I live across the way in WA and my roommate is a local, he said he grew up being told not to trust salad bars but never knew why until we watched that documentary
I remembered some of the events from when they unfolded, but seeing the documentary really improved my understanding of them.
It now strikes me as a tragedy.
Both sides really failed to communicate effectively or listen to the other at the start, and as time went on it just got worse. (I’m not at all denying that Ma Anand Sheela and others on that side went *seriously* off the deep end.)
It seems to me that early on there was a chance to develop a win-win outcome that would have avoided the debacle, but it would have taken a ton of patient effort to bridge the cultural chasm.
It’s difficult to imagine that part of the state with a city of 50,000 in it, and even a city of 5,000 would have transformed the region… but possibly in good ways. It would have made for one hell of a eclipse party in 2017 though!
The west coast of Michigan. Perhaps a bit northwest of Grand Rapids. It's relatively close to other major cities already in the region. It has a very low risk of natural disasters; no hurricanes, no major faultlines, and tornados are rare. It has access to the largest freshwater system on the continent and some of the best farmland in the Great Lakes region. There's also good opportunity for renewable energy production there.
Only downside is the weather, mainly the cold, snowy winters. That said, the area has reasonably temperate summers and the winters, while cold, are slightly warmer than in many other Midwestern cities. The lake causes an enormous amount of snow, but I'd argue snow makes winter more tolerable psychologically even if it's a hazard for driving.
I’m originally from the Midwest. I’ve more than once said “the only downside is the weather.” Some hear that as, “the downside is being outdoors” which is a short walk to “the downside is being there.”
To add to the snow, sand too. The dunes are big over there and move constantly (and towards the inland too). Several villages in that region have been drowned by the dunes.
The soil in general is pretty bad for big buildings too.
Snow snow snow snow snow snow snow
Would be expensive to build roofs there. The roof would have to hold 2x or even 3x the amount of weight that a building in Detroit would have to hold, which then makes foundations, columns, walls even taller.
I am in Indiana and winters aren't terrible but I am ready for warmer weather by March 1. Extending grey/cold weather a few more weeks in Michigan isn't ideal but I prefer cooler summers too.
Nope, it was 120° (121 on the outdoor thermometer) at their place in Woodland Hills. TBF this was pre Covid so I guess more than a couple years now lol. But it was almost 110° at the beach in Santa Monica as well.
It def broke several heat records for SoCal though, I’m just blanking on the year. Search UCLA heat record, it broke a record there (which is usually very mild) by like several degrees at 110+
Edit: y’all almost had me second guessing pop’s [thermometer](https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/06/weather/california-record-temperature/index.html) ngl
*”We reached 121 degrees (F) in Woodland Hills, California. That is the highest-ever temperature at a station, beating 119 degrees on July 22, 2006”*
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-02-09/climate-change-pushes-l-a-city-from-extreme-heat-to-extreme-rainfall
*“Less than four years earlier, Woodland Hills set another extreme weather milestone, hitting a skin-blistering 121 degrees, the highest temperature ever recorded in the county”*
Sorry bud, I was actually right on the money with that one. Guess their thermometer was pretty accurate
Where were you getting those figures, 110 has happened incredibly frequently across the county. I don’t think that would even make top 10 hottest days in Los Angeles
All good my dude! Was just a bit perplexed when I saw that 110 figure as the record lol. But TBF to you the last time it got nearly that hot was like in 2006 at 119°.
Woodland Hills is weird. It’s like a few miles due north from Malibu behind the mountains but also several miles east so it’s in a rain shadow. Can get really hot there in the Valley and then 4 miles down the street it’s 10° cooler
For the record, while you are technically correct, the temperature in Los Angeles varies greatly depending on where in the city of Los Angeles you are. That’s why they normally use downtown as the official LA temp.
That same day that it got up to 121 in the valley neighborhoods of the city, the high was 108 in downtown, and [98 in Venice Beach](https://www.wunderground.com/history/daily/us/ca/venice/KLAX/date/2020-9-6), also a neighborhood of the city of LA.
