This may seem like one of Philip K. Dick’s two nightmares, but it’s actually a new project identified by American e-commerce entrepreneur Mark Lore, who previously served as president and chief executive of Walmart’s online shopping division. Full of Silicon Valley techno-utopianism, Lore is now focused on creating a new metropolis that is more inclusive, more accessible, more sustainable, and ultimately more livable than today’s Grammy megacities.
A tech billionaire wants to create a utopian megacity – immersed in the spirit of hypercapitalism and sustainability – from somewhere in the United States.
The name of the proposed city refers to Telosa, Aristotle, a word used by “Telosa”, meaning something like “perfection or higher purpose”. Just this week, the project unveiled three digital concept designs for the city, produced by the Danish architecture firm, Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), which is ready to design the metropolis. According to the Tolosa website, one location has not yet been secured – but possibilities include Nevada, Utah, Idaho, and Arizona, Texas, or the Appalachian region. The city aims to have an area of 150,000 acres and a home to 5 million people by 2060. It is roughly like San Francisco with a population density of about 33 people per acre.
“Imagine Telosa being as vibrant and diverse as New York City, combined with efficiency, safety and cleanliness like Tokyo, combined with the social services and sustainability of a city like Stockholm.” “All we’re trying to do is bring together the best of the world’s cities and bring it together,” Lore said in a promotional video outlining his plans.
Sustainability is an important issue in Tolosa. Referring to concerns about climate change, Lore said the city aims to be powered by a renewable energy system and freshwater will be stored, cleaned, and reused on-site. The urban environment plans to show plenty of green space for its residents. “Equitism,” Ian Rand is the child of a kind of love of capitalism and the Nordic model, another central concept of the project. It’s not clear exactly how this will work, but it looks like every citizen will have “a share of the land” and the city will effectively be owned by one community. Lore added: “If you could pay the same tax today, could you get the best social services in any country in the world? That’s fair.”
