City 2.0

What if new cities were designed from scratch with modern technoligy and scientific knowledge?

At the Realist - we believe the structural design of cities has not really changed for 2600 years since the Cloaca Maxima transformed Rome. A fabulous accomplishment among all species on the planet.

But what have we done lately? Why do we keep adding on, endlessly, inefficiently, unproductively to existing cities?

Why do hundreds of millions of people, many educated and affluent, suffer "mind-numbing traffic" and breathe breathe polluted air?

Elon Musk described Los Angeles traffic as "mind-numbing." Drive from the valley to Wilshire blvd. on Laurel, Coldwater or Benedict Canyons and you will pass some of the most expensive real estate in the world. It has steadily risen in price and population density while the quality of life it offers has synchronistically declined. Real Estate speculators have relentlessly targeted first tier cities around globe  - Paris to Lima to Shanghai - while spreading a knock-on effect to 2nd and 3rd tier cities, villages and resort areas that also cost more and offer less.  

Why do billions of people, including the educated and affluent elite,  suffer roommates,  "mind-numbing traffic" and breathing dirty air?

The evolution of the worlds nations leading cities for the past centuries makes no sense. Imagine building a starship designed for 900 people and cramming 3000 into it just before launch. From Jakarta to Manila to London - this is exactly what we as civilization have done - driven by fear, greed and stupidity.

We  offer here one solution here:

City 2.0 - A bi-terranean new city - designed and built from scratch with current technology. This is similar to the type of city of 1 million Space X would have to build in the future on Mars to attain its dream. However, on earth, it could be build now.

It would feature:

zero traffic
little to no air-pollution
zero to near zero carbon footprint
a planned and fixed capacity
an affordable and high quality of life

our City 2.0 also proposes something radical but logical -- using the private sector not just governments to create new cities. Rental only cities devoid of speculation - other than reasonable longterm returns like one gets on bonds - run as REITs. And governments can easily play along, the more the better - but we would also like to see privately owned and managed cities. Corporatist hell? That's defacto what we've got now. Putting aside the glarimg flaws of the post pandemic franchise hotel chain model - before that - no one found it tyrannical to stay in a nice hotel that was fairly and reliably priced. REIT cities could offer that - and their residents could be majority shareholders.  

Privately held, for-profit or non-profit cities would be similar to REITs. And public or private, if they are comfortable, safe, and pleasant to live in at a reasonable cost - people will fill them. If they are not - they won't come or won't stay.