Welcome to Telosa: the $400 billion city built from scratch
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The city of Telosa: where everyone is equal, the future is sustainable, the opportunities are innovative and the city is for everyone. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">While this utopian city sounds like the perfect place to live, it doesn’t actually exist yet. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Telosa is the latest project from former Walmart executive and e-commerce billionaire Marc Lore, who wants to create the world’s first “woke” city from scratch. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">He unveiled his elaborate plans with an </span><a href="https://cityoftelosa.com/#telosa"><span style="font-weight: 400;">interactive website</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, where he explains that the name Telosa comes from the Ancient Greek word Telos, meaning “highest purpose.”</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“The mission of Telosa is to create a more equitable, sustainable future. That’s our North Star,” Lore said in a promotional video. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“We are going to be the most open, the most fair and the most inclusive city in the world.”</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The city will run to Lore’s unique economic vision that he dubs “Equitism” in which the land upon which the city is built will be donated to a community endowment.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“If you went into the desert where the land was worth nothing, or very little, and you created a foundation that owned the land, and people moved there and tax dollars built infrastructure and we built one of the greatest cities in the world, the foundation could be worth a trillion dollars,” Lore told </span><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-09-01/how-diapers-com-founder-marc-lore-plans-to-build-utopian-city-telosa"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Bloomberg Businessweek</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“And if the foundation’s mission was to take the appreciation of the land and give it back to the citizens in the form of medicine, education, affordable housing, social services: Wow, that’s it!”</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The city aims to tackle America’s rapidly growing wealth gap, which Lore believes is “going to bring down America”.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“While the current economic system is a growth engine, it has led to increasing inequality,” the project’s website explains. “Equitism is inclusive growth.”</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The beginning phase of the project will be built to accommodate 50,000 residents across roughly 1,500 acres at a cost of $25 billion, and is targeted for completion by 2030.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The project’s planners have yet to commit to a location for Telosa, but the website identifies Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Arizona, Texas and the Appalachian region as possible sites.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Digital renderings of the utopia show an expanse of space for pedestrians to stroll through the metropolis, as well as including aircrafts known as the electric “air taxi” start-up, in which Lore is a key investor. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Another image on the site shows a skyscraper called Equitism tower that houses elevated water storage, aeroponic farms and an energy-producing roof.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Despite the buzz about the unique city, Sarah Moser, an associate professor of geography at Montreal’s McGill University, puts Lore’s chances of success at roughly zero.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">She cites approximately 150 similar projects that have been pitched, and all resulted in failure. </span></p>
<p><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Image credits: cityoftelosa.com</span></em></p>
