Why a Billionaire is Building a $400BN City in the US Desert

by now we're guessing you've probably heard of Saudi Arabia's the line and perhaps even South Korea's floating city but what about telosa it's yet another futuristic city planned to be built from scratch this time it'll be set somewhere in the middle of the U.S desert and cost a staggering 400 billion dollars to complete telosa's blueprints is all about sustainability and an economic system called equitism and it's been proposed by this guy billionaire entrepreneur Mark Laurie a former Walmart executive and founder of jet.com and diapers.com yep you heard that right so I thought well what if we created a telosi Community Foundation and we went out and acquired hundreds of thousands of Acres of worthless land and were able to build a city the city is being designed by a world famous architect and aims to be home to 50 000 people by the year 2030 before going on to grow to a population of 5 million so how will an entire sustainable City be built in the middle of the desert what exactly is equitism and why as a billionaire of all people proposing the city of the future as the consequences of climate change continue to wreak havoc all over the world there have been more and more proposed solutions that strive for sustainability some of them seem pretty Unthinkable ideas of course there's the line a 170 kilometer mirrored linear City in Saudi Arabia that's designed to be fully walkable with no cars or carbon emissions Mexico has proposed a smart Forest City near Cancun that would contain 7.5 million plants and eco-efficient developments and South Korea's floating city is structured to combat rising sea levels with platforms on top of the water foreign after the ancient Greek word Telos meaning highest purpose it's an entire city built from scratch to be located somewhere in the American southwest this wouldn't be the first time something completely new was built there the Hoover Dam was constructed nearly a hundred years ago around the Arizona Nevada border and created a vital water electricity supply for the surrounding cities that helps spark major growth for places like La Phoenix and San Diego and now billionaire Mark Laurie wants to introduce a new major city into the region much of which he plans to invest in himself but his approach towards increasing developments is a bit different than creating a source of energy I think the biggest challenge is first having the capital and then and then it's the chicken and egg problem is if if it is completely new how do you get people to move there and live there I think one of the things that we've learned from from history is that if we're going to really do this we need to do it like in a shotgun kind of approach where where overnight 50 000 people move in before we get into all that let's just take a quick minute to talk a little bit about our sponsor for today's video luck Lark was started with the simple Vision to help people access pristine drinking water easily and sustainably by combining Innovative technology with cutting-edge design right now 186 million Americans are drinking water with pfas and Lead that exceeds the levels recommended by the EPA all thanks to aging water infrastructure we've talked a lot about America's infrastructure woes before and even with the push to replace the country's lead pipes it would take two decades to complete the projects according to billionaire Mark Laurie phase one of telosa is due to be completed and ready for residents well before then in the meantime Lark has us covered with their picture purevis an advanced water pitcher that cleans itself with a two-step filtration and purification process it takes seconds to purify and sanitize your drinking water their Nano zero carbon filter removes pfas lead and heavy metals while the UVC light purific location to LG eliminates bio-contaminants such as bacteria you can order the Lark picture purevis at the link below now let's get back to the video designed by Danish architect bjr kingles telosa aims to be a green City by incorporating a variety of eco-friendly features this starts with where residents will get their food and energy supplies we're not talking about oil and Walmart here telosa's solution solar roof tiles and aeroponic Farms the panels will be a source of renewable energy and this type of farming will cultivate a higher yield of crops using less water then there's the design of the city itself at the center Stan's equitism Tower called The Beacon of the city equitism tower is a skyscraper with Lookout areas where residents can gather surrounding the tower are 36 districts arranged as 15-minute cities where everything residents need will be within walking distance for anything further away there's a public transport system electric and autonomous vehicles will Cruise the streets at a slow pace to protect pedestrians and bikers but fossil fuel vehicles are banned overall the 150 000 acre proposal is roughly the size of Chicago and will apparently be built over a 40-year period foreign the location well in the middle of a U.S desert most likely in either Nevada Utah or Arizona now obviously building a city from scratch in the middle of a hot desert while relying on surrounding resources sounds like a bit of a challenge when you get into constructed environments like large cities you run a significant risk of a heat island impact that actually can change your weather patterns in the immediate