa and amenities such as a golf course and a horse racing track. It is not really a ghost town, however, since it is partially populated, but many of the villas remain in various states of completion.

China's Manhattan replica continues to lie abandoned as economy slows

2015-02-11T13:39:00-05:00

Manhattan may be a bustling metropolis filled with busy people rushing off to work, the theatre, restaurants and the myriad attractions the city has to offer. A replica in China, complete with knock-offs of Rockefeller Center and the Hudson River, is missing that one key element that makes New York, New York: the people. [...] “All of these tall buildings just appeared,” one local man recently told CTV News.

Previously: China’s replica of Wall Street is full of half-built, deserted skyscrapers and floods regularly

'Re-education' campaigns teach China's new ghost city-dwellers how to behave

2014-11-13T15:43:00-05:00

The region of Ordos made headlines in 2010 for the pre-built metropolis that had everything but people. Now, however, Kangbashi city is rapidly filling up with country people who are being encouraged to live in cities and diversify China’s economy. For ageing farmers who’ve spent their whole life on the land, however, becoming “urbanites” is a tall order.

China’s replica of Wall Street is full of half-built, deserted skyscrapers and floods regularly

2014-06-30T15:10:00-04:00

The skyline of Yujiapu in the Chinese city of Tianjin looks more like an expensive, abandoned movie set than it does “China’s new Manhattan,” as the financial district was once billed. A patina of dust covers the glass doors of the 47 office buildings and hotels that still sit empty, and in come cases unfinished.

The specter of ghost buildings in London

2013-04-06T11:33:00-04:00

The salesclerk at a Belgravia clothing boutique, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity because she did not want to get in trouble, said that at some times of the year the area was virtually abandoned. “We’ll shut for the whole of August,” she said.

Earlier this week Sarah Lyall explored how some neighborhoods in London have become "So Exclusive Even the Owners Are Visitors". This is because the owners are increasingly, superwealthy foreigners from places like Russia, Kazakhstan, Southeast Asia and India, who are purchasing a residence either as an investment or as Yolande Barnes of the real estate firm Savills explains "It’s more like buying their own private hotel" for their occasional visit to London.

As Bruce Sterling (h/t) commented over at his blog "the Gothic High-Tech soulless barns of the offshored ultra-wealthy. A city that once thrived by financialization is seeing its citizens replaced by money. It would be even more interesting if the entities owning these structures were themselves financial instruments, and never human to begin with. Maybe these 'ultraprime' structures could be purchased and owned by quant algorithms, stockmarket style"

The Post-War Ghost Towns of Foreign Aid

2012-10-08T20:20:00-04:00

Originally a low income neighborhood of informal, mud brick housing, Sher-Pur was subject to government land grabs around 2004 and is now Kabul's wealthiest neighborhood. Built up using mashup of imported architectural designs from Dubai, the neighborhood is full of massive poppy palaces and narco palaces... as the international community pulls out ahead of the 2014 NATO withdrawal deadline, many of these elaborate mansions are sitting empty. Sher-Pur is becoming a ghost town of opulence.

China's ghost towns and phantom malls

2012-08-14T16:56:00-04:00

As growth slows, China's huge investment in infrastructure is looking ever harder to sustain, leaving a string of ambitious projects - towns, shopping malls and even a theme park - empty and forlorn.

Plans to build $1billion ghost town in New Mexico desert delayed

2012-07-16T13:21:00-04:00

Pegasus, the company behind the scheme, had originally intended to build the huge, 15-square mile replica town near to Hobbs in the southwestern U.S. state but has postponed building work after struggling to find enough land for the project. The $1billion city (£643million) with no residents had been billed as a testing ground for researchers developing products ranging from self-flushing toilets, intelligent traffic systems and next-generation wireless networks.

Ordos: The biggest ghost town in China

2012-03-17T14:41:00-04:00

In Inner Mongolia a new city stands largely empty. This city, Ordos, suggests that the great Chinese building boom, which did so much to fuel the country's astonishing economic growth, is over. Is a bubble about to burst?