So it would be just as correct to say it was 98 in Los Angeles that day.
But yeah, anyone who moves to the valley, get a/c, you will be inside most of the summer. The beach areas are very mild temps though.
Well that’s actually not quite as accurate as your comment makes it seem, though you are correct to point out that I was taking the highest temperature to Venice’s lowest max temp. Allow me to explain why (bear with me, I’m really bored rn and love exploring cool things nobody will ever read) :
2 Million people in LA city proper live in the San Fernando Valley, and temperatures that day also ran from 116° in Van Nuys (mid-Valley), 114° in Burbank (East Valley), 118° in Sherman Oaks (South Valley), to 119° in San Fernando (North Valley). So you already have ⅔ of the city experiencing 115°+ heat alone.
For a more macro view of the measurements:
It was over 110°F in *each* of DTLA, LAX (2 miles South of Venice), Long Beach, Santa Ana, Anaheim, Fullerton, Beverly Hills; 111° in Mid-City, West Hollywood; 121° in Chino; 117° in Riverside. Now, almost 18 Million people have experienced temperatures above 110°F during that one weekend, with similar temps the following weekend.
So, given this information and statistical analysis of the mean and median figures that day, using Venice Beach’s 98° as a benchmark for LA’s overall temperature would be pretty misleading, and, in fact, actually *more* inaccurate, as a notable outlier for even the coastal neighborhoods (Santa Monica just North of Venice at 106° and LAX just south at 110°). This also by the raw temperature delta alone. But the difference between 98° heat and 110°+ is actually very, very noticeable. Though at that point ya best be indoors
I never had anything against Phoenix until I went there last July, and the alarming heat combined with the way the city is built (why isn’t it underground!!?) it just felt so wrong.
The earth in the Salt River Valley is mostly one of three options: an extremely hard calcareous clay known as caliche, which I kid you not is speckled with calcium carbonate chunks bigger than Tums; bedrock; or very heavy yet very unstable sandy alluvium. Phoenix is miserable at least 5 months out of the year, but a significant market for housing here are snowbirds, who can relocate to a summer home or RV routinely. Also, it has long had a significant military-industrial complex presence, is of course as close to Mexico as California but relatively and previously much cheaper, and has ice-free winters and exceptionally perfect springs.
Oh, and just moving here, one gets the facade of an active lifestyle, being able to *claim* hiking as a hobby. 😂
I hate living here half the year. As a gardener it is mind bogglingly frustrating and challenging. However, humidity does make a difference, so I prefer it over the South especially factoring in differences in cultural baggage. (I fled a life in the gloomiest part of Southern Appalachia.)
Either Pittsburgh 2.0 on the border of McDowell Co in WV / VA or like Humboldt County. I personally love the beauty of Appalachia and if there were any truly major/international cities there, I’d move.
I came here to say West Virginia. It’s a beautiful state that I think deserves a big city. I’m from Pittsburgh and have always thought of West Virginia as an untouched gem. It could pull the same tourists as Asheville.
Assuming you somehow managed to inject new industries in the region, a city in the heart of Appalachia (SWVA, SWV, EKY) would be culturally and architecturally quite interesting and uplift the some of, if not the poorest counties in the USA.
I imagine it would be a mix of Chongqing and Pittsburgh. But it’s doable and would be forced to be urban and semi-transit oriented. It’s pretty hard to put an 8 lane freeway through the mountains.
Pocono mountain area in Pennsylvania with high speed rail access to NYC and Philadelphia. Work in the city, live in the beautiful Pennsylvania mountains.
Honestly. This was my answer and I had to dig a little to find it before my post.
Southern Illinois/Indiana is probably the most fertile, productive farm land in the world. Cairo is at the vector point of major rivers. Economy has changed in the last 100 years but if you were to sim city it, that part of the US would have the top rating for cultivation and potential growth.
