Bill Gates’ Smart City of the Future
Long-time subscriber “Russ” writes: I think Bill Gates is onto something with his desert community; too bad everyone else doesn’t seem to feel the same way. Any thoughts on that subject? It’s at its infancy.
Sorry to be argumentative, but here are mine:
Bill Gates bought 25K acres of the Arizona desert west of Phoenix in which he plans to build a model “smart city,” featuring high-speed internet, “connected infrastructure” (ubiquitous IoT, I guess), and driverless cars.
From this article: “(The city) will create a forward-thinking community with a communication and infrastructure spine that embraces cutting-edge technology, designed around high-speed digital networks, data centres, new manufacturing technologies and distribution models, autonomous vehicles and autonomous logistics hubs,” said a statement from Belmont Partners, according to 12 News. Roughly 3,800 acres will be devoted to office, commercial, and retail space, while 470 acres will be set aside for public schools. Around 80,000 residences will also be created, forming a population of approximately 182,000.
I won’t be one of those 182,000 people; I can assure you of that.
For the life of me, I don’t see the point in this project.
First of all, building a “model city” should include an intelligent thought process for site selection. Why put it where the demand for air conditioning requires vast amounts of stuff (at a minimum, solar PV, batteries, and air conditioning units) to make it habitable? Why put it where it requires lots of travel-miles to get to and from it, when there are open spaces in temperate climates all over the U.S. that would make much better choices?
Second, let’s ask some questions: Don’t we already know that smart cities, especially those built from the ground up, offer huge advantages in terms of environmental footprint? (Yes.) Will residents enjoy some incremental utility associated with needing a dozen eggs and having them show up in three minutes? (I suppose.) Per the above, do we need another city in the desert, where summer temperatures are routinely over 120 degrees F? (No.)
Further questions include: Does our civilization face existential threats that have very little to do with this project? (Absolutely.) Shouldn’t billionaire philanthropists, especially ones of Gates’ intellect and horsepower, be focusing on averting global catastrophe? (I leave that to the reader to decide, but you can guess where I stand.)
Craig,
I’m also disappointed in the concept of building a new “community” to cater for an elite in an inevitably sterile environment.
I can recall the idealism of the 1960’s architect Paolo Soleri and his attempts to create a community called Arcosanti also in Arizona. Arcosanti was supposed to be a experimental model for future urban planning where elevators and rail lines replaced roads and streets.
Vibrant cities are not created by sterile conformity to rigid planning, environmental or otherwise. Efficiency should not be the sole determining factor, but infrastructure serving the aspirations of all types of citizens, tastes and cultures.
Even urban architecture can reflect the diverse nature of human individualism.
Communities are formed by mixtures not sterile efficiency, or conformity. Esoteric environmental concepts shouldn’t take precedents over the needs of human existence. All over the world cities are decaying or developing depending on the commitment and involvement of all members in a community.
Today, American society is increasingly divided by those enjoying the benefits of a ‘digital’ economy and those left behind in the older, traditional economy. The cultural and economic divide between ‘Silicon Valley’ and ‘Detroit’ is becoming wider.
Bill Gates proposal illustrates the desire of many ‘American best and brightest’ to abandon any concern for revitalizing existing American communities, preferring instead to create enclaves in new locations with isolation and insulation from the unpleasantness of the great majority of their fellow citizens. A physical representation of the world of ‘virtual reality’ they really desire to inhabit.
A perfectly designed society, without having to deal with the needs or individualism of citizens unlike themselves, an enclave of privileged nerds !
The malaise of many urban environments began with the “White Flight” after the World Wars. Only in recent times have some urban communities been revitalized, using at the expense of the original inhabitant who find themselves dispossessed and relocated in sterile, characterless, soul destroying, government housing projects,which quickly degenerate to depraved slums.
I don’t have the answer, but I’m willing to bet a shiny new ‘Nerdtown’, built in the desert of Arizona isn’t any solution.