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Bill Gates Just Bought 25,000 Acres in the Arizona Desert (kgw.com)
What's the world's second-richest man up to now? A Phoenix news station reports:
One of Bill Gates' investment firms has spent $80 million to kickstart the development of a brand-new community in Arizona's far West Valley. The large plot of land is about 45 minutes west of downtown Phoenix off I-10 near Tonopah. The proposed community, made up of close to 25,000 acres of land, is called Belmont. According to Belmont Partners, a real estate investment group based in Arizona, the goal is to turn the land into its own "smart city."
"Belmont will create a forward-thinking community with a communication and infrastructure spine that embraces cutting-edge technology, designed around high-speed digital networks, data centers, new manufacturing technologies and distribution models, autonomous vehicles and autonomous logistics hubs," Belmont Partners said in a news release.
A former columnist for the Phoenix newspaper writes that "Unless Gates plans to turn the land into a preserve, he might want to know a few things that the locals didn't tell him..." First, Arizona doesn't have enough water to continue these kind of developments, no matter what the mouthpieces of the Real Estate Industrial Complex say... Second, climate change poses a clear and present danger to Arizona now. Summers are significantly hotter and lasting longer than a few decades ago. Massive wildfires are common, another new phenomenon. Whether Phoenix will even be inhabitable by mid-century is an open question. Already, it is a man-made environment totally dependent on electricity to power air conditioning and gasoline delivered by vulnerable pipelines. All of which make it questionable whether all the dreamed developments ever get built, much less last long.
"To be fair, wealthy people who were clever in one area -- especially tech -- often think they know a lot about everything," the columnist concludes. "If this is the case here, he might want to study up."
"Belmont will create a forward-thinking community with a communication and infrastructure spine that embraces cutting-edge technology, designed around high-speed digital networks, data centers, new manufacturing technologies and distribution models, autonomous vehicles and autonomous logistics hubs," Belmont Partners said in a news release.
A former columnist for the Phoenix newspaper writes that "Unless Gates plans to turn the land into a preserve, he might want to know a few things that the locals didn't tell him..." First, Arizona doesn't have enough water to continue these kind of developments, no matter what the mouthpieces of the Real Estate Industrial Complex say... Second, climate change poses a clear and present danger to Arizona now. Summers are significantly hotter and lasting longer than a few decades ago. Massive wildfires are common, another new phenomenon. Whether Phoenix will even be inhabitable by mid-century is an open question. Already, it is a man-made environment totally dependent on electricity to power air conditioning and gasoline delivered by vulnerable pipelines. All of which make it questionable whether all the dreamed developments ever get built, much less last long.
"To be fair, wealthy people who were clever in one area -- especially tech -- often think they know a lot about everything," the columnist concludes. "If this is the case here, he might want to study up."
"First, Arizona doesn't have enough water to continue these kind of developments,"
Just if for some reason you want to have lawns around each house, that ship has sailed, not only in Arizona.
"Summers are significantly hotter and lasting longer than a few decades ago."
Great! The solar roofs on every house and garage will like that. That's one of the reasons they chose Arizona.
"Massive wildfires are common, another new phenomenon. "
That's why they chose the desert, with no trees, no fires.
"Already, it is a man-made environment totally dependent on electricity to power air conditioning "
Yes, great for solar and no heating in winter, what's not to like?
"and gasoline delivered by vulnerable pipelines."
Gasoline? This is new 21th century, nobody needs gasoline anymore. These people will drive Teslas, not F150s.
Extracting water from the air would only work at all during summer monsoon, which is from early July through early September. The rest of the year, the air is so dry that the adjacent nuclear plant is the only nuke in the world that uses desert air as a heat sink, rather than a large body of water. It gets a boost from Phoenix municipal sewage.
And people are saying the people already living there are in trouble. Not enough water, requires a lot of energy just to stay livable by our modern standards, and on top of that it's going to be far from work so that means even more energy to move people back and forth between home and work twice a day.
Sure, but of the 200K years mankind's footprint has been expanding on the planet, most of it has been spent exploiting the rich natural reserves of the planet.
The conservation of (and stretching of) resources has arguably only advanced in times of extreme shortage. The exponential growth (intended) of crop yields to keep feeding a booming population is but one example. People are resourceful, intelligent creatures for the most part, yet often complacent unless propelled by hardship.
It's not Arrakis, but living in desert cities has already prompted water conservation and recycling unheard of a few generations ago.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
New Jersey is not that bad.
Digressing here, but New Jersey is a state of incredible contrasts. The northern part is "which exit you live at" land, and the one most people think of. Urban AF. Then going south it becomes pine forests and a lot less population density, finally ending in Cape May, which is exceptionally different.
And in the meantime, they somehow produce enough food to support Chris Christie, and you know that can't be easy.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.