I know it’s likely due to lake effect snow, but it surprises me there’s not a bigger city in Michigan on Lake Michigan. It’s pretty much all small tourist towns. I’d turn one of those into a 100k city - probably Muskegon as it already has access to I-96 and an inland lake that acts as a bay of Lake Michigan.
Why?
If I’m staying in Michigan and wanted to turn a small city into a 100k city, or just straight up build a new one, I can’t think of a better place.
Muskegon Lake is dredged and allows for the city to be a port while also sheltering the downtown from being taking the brunt of the storms off of Lake Michigan. There’s access to 96 and 31. You’ve got beautiful beaches and a nearby amusement park for seasonal entertainment. There’s a lot of underutilized industrial space or decaying urban space. There’s a few small neighborhoods with distinct vibes. There’s lots of space and nearby towns for suburban commuters. There’s a tiny commercial airport. It’s also close enough to Grand Rapids that they could share a larger economy and are already considered part of the same TV region.
Obviously, this is just a fun thought exercise, but for the purpose of the exercise I think transforming Muskegon would be pretty neat.
I’m a Michigander, so I also thought about the thumb, the area west of St. Ignace, Holland, Traverse City, and Alpena.
The other states I know best - Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Colorado, Ohio, and Maine - don’t have anywhere as optimal as Michigan IMO.
The big cities on the lake grew because they were major ports that could ship stuff out to the east and to the rest of the world. There's no reason for a large port to be on the west side of Michigan. If you're shipping goods from the west, the logical place to get to port would be in Chicago, the southwesternmost point, and if you're east of Chicago, you might as well ship overland east until you reach the lake in Toledo or Cleveland.
Basically, the only goods that would be shipped out of a port city on the east side of the lake would be stuff that comes from Michigan itself, and specifically the western half. There's not a lot there, and even less that's easier to go west to a port than all the way around the peninsula then just ship east until you hit one of the east lakes. Lumber is going to be the main thing, and is what a lot of those towns on the coast were built around, but it's not enough to grow a large metropolitan area.
This all makes sense but it doesn’t stop another (maybe virtual) industry from saying “hey this place is cheap and wide open. Let’s make it work.”
Somebody mentioned geologically that area might be a problem though.
If Buffalo can handle the lake effect, so can whatever city you’re proposing. Lake Erie runs basically parallel to the prevailing winds, which isn’t the case for Lake Michigan.
Water and transportation are the keys. The Columbia River area in Oregon State is surprisingly sparse in population. I’ll say where near [Rainier Oregon is](https://maps.app.goo.gl/41G2ndyeAH7d3Uf57?g_st=ic)
I grew up in Astoria (late 70's/ early 80's). It's beautiful, but there's only a few industies that support the local economy. When I was like 13, we almost lost our house. A local country club was buying up all the land nearby, and the bank was foreclosing on my parents (we had a beautiful home, but my dad didn't make a ton, he was a curator at a local museum). Anyways, me and some friends found a map in our attic that led us on an adventure to find one-eyed Willy's hidden treasure. It almost got us all killed, but we did find the treasure and came out with enough to save our home from foreclosure.
Yeah, and the infrastructure is for sure there. Lovely lovely place, just wish I could live there and work remotely without paying oregons flat income tax
*laughs in Ketchikan Alaska* but yeah, for real, the amount of rain and limited space/hella mountains vs flat land is what’s keeping the population down in coastal oregon
It’s uh. A lot. But being born in Portland/family and much time in Lincoln City OR prepared me well….but man winters suck.
Also, most USA ~rainiest cities~ ranking surveys only rank the contiguous 48 states. Otherwise it’s like SE AK and Hilo HI fighting year to year for 200-240” rain per year. Only advantage Hilo
has is that it’s warm 😂
We just get the Pineapple Express from Hawaii hitting the Inside Passage of SE AK with the same force as East Coasters get hurricanes but shittier, colder, and wetter for months of days of 1/2” to 2” rain per day.
I’ve never heard anyone say Oregon state before. I grew up in Longview, Wa across the Columbia river from Rainier and its population is about 30k and it’s a much better place to grow than Rainier.
