Walt Disney fancied himself to be the creator of a completely planned perfect city that would be powered by safe nuclear power (“atoms for peace”). What he lacked was a basic understanding of how people actually live in a real city.
After Disney died of lung cancer from smoking, the people he left behind realized there was no way to complete that dream, and scaled the ambitions to just be another tourist park showing off the advances in Univac computers, hydroponic vegetables and monorail Transportation.
Bill Gates seems to have this same instinct that since he is rich, he is qualified as an urban planner with the skills to create a big city from scratch, undoubtedly with all the comforts of a smart home with Windows 10 auto-replenishing the vegan groceries in your smart refrigerator.
This new city will be called Belmont Arizona, along the path of the future I-11.
Back in the 1970s, I would sometimes listen to Radio Moscow and they did a story on heating in their capital city. The electricity generating plants in the US mostly heat rivers or lakes or release steam into the air. In Moscow, the heat was instead piped to buildings to provide heat in the winter.
I’m no fan of central planning, but maybe the water and sewer model of last century should be expanded to include more than today’s electricity, telephone and cable? A prototype is expensive but Mr Gates has money.
Lansing Michigan had that arrangement where the city government heated the downtown using the steam from the city owned coal fired electric plant. It no longer met EPA requirements and was decommissioned
Not to be confused with Bellemont, AZ (on old Route 66)… the location of Gates’ Belmont city is more than a bit curious. It’s a stone’s throw from the nation’s largest electricity generating complex, aka Palo Verde Nuclear Generating station. On the north side of ‘Belmont’, we have the CAP aqueduct from the Colorado River. To the east, a large solar array. That area is searing hot in summer, the ground water is peppered with hot springs (100+ degree water) and it all sits in what we call ‘the flats’, a perfect area for flash flooding or a sudden change in the course of the river/wash.
I hope Belmont ‘smart devices’ are certified for use at 115-125 degrees (ambient).
I-11 is still a NAFTA pipe dream… lots of talk by AZ, NV (and Mexico), but that’s it. The corridor is being challenged every step of the way by greenies and small towns.
How would water rights work with a brand new city?
Because of it’s location, Belmont would become the first big ‘straw’ drawing water from the Central Arizona Project (CAP) aqueduct. Perhaps it was a strategic choice in that regard, time will tell.
As for ground-water withdrawal rights, Belmont will be within an ‘Active Management Area’, so there are a slew of federal & state regulations, pumping limits, and lots of palms to be greased…
Perhaps the name will be B&Lmont
What kind of grease is best for keeping the Palmetto Bugs from climbing up the trunks nesting in the fronds of the Arizona palms? 😉
LOL… I lived in Florida for a few years and know what you mean. I’ve never seen that problem in Arizona, probably because it is an ‘arid zona’.
Nothing like roaches with wings to make your heart go pitter patter