vicinity of the built environment based upon the way the designs look they it looks like they're making significant efforts to incorporate green spaces which would mitigate that heat island but while the design itself might work a city needs access to water and in a desert water rights and availability aren't easy to come by cities in Arizona already face these issues and many rely on fossil groundwater for its residents a non-renewable resource others depend on detolination techniques but this can be expensive and often isn't a very sustainable process as for telosa the futuristic city says it will capture and recycle water for various uses this water will then be stored in reservoirs throughout its Parks this most likely will come from groundwater but still raises another question how can it make a finite resource last water eventually it evaporates they could stretch water probably using those kinds of methods a lot further than maybe has been done historically with urban sprawl but I still think that there there would be some challenges about the long term and what I mean by the long term is I mean Beyond 100 years [Music] sustainability isn't the only goal of telosa billionaire Mark Laurie also hopes to base the way Society operates on a concept called equitism now what my equitism mean to a billionaire you may ask well according to celosa it's an economic system where all residents have a stake in the city's land as the value of the land increases plots can be sold to create endowment the money gained will then go back to the city to fund Social Services like education and health care now Laurie isn't the first billionaire to propose a futuristic city like this Bill Gates introduced Belmonts a smart City from scratch to be based in Arizona and Elon Musk is trying to create a city called Starbase in Texas it feels like there's a bit of a trend going on I think at the end of the day a lot of these two to six cities are just what you said they start from this idea of it being futuristic so you think of uh soulless that's what I think of uh you know think of robots and machinery and Automation and um that's not what we're leading with we're leading with people putting people at the center and really it's about the mission and values um I think you'd be hard-pressed to really you know say out loud what the mission and values are of a particular city in America this will be very different [Music] waterlosa may have impressive designs and ideas it is still yet to announce the exact spot where that 150 000 acre city is going to sit but just like all these other futuristic ideas it might hint what our cities could look like in the future people there enjoy higher quality of life they're happier healthier and have a sense of feeling of of ownership in the city or sorry like loyalty to the city the same way you would like a university you know you're like proud like people are wearing the teloso sweatshirt and they they're proud of being from telosa and using that then as a model for other cities countries to look at to say wow like look this city was started from scratch Lori's idea for a Community Land Trust isn't new there are already nearly 300 across the us but the idea of expanding it in such a big way is pretty different and historically the model helps maintain affordability for future low-income families an idea that could influence cities struggling with these issues you know there's a lot that's appealing about that from a lifestyle standpoint at least the way we understand it but if you looked at that through the lens of you know sustainability from an energy standpoint from a natural resource standpoint from an ability to adapt to climate change um it's it doesn't really add up this type of design definitely does now it's certainly possible that telosa will never get built but if it doesn't the designs can still spur important conversations for forward-thinking policies and as the effects of climate change further accelerates their conversations we desperately need to have this video was made possible by Lark you can learn more about that at the link below there's also the chance to dive deeper on this and other topics on our Channel over on the world's best construction podcast available now wherever you get your podcasts and as always if you liked this video and you want to learn more about where construction is headed make sure you're subscribed to tomorrow's build

Channel: Tomorrow's Build

Views: 1,179,397

Keywords: construction, architecture, engineering, Tomorrow's Build, tomorrowsbuild, TomorrowsBuild, tomorrows build, B1M, The B1M, Fred Mills, building, future, utopia, marc lore, telosa, american southwest, desert, equitism, walmart, utah, nevada, arizona, water, city, billionare, smart city, sustainability, 15 minute city, Bjarke Ingels Group, wealth, skyscraper

Id: 5zzbv3t-C_Q

Length: 11min 45sec (705 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 10 2023

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[u/Being_Nice_Account]

Obvious scam is obvious.

[u/ohcharmingostrichwhy]

Why do billionaires do anything? The answer is always the same: for their own gain. They’re greedy, self-centered parasites and don’t care about anyone except for themselves and people who help them get ahead. They especially don’t care about people with low incomes.

[u/MagnetFist]

Have you guys heard of E.P.C.O.T.? That's very similar to this city, except it was from the 50's