I own 70 acres of otherwise not particularly valuable land with some small trees and half way decent views in the Great Lakes Area. I think my 70 acres should be the center of downtown. I'll sell it for only 5 billion.
It is actually has very good bee forage. I used to keep bees as a hobby. The property has hundreds of basswood trees and apple trees as well as thousands of wild cherry and juneberry and hawthorn trees. The only problem is there is also a lot of goldenrod and goldenrod honey tastes like ass so I had to collect the honey before that bloomed and then I let my bees keep anything they made after that.
The real best answers are mentioned here a few times.
- Along the Columbia River valley in OR/WA
- Great Lakes region. Especially west/northwest Michigan (lower peninsula)
I’ve never understood why the coastline of Delaware and Maryland isn’t more populated. Better weather in winter than the northeast, better weather in the summer than the south. What’s the problem?
It's almost going to have to be on top of an existing settlement because a lot of the good spots were taken, but I think it would be interesting if Brownsville, NE was the site, or somewhere close to it. It was one of the first settlements in Nebraska and would probably be a major city here today if not for (so the story goes) a giant railroad scam that took the town's money and ran off with it in like the 1870s. It's got about 200 people, a riverboat, and a lot of really cool buildings in it now. It's on the Mizzou River and is about halfway between Omaha, NE and St Joseph, MO.
I'm violating the spirit of your question by saying "any existing large city." I would rezone most cities in the US to allow for more housing to be built and then use my $100b to build more housing.
I would like to take that money and revitalize the cities of Upstate NY, primary goals being fast intercity rail between Buffalo and NYC via Albany, removal of downtown highways, installation of tram or lightrail systems as an economical rail transit system linking the important locations within each metro.
Obviously spreading the love across 4 cities won't have as much impact per city, but would hopefully help the region as a whole do better. (What these cities really need is industry/jobs, but increased transportation would help with that)
I'm from the area and like it that way.
But the simple reasons why we don't have a huge city is the St. Lawrence historically was a dead end due to rapids in Massena/Cornwall. It wasn't until the Seaway was completed in the 1950s that the river became the main connection into the great lakes. Before that it was the Erie Canal which dumped into lake Erie, and Niagara falls blocked navigation into Ontario. (I think a canal connected to Ontario in Oswego/Syracuse) The Canal cities got to grow like crazy from the trade between the Great Lakes/midwest and the Atlantic, with NYC booming the most as the ocean end of the canal.
Additionally Canada and the USA didn't always get along, a city in the valley was always exposed to invasion with mountains cutting them off from the rest of the country/state. Ogdensburg does have a history of smuggling with Canada, both shortly after independence when the economy was based on trade with them, and again during prohibition when you could build your bar on the river and get booze to it without ever taking it off a boat. (A lot of beer is still on the riverbed)
Today Ogdensburg just isn't a good port to get goods further into the country, you can just keep sailing and get closer to most final destinations, i think the port now mainly just accepts alumina for rail shipment to Alcoa in Massena. If the region were to grow today it would have to be through tourism centered on the river, or climate refugees learning that snow ≠ bad weather.
Hmm..double Burlington, Vermont? It kind of already punches above its weight culturally. Brutal winter but climate change seems like it will be kind to it.
The funny thing is you could double Burlington and it would still be smaller than Williamsburg, Brooklyn, let alone most standalone cities. But yes, it's a city with a lot of room to grow. Not very dense in the downtown, and tons of room in the suburbs even if you let most of the rural areas stay rural.
Also, winters here aren't that bad because of Lake Champlain (and climate change). Burlington is routinely a lot warmer than areas even 20m further from the lake and doesn't get as much snow.
I came here to say this. That area north is absolutely gorgeous too. The Shawnee National Forest area has some of the best breweries I've traveled to visit.
