The Unbuilt Streets of California’s Ghost Metropolis - WIRED 🔗 🇺🇸 🐻 🌵 🌃

In 1958, a Czech-born sociology professor named Nat Mendelsohn purchased 82,000 acres of land in the Mojave Desert, about 100 miles north of Los Angeles, and founded the optimistically named California City. Intended to eventually rival LA in importance, California City was just one of the countless master-planned communities that sprouted up across the state in the post-World War II boom years. But unlike Irvine or Mission Viejo, California City never took off.

• An even deeper dive by the Los Angeles Times in 2010: A desert city that didn’t fan out - LAT