Telosa is a proposed utopian

planned Planning is the process of thinking regarding the activities required to achieve a desired goal. Planning is based on foresight, the fundamental capacity for mental time travel. The evolution of forethought, the capacity to think ahead, is co ...

US city conceived by American billionaire Marc Lore and announced in September 2021. The project has a target population of 5 million people by 2050, with the first phase of construction expected to house 50,000. The location had initially not been chosen, with the project's planners intending for the city to be built on cheap land in

Appalachia Appalachia () is a cultural region in the Eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York State to northern Alabama and Georgia. While the Appalachian Mountains stretch from Belle Isle in Newfoundland and Labrador, Ca ...

or the

American West The Western United States (also called the American West, the Far West, and the West) is the region comprising the westernmost states of the United States. As American settlement in the U.S. expanded westward, the meaning of the term ''the Wes ...

desert A desert is a barren area of landscape where little precipitation occurs and, consequently, living conditions are hostile for plant and animal life. The lack of vegetation exposes the unprotected surface of the ground to denudation. About on ...

. The name Telosa is derived from the Ancient Greek word '' telos'', in this case meaning "purpose".

Planning

Telosa was conceived by former Walmart U.S. eCommerce president and billionaire Marc Lore. In a statement announcing his resignation from Walmart, Lore expressed his desire to construct a "city of the future" based on a "reformed version of capitalism". Lore refers to his design philosophy for the city as "equitism", described as "a new model for society, where wealth is created in a fair way... It's not burdening the wealthy; it's not increasing taxes. It is simply giving back to the citizens and the people the wealth that they helped create". Lore has hired the architectural firm

Bjarke Ingels Group Bjarke Ingels Group, often referred to as BIG, is a Copenhagen and New York based group of architects, designers and builders operating within the fields of architecture, urbanism, research and development. The office is currently involved in a ...

, owned by Danish architect

Bjarke Ingels Bjarke Bundgaard Ingels (; born 2 October 1974) is a Danish architect, founder and creative partner of Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG). In Denmark, Ingels became well known after designing two housing complexes in Ørestad: VM Houses and Mountain D ...

, to handle the proposed city's master planning.

Features

Telosa is planned to be a

15-minute city A 15-Minute City is a residential urban concept in which most daily necessities can be accomplished by either walking or cycling from residents' homes. The concept was popularized by Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo and inspired by French-Colombian scienti ...

, with workplaces, schools, and basic goods and services being within a 15-minute commute from residents' homes. Vehicles that are powered by

fossil fuels A fossil fuel is a hydrocarbon-containing material formed naturally in the Earth's crust from the remains of dead plants and animals that is extracted and burned as a fuel. The main fossil fuels are coal, oil, and natural gas. Fossil fuels ...

will not be permitted within the city, with an emphasis instead being placed upon walkability and the use of scooters,

bicycle A bicycle, also called a pedal cycle, bike or cycle, is a human-powered or motor-powered assisted, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, having two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A is called a cyclist, or bicyclist. Bic ...

s, and autonomous

electric vehicle An electric vehicle (EV) is a vehicle that uses one or more electric motors for propulsion. It can be powered by a collector system, with electricity from extravehicular sources, or it can be powered autonomously by a battery (sometimes cha ...

s. A massive

skyscraper A skyscraper is a tall continuously habitable building having multiple floors. Modern sources currently define skyscrapers as being at least or in height, though there is no universally accepted definition. Skyscrapers are very tall high-ris ...

, dubbed "Equitism Tower", is conceived to serve as a "beacon for the city". The skyscraper's projected features include space for water storage,

aeroponic Aeroponics is the process of growing plants in the air or mist environment without soil or an aggregate medium. The word "aeroponic" is derived from the Greek meanings of ''aer'' ("air") and ''ponos'' ("labour"). It is a subset of hydroponics, ...

farms, and a

photovoltaic Photovoltaics (PV) is the conversion of light into electricity using semiconducting materials that exhibit the photovoltaic effect, a phenomenon studied in physics, photochemistry, and electrochemistry. The photovoltaic effect is commercially us ...

roof. The proposed land ownership in the city is based on

Georgist Georgism, also called in modern times Geoism, and known historically as the single tax movement, is an economic ideology holding that, although people should own the value they produce themselves, the economic rent derived from land—including ...

principles, as advocated by political economist Henry George in his 1879 book '' Progress and Poverty''. Under the proposed rules, anyone would be licensed to build, keep or sell a home, building or any other structure, and residents would share ownership of the land under a community endowment.

Possible locations

The project's planners intend the city to be built on cheap

land in a location not yet decided , with Utah, Idaho, Nevada, Arizona, Texas, and

proposed as potential locations.

Reception

Writing in

Timeout.com ''Time Out'' is a global magazine published by Time Out Group. ''Time Out'' started as a London-only publication in 1968 and has expanded its editorial recommendations to 328 cities in 58 countries worldwide. In 2012, the London edition becam ...

in September 2021, Ed Cunningham stated that "the blueprint designs are, depending on your taste, either dazzlingly utopian or unsettlingly dystopian. There’s plenty of innovative architecture on display, alongside futuristic visions of public transport and spaces filled with greenery and nature." It has been criticized as being an unrealistic vanity project which would be less sustainable than building upon existing urban areas.

References

External links