AHC: California City becomes a success

Inspired by this movie, I was wondering if the model city of California City could have become more successful or whether it was bound to failure due to its hostile natural conditions.

Making it as big as Los Angeles is probably ASB, but what can be done to turn it into a major city, with a population of at least 100.000 and a functioning local industry?
 
I think pre-planned cities generally do not work. You lose the improv, the rapid ping-ponging back and forth between theory and practice, the human energy to get stuff done, the focus on achievable medium goals rather than impossible distant goals, etc, etc, etc.

Doesn't mean there can't be the occasional exception which proves the rule!
 
California City's main problem was its distance from a major job center. LA is too far to drive to, especially in the 1960s and 1970s when there was still plenty of cheap housing within the coastal metropolitan area. Bakersfield at the time was also too far and had even less of an economic base.

But if California City were able to attract some big defense contractors who liked the proximity to Edwards AFB and the China Lake facilities, then that changes things significantly. California City would take off in the 1960s and could have hit 100K residents by 1990, maybe sooner.
 
Well beside 15 going thru it. What does the Tri Cities of Victorville , Hesperia and Apple Vally have that California City does not have?

That's almost 300,000 thousand people there.

I think one key is defense industry is a must
 

TFSmith121

Banned
Victorville et al had George AFB in the 50s-70s and

Well beside 15 going thru it. What does the Tri Cities of Victorville , Hesperia and Apple Vally have that California City does not have? That's almost 300,000 thousand people there. I think one key is defense industry is a must.

Victorville et al had George AFB in the 50s-70s as an operational AFB (unlike Edwards, which was always a test facility) and the Victor Valley became a northern suburb of San Bernardino-Riverside in the 1980s, in the way Moreno Valley became one to the east, and the Temecula-Murrietta area became one to the south.

California City is a suburb of Mojave.;)

Maybe Rosamond.

Boron?

Best,
 
I lived in California City from late 1992 to early 1994 and went back to visit a few times. CC was basically a bedroom community serving Edwards AFB and Mojave.
There was little industry at CC besides Sportsman STOL, Butler Parachutes, a glider club and a parachute center. Butler built and repaired a wide variety of emergency parachutes for Edwards AFB and the National Test Pilot School at Mojave.
The CC Skydiving Center supported US Navy Test Jumpers out of China Lake and a crowd of regular skydivers who lived in the LA basin.
For the air CC looked like one giant un- finished city with grids of streets plowed in the desert but no wires or sewers.
 
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