The world's first city for robots

In response to, The world's first city for robots

My initial reaction to the article in Green Futures magazine is skepticism. Building an entire city merely for the purpose of testing emerging technologies seems like a waste of resources and money. In an article in Fast Company, the author argues that, “Currently, there’s nowhere to test truly autonomous--unoccupied--vehicles in urban conditions without any urbanites around;” she goes on to say that this is “the kind of problem CITE could solve.” Huh? How can you truly test urban conditions without accounting for the unpredictability of human decisions?