America is rolling out the blueprints for the next era of cities

The Future. Billionaires believe they can bring city-living into the future… and are putting their money where their mouth is with new projects like Telosa, Belmont, and Starbase. Although smart cities have hit major hurdles in recent years, these visionaries may have enough money, foresight, and, let’s face it, hubris to actually break ground.

Breaking imagination
Axios has the rundown on several ambitious smart city plans that could change how we work, play, and live.

• Telosa. Billionaire Marc Lore recently announced that the city would be built in the desert in either Nevada, Arizona, or Utah and will eventually house five million people. The green city will be split into 36 districts that each act as “15-minute cities” — areas where every necessity is available to residents a short walk away from where they live.
• Belmont. Bill Gates plans to build the city near Phoenix, Arizona, after buying 24,800 acres for $80 million in 2017. The city would be outfitted entirely with smart technology, including city-wide WiFi, autonomous vehicles, and “hi-tech” manufacturing facilities.
• Starbase. Having already moved SpaceX out there, Elon Musk is forcefully remaking Boca Chica, Texas, into his own space-focused smart city. Modeled after the classic company towns of the 70s, don’t be surprised if Musk uses Starbase as a testing ground for new endeavors (Boring tunnel, when?).

Metro update
Smart cities are also underway around the world.

• Toyota is building Woven City in Japan to test autonomous vehicles, robot-assisted living, and other cutting-edge technologies.
• New details emerged of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s The Line (part of a bigger smart city project called Neom), which will be a 105-mile long horizontal, mirrored skyscraper.
• The city of Busan, South Korea, is piloting a neighborhood called the Eco Delta Smart Village to test various technologies and other living innovations it could one day adopt for all its citizens.

Although every single one of these projects is still in its most nascent stages, we may soon have a lot of new options for where to live in the decades to come.