Japan looks at creating world’s first backup city

Standby generators and batteries have been used extensively in industry, usually as a safeguard to keep vital production lines rolling. However a radical plan just unveiled by the Japanese Government for a standby city for Tokyo takes this concept to a whole new plane.

The new city, code named IRTBBC, or Integrated Resort, Tourism, Business and Backup City, will stand in for the capital in the event of it being hit by a disabling earthquake. A possible location has already been earmarked 300 miles to the west of Tokyo on the 1236 acre site of the largely superseded Itami Airport.

IRTBBC will incorporate all the vital functions of government, with duplicate facilities for parliament, ministries but also include office complexes, resort facilities, casinos, parks and the tallest tower in the world at 652 metres. The city will planned for a population 50,000 residents and a workforce of around 200,000 presumably drawn from Osaka, Japan's second largest city and the nearest to IRTBBC.
Hajime Ishii, a member of the ruling Democratic Party, said, "The idea is being able to have a back-up, a spare battery for the functions of the nation,"