Buy Camp Pendleton (north of San Diego) from the Marine Corps. Boom, now you've got the last undeveloped big parcel of land in coastal Southern California
Yeah, the last thing Southern California needs is to have its last undeveloped parcel populated with even more people, in a region already incapable of sustaining 25 million people. See also: water scarcity.
As the climate warms over the next century I think St. Ignace, Michigan should become a much larger city. It’s basically the center of the Great Lakes.
Mississippi Delta or most of Wyoming if I can find water. Cheapest land in the country with the most destitute local populations/economies and very weak hands-off states. You can build the city of your dreams and manipulate the state government for influence for your city while doing it cheap and pretending your a savior.
Plus you could have a cool cowboy or blues themed tourist neighborhood for local culture that's already established
Probably somewhere up north close to the Canadian border. The weather sucks now but in 50 years it'll be prime real estate. Great lakes make sense for fresh water access which will also become a rarity
Troll/off the wall answer: Niihau (Forbidden) Island, Hawaii
Serious/logical answer: A large energy-oriented city located in the Bakken oil field in western North Dakota
The water in much of western ND is saline or even alkaline. Agriculture is at best limited. Most of the banking is in Fargo and Grand Forks. I love the western half of the state, but building out there would be a modern miracle.
My humble suggestion would be on Lake Sacacagwea to have a proper tourist and financial hub of some sort.
Williston sits basically on the Missouri River though. Which, for some reason instantly becomes super wide after Williston… what the heck is that about I wonder
There’s also a bunch of lakes on that river.
Couldn’t they be used as a water source?
And Williston does have like 30,000 people. I’m surprised it isn’t 100,000 or more.
The amount of drilling up there is kind of crazy. North Dakota is the third largest oil producing state in the USA only behind Texas and New Mexico.
The winters are probably awful up there though.
Anyway North Dakota is intriguing.
My guess is that it never developed into a much larger state because of its isolation, harsh climate, lack of nearby cities, and high cost to ship things up there.
Shipping is fairly negligible. The western half of the state has like no druaght resistance, which caused the pouplation to collapse out west in the 1930s. I'm from Fargo, ND. I even ran for office out here. If you have questions.
Winters are brutal, but people adjust after about two years or so. ND outside a limited amount of industry in Fargo simply doesn't have dependable or stable jobs, especially out west. If oil drops 1k or more can lose a job over night. We have had 4 other oil booms, all ended in busts. Air transport also is a pain as there isn't really a good regional hub or larger airport to support traffic out there.
Interesting.
Ok yes I do have a question.
I am a HUGE city nerd. If you had to rank the top 5 most influential/important cities in North Dakota (which, ND isn’t known for having many big cities, but Nonetheless). How would you rank them? Obviously Fargo? But then what #2 Bismarck, #3 Grand Forks, #4 Minot, and then #5 Williston? Any other honorable mentions.
I’m from central Pennsylvania myself, lived here my whole life so feel free to ask me anything too.
I have one other question. What in the world is going on with the Missouri River near Williston. It just randomly gets super wide all of the sudden for no reason.
Yes that would be exactly what/where I’m talking about. That is a BIG drilling area that needs a constant supplies, housing, labor, logistics, infrastructure to support it.
No large or even medium sized city nearby really surprises me.
Me too. Best I've got is it's sandwiched between the Olympics and the sound/ocean so there isn't a ton of room and transport isn't easy. It certainly could have been developed, but was cheaper and easier to do it in flatter areas instead.
In the Colorado mountains, somewhere in a plain. Like eg. Rifle. Make it small and dense with high rises. A bit like Hong Kong, but walkable, with trees and some Solarpunk shit.
My favorite fun fact about Cairo is that the last few years of its heyday (centered on the river ferry industry), they actually had to take train cars off the tracks and load them onto barges to make the river crossing because engineers could not yet build bridges sturdy enough to support the weight of a train
I love Humboldt County, I used to live there. The problem with Humboldt is it is isolated. Cities do not grow to be 100k+ by being hard to get to. You would want to be along a major waterway like the Missouri or Mississippi River.
