Walmart Billionaire Marc Lore Is Planning a $500B “City of the Future”
architecturaldigest.com
architecturaldigest.com
Or maybe he can call it "Rapture", and build it underwater.
More seriously: I wonder how much city 500 billion dollars could really build? Given a blank slate of no planning or zoning conflicts.
If we could build deep undersea cities we would basically have a template to mitigate all climate instability for future (even on land).
We either have super far out (basically marketing BS) projects talking about Mars colonisation or things like this that's basically more of the same just another iteration. Building something that could withstand a couple of atmospheres of pressure, in a hostile environment (seawater) with currents, with full reliance on artificial air filtration, etc. - solve that and it doesn't matter what happens with climate change, super volcano eruptions, meteors, nuclear catastrophes, pollution etc. not to mention you have hard borders to prevent global pandemic outbreaks.
* needs to be anchored to something somehow * no sunlight * likely catastrophic vulnerability to any tectonic movement * no easily accessible soil * extremely high, extremely slow costs of expansion * no clear way to build the initial structure. * need for perfect protection from the salt * heating problems * likely complete dependence on the above world for materials and food.
mostly just going to be nuclear subs with a handful of additional disadvantages.
I'm sure we'll figure out a way of replicating our environment-harming technologies but for underwater use, and eventually will pay the price for that as well.
We have ruined our land and air. We have polluted the oceans to an insane level. What makes you think that we'll do a good job with deep undersea cities? We are even polluting space with debris, are we not?
That's it right there. Since he wants to keep ownership of the land like the government does. He can build stuff like condo buildings. Yet those costs are only in the ~50 million range for a big one. You obviously sell the units and have your government be the condo board. Basically recouping any costs here. There you have housing.
Next is food. Are they producing food? Maybe not necessary, truck it in via walmart.
Next you want walmart warehouses for food and goods. That builds itself, walmart is the one who takes on the cost because they'll pay that off in the long run.
Utilities are built in, bringing big power to the edge of your city will be costly, but we're talking less than 50 million. Anything more than that and you start looking at doing it yourself.
security and safety doesnt have a problem yet because you don't have that part of society. Stuff like police are paid for and expand with the population.
Next you need entertainment and similar. There's a big chunk of $. Probably going to be $5 billion and not pay for itself for a long time, but it will.
What more do you need? Small time stuff? Not going to really break the bank.
Also: paying for utilities and infrastructure from rising value of land seems not very sustainable at all. It can't cover maintenance in the long run. Many US cities already suffer from that.
Utopian dreams like these usually do not end well. It took many decades for visionary developments that were planned in the Dutch polders (Almere) to become something approaching a good city, and the results are quite different then the original vision.
Typically in the scale of millions per year. Which is nothing to walmart guy. The scale of millions to billions is something completely else. When you get into multiple billions it's funny money. Society has rewarded you with so much wealth, society trusts you will use it correctly.
>All these things will be better when doing them collaboratively, instead of individualized. You'll need taxation to pay for them collaboratively.
That's the thing, this walmart guy isn't just paying for all of it out of pocket. There will be people who live and work there who pay taxes to his government.
>But they should be designed and built up-front, before anyone starts living there - because otherwise people will start doing things the wrong way (i.e. traveling by car instead of public transport) and after that it is very hard to change.
That's sort of the thing. The saudis are going to build a long city. When everything is straight, it's easy. Cars will be fine in their design. It's really what your intentions are.
In my design. I have a few things to consider.
The idea will be to generate a new giant city in northern ontario. With the idea of capturing: https://www.mndm.gov.on.ca/en/ring-fire Society needs to start mining that stuff now.
But nobody lives there because the weather sucks bigtime. So we make it a dome city. We at the very same time are designing dome cities on mars. So it's a win in many ways.
>Also: paying for utilities and infrastructure from rising value of land seems not very sustainable at all. It can't cover maintenance in the long run. Many US cities already suffer from that.
I dont understand what you mean here. I suspect you're referencing Detroit as a key point.
>Utopian dreams like these usually do not end well. It took many decades for visionary developments that were planned in the Dutch polders (Almere) to become something approaching a good city, and the results are quite different then the original vision.
this is north america in a nutshell. Virtually everywhere you go there is examples of success, it just takes more than a lifetime for them to become so. Infrastructure that lasts is everything.
Building a modern subway network with a couple dozen stations will cost a few billion easily. And that is just one small thing on a long list. I think you underestimate what infrastructure for a city of millions would cost. Maybe you think cars are ok, but they really are not, if you want a great city.
> I dont understand what you mean here. I suspect you're referencing Detroit as a key point.
No, What I mean is that most US cities, especially those with large suburbs, cannot cover their existing maintenance costs unless they grow, this will stop working in the near future, see: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/5/14/americas-growt...
> this is north america in a nutshell. Virtually everywhere you go there is examples of success...
I would argue that most US cities rank low in quality of life comparisons when compared to cities in other developed parts of the world. When planning utopia, I would start looking in other places.
In most developed areas, the land rent is really the vast majority of the cost. I.e. In a city, you can buy a building, tear it down, and somehow you haven't destroyed most of the capital you just purchased.
Under Lore's "Equitism" (fancy name for Georgism/Geoism), the land rent is recaptured by the thing that actually produced the increasing value - everything around the plot of land.
Which government are you talking about? Private land ownership predates the modern state. The western world is by and large a feudal society where the [land]lords have managed to even outsource security responsibilities back to the peasants.
I've never been there but browsing around on Google maps it just looks like yet another car dependent suburb.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebration,_Florida
The unwashed masses voting problem seems to be a non-issue there:
> The area is organized under state law as a community development district. As a result, voting is restricted to local landowners. The largest landowners are entities controlled by The Walt Disney Company.
