Plans for a new city in the American desert

There are already so many dying or dead towns / cities in the US that building a new city in a desert sounds like thoughtless, careless waste (not to mention the ecological disaster of displacing / destroying the ecosystem of the desert). When there are so many habitable locations, why build a city in an inhospitable environment - so much energy resource is going to be wasted to make it habitable ...

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ghost_towns_in_the_Uni...

- https://www.businessinsider.com/10-american-cities-that-are-...

I love the ambition. One thing I've been really amazed about China has been the willingness to tackle big infrastructure projects - building cities like Shenzhen in a few decades and all of the infrastructure projects in the Pearl River Delta in general. I think we need more of that in the west. So I wish them luck - I hope real estate speculation doesn't ruin it.

One thing I've noticed with US politics is that things tend to be viewed as local issues instead of national ones. For example, NYC's public transit is a key part of the US's financial engine, but still chronically underfunded and mismanaged, and New York's problem to deal with. So I hope people see projects like this as points of national pride, even if they don't live there.

This new city most likely depends on getting necessary regulatory and code approvals that would be impossible elsewhere. There's also a reason why towns become ghost towns, and the investors putting in $400B in funding probably don't want to start with one foot in the metaphorical grave.

"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 inequity as long as they're on the right side of the graph. I don't know if they're asking the right questions and solving for the right problems... their web site hasn't moved beyond vaporware phase. https://cityoftelosa.com/

Holy shit, Night City is becoming real.