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Plans for a new city in the American desert

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Re: Plans for a new city in the American desert

#61

Post by nemo44x »

The cognitive dissonance in their descriptions of how things will work and how things will be is amazing. Everything is “inclusive” and “equitisim” and the community has a direct voice in every decision (that will scale to 5 million people!). But yet all this is being dictated by what I assume is the authority over everything in this make-believe place. Everything on their website states as a matter of fact how “things will be”. This isn’t how things work and it’s written like it was created from the most upvoted posts on Reddit. Teachers will “be paid well” - what does that mean? Who decides what “paid well” means? What if they unionize, for example?

What if the people that move there decide they don’t want any of these things? What if the first settlers decide to vote for individual property ownership?

This place sounds more like a utopian commune than a realistic place.

Re: Plans for a new city in the American desert

#62

Post by admax88qqq »

kiba wrote: post #19
pcurve wrote: post #8

"The cleanliness of Tokyo, the diversity of New York and the social services of Stockholm: Billionaire Marc Lore has outlined his vision for a 5-million-person "new city in America" and appointed a world-famous architect to design it" "The mission of Telosa is to create a more equitable and sustainable future. That's our North Star." I admire their ambition, but they are underestimating people's preference for inequi…

What would it take for the middle class homeowners of America to prioritize housing for everyone rather than the price of their home?

Probably both buying out their current homes, and providing a more reliable way for them to build equity over their lifetimes.

Re: Plans for a new city in the American desert

#64

Post by kiba »

lprubin wrote: post #55
zozbot234 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that no matter how much housing you reserve to be "affordable housing", it will still be scarce and thus unaffordable to most. And this kind of well-intentioned red tape often ends up shrinking the supply of housing as a whole, which only makes it even less affordable.

If you compensate the developers' losses in revenue with tax breaks, how does it shrink the supply?

If it doesn't encourage developers to build more houses, then it does nothing.

We care more about the number of people housed, not merely just people who are housed who can afford their bills.

Re: Plans for a new city in the American desert

#65

Post by recursivedoubts »

Henry George is a forgotten hero of american history, swept under the rug by today's corporate conservative-v-liberal punch and judy show:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_George

When he died 100,000 people showed up at his funeral:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_George#Death_and_funeral

Can you imagine anyone showing up at an economists funeral today, except to heckle?

It's unfortunate that this project mixes Georgism w/ dehumanized modern architecture. Most people want to live in traditional, walkable neighborhoods, as prices suggest.

Re: Plans for a new city in the American desert

#66

Post by panarky »

Bayart wrote: post #11

I feel every attempt at community-by-design bears within it the seed of inhumane horror. Forget about the energy equation of building a city in a desert, what's the on-boarding process for prospective inhabitants ? Putting the price of accommodation sky-high to make sure everybody's in the right tax-bracket (or even earns enough to not pay taxes) ? Going through an interview process to only take in people with the "r…

> energy equation of building a city in a desert

Solar and nuclear work great in deserts.

I'd be more concerned about water.

Re: Plans for a new city in the American desert

#67

Post by throw0101a »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #51
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #35

I'm very curious, have there ever been any "cities from the ground up" projects that don't turn out to be total shit that end up just reflecting the urban planning fallacies of the day? (Looking at you, Brasilia) I mean, all of the cities that are most "livable" in my mind are old cities that were designed before the car and thus have enough density and public transportation to make things both close and also the kin…

Dubai? Not really something to emulate though. Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taipei also kind of fit.

> Dubai?

I have heard that Dubai does not have street names, so giving directions and arranging deliveries can be… challenging. Is this statement accurate?

Re: Plans for a new city in the American desert

#68

Post by TYPE_FASTER »

DenverCode wrote: post #7

>purportedly drought-resistant water system I'd love to know more about this.

That was my first thought as well.

Especially as we are continually learning more about our ability to estimate how much water is available to us:

https://www.kuer.org/health-science-environment/2021-02-09/m...

Re: Plans for a new city in the American desert

#69

Post by lprubin »

kiba wrote: post #64
lprubin wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you compensate the developers' losses in revenue with tax breaks, how does it shrink the supply?

If it doesn't encourage developers to build more houses, then it does nothing. We care more about the number of people housed, not merely just people who are housed who can afford their bills.

The original question was "How do you get teachers, garbage collectors, plumbers, nurses, all sorts of manual workers ?" Those people all have some amount of money they can afford to pay their bills. Since a city needs some percentage of those workers, having housing they can afford is a big step towards attracting them.

Re: Plans for a new city in the American desert

#70

Post by jeffbee »

sokoloff wrote: post #43
jeffbee wrote: post #14

That initial stage isn't very promising. 50000 people on 1500 acres is only about 30 dwellings per acre, not very impressive. You can achieve that density with traditional row houses.

That’s inhabitants per acre. Dwellings is probably just under half of that figure.

Right, how did I neglect that. It's positively suburban.
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