- Free healthcare - Free high quality education - Everything else is free market (which includes legal but controlled access to drugs, prostitution, etc.) - No private ownership of vehicles; everyone MUST use public transportation which should be accessible - clean air - walkable - diversity of culture (so for example it should be as easy to find a Bible reading club as a psytrance nighclub)
There is no free anything.
Perhaps if you called it 'free-at-the-point-of-use-but-definately-paid-for-by-someone-else' it would clarify why such nice things are difficult to achieve in the real world.
Free education and free healthcare more than pay for themselves; not just psychologically and morally but economically.
While I’m a proponent of UHC as well I think we do have to look at why people need healthcare. Is it because they are obese and just don’t care? If so more healthcare isn’t a good thing unless they also change underlying habits which lead to the need for healthcare in the first place.
And also obviously someone is paying for these things. “Laughs in the rest of the developed world” is a really immature comment, especially as we start to see universities in that developed world start to sneak back in fees for things. There is no free lunch. Everything costs something. Maybe we are taxing billionaires or w/e is in vogue right now but it still costs money. By making it “free” we also separate out useful market elements - like instead of going to school to be an art history major maybe for free, maybe you should bear some of the burden for a less useful degree than say computer science where there is a need, or plumbing or electricians.
“Liberal arts educations are valuable etc” yea read a book or use the Internet. If you’re not willing to do that freely on your own a university isn’t helping you there and I really doubt the costs are justified.
Don't be a dick.
> Free education and free healthcare more than pay for themselves…
I didn't say they didn't. But they do require someone to pay for it.
And those someone's aren't normally the kind of people attracted to a frontier, libertarian concept like building a new city.
The US is the only country with such wealth that is unable to set it up, and pays more than double than any european country with free healthcare per inhabitant. The real world is calling, and it's telling you the US's approach to health care is more fitting of a third world country.
Perhaps you could take 5 minutes to ponder the assumptions you make about the nationality op anonymous posters.
In full disclosure, I don't see any of this as a utopia but rather a highly dystopian society. It is the basis for some movies and books. But I am just playing along with the idea.
What if the market things your diversity is shit?
> Developers are hoping to find inexpensive desert land in the Midwest or Appalachia
I'm thinking Architectural Digest needs to hire authors that have left NYC at least once in their lives. In case you are wondering there is not much desert land is available in either of those places.
> Charter cities are new cities with new rules. The Governance Handbook is the most comprehensive undertaking to date that lays out what these new rules should be and how they should be structured to promote inclusive economic growth ... Building specifically on land with little or no existing development or population ensures that settling in a charter city is voluntary and that the rents enjoyed by local elites are not sufficiently altered to entice efforts to curtail critical reforms. What's more, these new cities are already being built—more than 120 new cities in more than 40 countries —and will continue to be built as urbanization continues apace."
https://www.cnn.com/style/article/telosa-marc-lore-blake-ing...
> A so-called "15-minute city design" will allow residents to access their workplaces, schools and amenities within a quarter-hour commute of their homes. Although planners are still scouting for locations, possible targets include Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Arizona, Texas and the Appalachian region, according to the project's official website.
Marketing site: https://cityoftelosa.com
I have never understood why high density is considered good or desirable.
Higher productivity, shorter commutes, easier access to private services (restaurants, etc), lower carbon footprint.
Thanks to the internet I do not need to drive to my work at all.
Private services are neat but not a real dealbreaker.
Lower carbon footprint? City dwellers need less co2 to get to work, but they consume more than the others and also fly more frequently.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bournville
They are desirable places to live, people are attracted to them.
How will the city avoid criticisms of ageism if most of the people who want to move here are old people looking for a nice place to retire with free healthcare?
Building a new city in some american desert and making it high tech and sustainable is a nice dream to have and it could work but...
You are still subject to american regulations and laws (the good and the bad ones of course).
I think a truly new city to rival cities like Singapore has to be very open and accepting, in a good climate and looking forward rather than sticking to just things that work (trying to compete on infrastructure (bike, public transit with cities that already have that is just foolish).
Yeah, I currently rent in one of those modern private estates or "resorts" even as they are marketed in London. Apartment leaseholders are being held hostage by the landowner, in some cases paying more in service charge than mortgage. They are struggling to sell, because they would have to find bigger idiots than themselves and those are getting hard to come by. Never in my life would I agree to that.
Meanwhile anywhere with a bit more soul, from NYC to San Fran, from Austin to Denver see huge demand.
I doubt his plans will work because building cities is hard. But at least whatever results won't just be another underfunded, grid pattern of ultra low cost ghettos specializing in nothing but cutting taxes for the next quarter...
And who owns the city? Is it, by any chance, Lore or his arms-length foundation?
> Exactly where this 21st-century Eden will be located is still to be determined: Developers are hoping to find inexpensive desert land in the Midwest or Appalachia.
In other words, a place nowhere near economic activity or water supplies?
Which would be cool.
My intuition is that, if the intention is indeed as they portray it, then this sounds totally doable and commendable. Designing a city from scratch, knowing what we know now about cities, technology, transportation, could be great. It could also be dystopic, of course.
In this case, his comment about creating "a new model for society, where wealth is created in a fair way" is especially curious. I mean, does he believe that his wealth was not created in a fair way?
I.e. In its most extreme form, keep 100% of what you create and none of what you don’t. Land owners do not create land, so should not get any upside from it. Whatever is built on the land is their creation, so whoever created it shouldn’t be taxed on any of its investment or returns. This applies even if the landlord and the developer are the same person.
Note it’s not actually that new. Lots of places with extreme natural wealth (like Alaska’s oil) create systems like this. The only “innovation” here is recognizing that urban growth also generates obscene amounts of wealth “in the ground.”