Bill Gates buys land in Arizona to build 'smart city'
Reading more about Disney's EPCOT is quite inspiring and almost felt ahead of its time. We Americans should experiment more and build towns and cities under a different set of assumptions other than cars and gasoline. Why hasn't the past half century been filled with at least trying new things? What happened to <i>laboratories of democracy</i>?<p>Although I admit I have a <i>slight</i> repulsion to the thought of a few billionaires being able to wield almost complete autonomy, and assuredly the tech billionaires have a vested interest to build these cities such that the inhabitants depend on their technology (e.g. what would happen if Google built a city, and look how convenient it is that the ISP is Google Fiber, with Google self-driving cars servicing the roads, etc.).<p>In any case, I wish any effort to re-think how we build towns and cities the best of luck, because it feels like to me we've been grasping this (failing) strategy of car-addiction for far too long now, and it's draining our society financially, environmentally, and socially.