Brave new whirl: Billionaire says he’s taking a shot at creating utopian city in US

(NEXSTAR) — In the utopian city of the future, school, work and your local shops will all be less than 15 minutes away from your home. That home will be in an unidentified location in a city of five million that doesn’t yet exist on any map.

The future city of Telosa is the brainchild of Jet.com founder Marc Lore, who later worked as an executive for Walmart. Lore envisions a completely new, sustainable city to be launched with roughly 1 million people by the end of the decade. According to the project website, the city would grow sustainably over the next 40 years to encompass 150,000 acres and house 5 million people.

Lore says the city will be centered around a new iteration of capitalism he calls “equitism,” the idea that the whole society shares in success equally, rather than a model in which success for a few fosters a growing equality gap. The word Telosa refers to the Greek concept of something fulfilling its highest intended purpose.

“When I look out 30 years from now, I imagine equitism serving as a blueprint for other cities and even the world,” Lore says on the Telosa website.

The proposal is backed by futuristic city renderings by Bjarke Ingels Group, known for creating innovative housing complexes in Denmark and New York, as well as major Google office projects.  

According to the website, the city would employ autonomous vehicles and focus on a density that ensures a high quality of life while keeping conveniences close.

There are still quite a few details of the project to be resolved, not the least of which is a reported $400 billion in funding needed to build out the city.

There’s also the matter of where Telosa will be built. According to the New York Post, Lore’s team is scouting Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Arizona, Texas and the “Appalachian region” as possible sites.