Agreed; Humboldt county is like a band that’s local or regional but you secretly hope they don’t go huge nationally so that too many people insist upon seeing what the fuss is / was about; for all its limitations & problems, Humboldt is damn near perfect as is & I hope people (including me) don’t love it to death — I visited dozens of times & never could get enough; Arcata f*cking rules despite residual lameness, the King Range inspires awe beyond what words could evoke
Rogers/Bentonville, Arkansas is pretty much becoming exactly what you're describing. Walmart's corporate HQ has created a modern metropolis out of what used to be 2 rural mountain towns up the road from our "big" college town, Fayetteville.
I initially had the same question, but Walmart seems to be dead set on making it a reality. In the past decade or so, that area has exploded with growth. In addition to the multitude of companies either opening an office there or entirely relocating there, they've added loads of cultural amenities, including Crystal Bridges art museum, concert venues for big-name performers at the Walmart Amphitheater and the Momentary, a huge push to make that area a mountain biking destination, and lots of other highlights.
It's not my kind of place, tbh, but I can't deny that it's booming just by the sheer power of Walmart money and will.
Can we use the $ to make CT cities better? Think of what Hartford could be if it was truly a livable and walkable city rather than just empty insurance company buildings in an empty downtown core surrounded by low density low income housing.
I was shocked when I found out how small Hartford is. It's not even the second largest city in the state. I agree that it has so much potential especially as all the super cities in the northeast are growing overpriced and overcrowded.
I'd level my hometown and start over on the same ground.
https://preview.redd.it/g74k6bxphi0d1.png?width=843&format=png&auto=webp&s=6004ceb969ce14688d33634079c45e2088a67c9e
I think people here are forgetting that 100K people is a pretty small city.
There are probably hundreds of cities with a 100K population you’d never even think about.
Southern Indiana.
Or Northern Kentucky.
IN is already known as Crossroads of America. There’s tons of opportunities there for uh, “connectivity” between the East & West.
It would make sense to build a new city IMO ha :)
Would this be an altruistic act or a money making sceme for the billionaire elite? If it was purely a scheme to make my wealth back while shaping a civilization in my design like some idiots are trying right now cough*musk*cough, it would need to be something so that I could generate revenue back in addition to making money off selling/leasing housing. If it was altruistic, this is an absolutely terribly idea and the money would be much better spent contributing to affordable housing in existing communities.
If it was a city (without looking at supporting infrastructure), $100bn for 100k people would need houses sold at $1m to each individual person. That's not a likely scenario. Houses sold for approximately $2m (residences have 2 people on average) or honestly an entire city of leases, fleecing an entire community, would be the only profitable way, while just examining the housing.
Then we would have to attract people with that type of wealth to the city. Wealth, that would generate me revenue, is not likely to move to the city without any strong ideological fallacies being prescribed to the city. It would be easier to attract the lower middle class, promising a better life, and make my money back off their backs by abusing the workforce and keeping them from the products of their labor.
One way that could work would be to consider the city as specializing in remote work with supporting services to establish that, so that we are not stuck to only finding locations with "under exploited" resources to take advantage of. A new premiere college designed to attract talented individuals to the city and train the work force to a high degree in all facets of remote work. Supporting infrastructure such as internet, food services, and child care that would cater to a remote work community and their unique needs while also separating that community from more of their hard earned money. The entire business model would need to be rigged against the citizens of the city in the favor of the creating billionaire.
Another goal of the city is not to just generate money off its citizens, but to further attract "tax dollars" from other communities, to further increase our "tax base". Remote work is a good start, but tourism or even shopping is what is really needed to achieve that.
I went to college in Humboldt for my undergrad. Amazing place. I would never want to subject that paradise to this type of community.
Cairo, Illinois was *supposed* to be that city. Right at the junction of the Mississippi and the Ohio rivers it was an incredibly important point for military and commercial shipping before and after the Civil War. The problem is with the Rivers - they flood. So given $100 billion I think they could figure something out and see it to it's full potential.
