Belmont arizona smart city

BILL GATES TO BUILD 'SMART CITY'One of Bill Gates' investment firms has spent $80 million to kickstart the development of a brand-new community in the 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.Ronald Schott, executive emeritus at the Arizona Technology Council, says the land Gates' company purchased is in a good spot, in part due to the proposed I-11 freeway, which would run right through Belmont and connect to Las Vegas."Bill Gates is known for innovation and those kind of things and I think he picked the right place. He's coming to Arizona," Schott said.According to Belmont Partners, 3,800 acres will go towards office, commercial and retail space. Then, 470 acres will be used for public schools. Plus, there's room for 80,000 residential units."Comparable in square miles and projected population to Tempe, Arizona, Belmont will transform a raw, blank slate into a purpose-built edge city built around a flexible infrastructure model," said Belmont Properties."Finally Arizona's getting recognized for being a place for innovation," added Schott.So far, there's no word on when construction will start.

With everything and nothing everywhere," BIG architect Bjarke Ingels said on-stage at CES, according to the transcript. "So we started by splitting the typical street into three separate forms of mobility."The streets will consist of faster transportation such as the AVs, an urban promenade for pedestrians and slower forms of mobility and ​a pedestrian-only parkway. The streets will form grids of 3x3 city blocks surrounding a park or courtyard.Much of the city's infrastructure will be underground, including hydrogen fuel cells and water filtration systems, along with a network for autonomous goods delivery that connects to the above-ground buildings. Homes will be equipped with cutting-edge technologies such as sensor-based AI to check residents' health and enhance their lives.The city is designed with sustainability in mind. Rooftops will have solar panels to supplement the underground hydrogen power, buildings will be constructed primarily of wood and hydroponics and native species will be installed throughout the city.Building a city from the ground up carries the benefit of installing the latest technologies and not having to worry about compatibility or retrofits with aging infrastructure. But it also bears the burden of a substantial capital investment all at once, rather than incrementally building on previous infrastructure over time, as traditional cities do.Other manufactured smart cities have been proposed, but so far none have come to fruition. In fall 2017, a Bill Gates investment firm made an $80 million land purchase in Arizona on which he proposed building a smart city called Belmont. While the location offers ample opportunities for solar energy, questions have arisen about the feasibility of building a new city in a water-strapped area.A plan has been in the works since at least 2016 to develop the Gramercy District smart city in Loudoun County, VA. However, little work has occurred on that site, and

Long-time subscriber “Russ” writes: I think Bill Gates is onto something with his desert community; too bad everyone else doesn’t seem to feel the same way. Any thoughts on that subject? It’s at its infancy.Sorry to be argumentative, but here are mine:Bill Gates bought 25K acres of the Arizona desert west of Phoenix in which he plans to build a model “smart city,” featuring high-speed internet, “connected infrastructure” (ubiquitous IoT, I guess), and driverless cars.From this article: “(The city) will create a forward-thinking community with a communication and infrastructure spine that embraces cutting-edge technology, designed around high-speed digital networks, data centres, new manufacturing technologies and distribution models, autonomous vehicles and autonomous logistics hubs,” said a statement from Belmont Partners, according to 12 News. Roughly 3,800 acres will be devoted to office, commercial, and retail space, while 470 acres will be set aside for public schools. Around 80,000 residences will also be created, forming a population of approximately 182,000.I won’t be one of those 182,000 people; I can assure you of that.For the life of me, I don’t see the point in this project.First of all, building a “model city” should include an intelligent thought process for site selection. Why put it where the demand for air conditioning requires vast amounts of stuff (at a minimum, solar PV, batteries, and air conditioning units) to make it habitable? Why put it where it requires lots of travel-miles to get to and from it, when there are open spaces in temperate climates all over the U.S. that would make much better choices?Second, let’s ask some questions: Don’t we already know that smart cities, especially those built from the ground up, offer huge advantages in terms of environmental footprint? (Yes.) Will residents enjoy some incremental utility associated with needing a dozen eggs and having them show up in three minutes? (I suppose.) Per the above, do we need another city in the desert, where summer temperatures are routinely over 120 degrees F? (No.)Further questions include: Does our civilization face existential threats that have very little to do with this project? (Absolutely.) Shouldn’t billionaire philanthropists, especially ones of Gates’ intellect and horsepower, be focusing on averting global catastrophe? (I leave that to the reader to decide, but you can guess where I stand.)