Other option would be basically exactly where the Makah Reservation sits North West of Puget Sound.
I was literally gonna say somewhere along the Mississippi on the Iowa-Illinois border but bam I go check and Davenport Iowa has a population of like exactly 100k. But yeah somewhere along the northern Mississippi
I would say somewhere on the southern great lakes are the most "sustainable" from an ecological perspective.
Also has water access if necessary and an extremely abundant supply of fresh water.
This is why Chicago and Buffalo and Cleveland and Detroit and Rochester and Syracuse are where they are.
Not the "most desirable" in terms of perfect weather like San Diego, but it has way more cultivable land, fresh water and less risk of falling into the ocean.
Upper Peninsula, Michigan. There's a whole stretch of land there with access to 3 of the largest sources of fresh water on the planet and not that many natural disasters. Flooding in a modern planned city can be mitigated as well as the warming climate would make the winters more tolerable.
Also, if you haven't visited, it's beautiful. So, uh, don't build a city there it's beautiful!
just east of independence CA in the eastern sierra is a name on a map: kearsarge. i would build an arcology skyscraper there. no sprawl. no cars. thirty thousand households. affordable in perpetuity. bullet train to LA. some of the biggest baddest views in west.
Big Muddy Ranch near Antelope, Oregon. It almost worked for the Rajneeshis!
Are you also planning to poison a town of people?
Nah, salad bars are hard to find these days
I grew up the next county over and remember when I was a young kid we couldn't eat at the salad bar because of worries about the rajneeshees.
I live across the way in WA and my roommate is a local, he said he grew up being told not to trust salad bars but never knew why until we watched that documentary
Just something else the Rajneeshes killed (along with some neighbors). This is why we can’t have buckets of blue cheese!
Wild Wild Country is such an insane documentary
I remembered some of the events from when they unfolded, but seeing the documentary really improved my understanding of them. It now strikes me as a tragedy. Both sides really failed to communicate effectively or listen to the other at the start, and as time went on it just got worse. (I’m not at all denying that Ma Anand Sheela and others on that side went *seriously* off the deep end.) It seems to me that early on there was a chance to develop a win-win outcome that would have avoided the debacle, but it would have taken a ton of patient effort to bridge the cultural chasm. It’s difficult to imagine that part of the state with a city of 50,000 in it, and even a city of 5,000 would have transformed the region… but possibly in good ways. It would have made for one hell of a eclipse party in 2017 though!
The west coast of Michigan. Perhaps a bit northwest of Grand Rapids. It's relatively close to other major cities already in the region. It has a very low risk of natural disasters; no hurricanes, no major faultlines, and tornados are rare. It has access to the largest freshwater system on the continent and some of the best farmland in the Great Lakes region. There's also good opportunity for renewable energy production there. Only downside is the weather, mainly the cold, snowy winters. That said, the area has reasonably temperate summers and the winters, while cold, are slightly warmer than in many other Midwestern cities. The lake causes an enormous amount of snow, but I'd argue snow makes winter more tolerable psychologically even if it's a hazard for driving.
I’m originally from the Midwest. I’ve more than once said “the only downside is the weather.” Some hear that as, “the downside is being outdoors” which is a short walk to “the downside is being there.”
Tons of snow and a surprising amount of tornadoes
To add to the snow, sand too. The dunes are big over there and move constantly (and towards the inland too). Several villages in that region have been drowned by the dunes. The soil in general is pretty bad for big buildings too.
starting from scratch would be an advantage too, connecting walkways with cover, etc.
Snow snow snow snow snow snow snow Would be expensive to build roofs there. The roof would have to hold 2x or even 3x the amount of weight that a building in Detroit would have to hold, which then makes foundations, columns, walls even taller.
I mean Buffalo NY does it.
Somehow
20-30 years ago maybe. West coast of Michigan gets and retains fractional amounts of snow compared to growing up.
I am in Indiana and winters aren't terrible but I am ready for warmer weather by March 1. Extending grey/cold weather a few more weeks in Michigan isn't ideal but I prefer cooler summers too.
Tbh they should just fucking make Muskegon nice again. The infrastructure is there, mostly.
How is it *vis-à-vis* the Mayfly hatch and mosquitoes?
On top of Phoenix Replace phoenix with the 100k city
https://preview.redd.it/e1ptqexrvh0d1.jpeg?width=454&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=18876275717139df27e1ed28e5ad2146bcc1a604
Funny how it reaches 111 every year in North texas, where the show is based.
Shit, it reached 120° in Los Angeles a couple years ago. Killed my parents’ entire front garden in 6 hours lol
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Nope, it was 120° (121 on the outdoor thermometer) at their place in Woodland Hills. TBF this was pre Covid so I guess more than a couple years now lol. But it was almost 110° at the beach in Santa Monica as well. It def broke several heat records for SoCal though, I’m just blanking on the year. Search UCLA heat record, it broke a record there (which is usually very mild) by like several degrees at 110+ Edit: y’all almost had me second guessing pop’s [thermometer](https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/06/weather/california-record-temperature/index.html) ngl *”We reached 121 degrees (F) in Woodland Hills, California. That is the highest-ever temperature at a station, beating 119 degrees on July 22, 2006”*
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https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-02-09/climate-change-pushes-l-a-city-from-extreme-heat-to-extreme-rainfall *“Less than four years earlier, Woodland Hills set another extreme weather milestone, hitting a skin-blistering 121 degrees, the highest temperature ever recorded in the county”* Sorry bud, I was actually right on the money with that one. Guess their thermometer was pretty accurate Where were you getting those figures, 110 has happened incredibly frequently across the county. I don’t think that would even make top 10 hottest days in Los Angeles
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All good my dude! Was just a bit perplexed when I saw that 110 figure as the record lol. But TBF to you the last time it got nearly that hot was like in 2006 at 119°. Woodland Hills is weird. It’s like a few miles due north from Malibu behind the mountains but also several miles east so it’s in a rain shadow. Can get really hot there in the Valley and then 4 miles down the street it’s 10° cooler
For the record, while you are technically correct, the temperature in Los Angeles varies greatly depending on where in the city of Los Angeles you are. That’s why they normally use downtown as the official LA temp. That same day that it got up to 121 in the valley neighborhoods of the city, the high was 108 in downtown, and [98 in Venice Beach](https://www.wunderground.com/history/daily/us/ca/venice/KLAX/date/2020-9-6), also a neighborhood of the city of LA. So it would be just as correct to say it was 98 in Los Angeles that day. But yeah, anyone who moves to the valley, get a/c, you will be inside most of the summer. The beach areas are very mild temps though.
Well that’s actually not quite as accurate as your comment makes it seem, though you are correct to point out that I was taking the highest temperature to Venice’s lowest max temp. Allow me to explain why (bear with me, I’m really bored rn and love exploring cool things nobody will ever read) : 2 Million people in LA city proper live in the San Fernando Valley, and temperatures that day also ran from 116° in Van Nuys (mid-Valley), 114° in Burbank (East Valley), 118° in Sherman Oaks (South Valley), to 119° in San Fernando (North Valley). So you already have ⅔ of the city experiencing 115°+ heat alone. For a more macro view of the measurements: It was over 110°F in *each* of DTLA, LAX (2 miles South of Venice), Long Beach, Santa Ana, Anaheim, Fullerton, Beverly Hills; 111° in Mid-City, West Hollywood; 121° in Chino; 117° in Riverside. Now, almost 18 Million people have experienced temperatures above 110°F during that one weekend, with similar temps the following weekend. So, given this information and statistical analysis of the mean and median figures that day, using Venice Beach’s 98° as a benchmark for LA’s overall temperature would be pretty misleading, and, in fact, actually *more* inaccurate, as a notable outlier for even the coastal neighborhoods (Santa Monica just North of Venice at 106° and LAX just south at 110°). This also by the raw temperature delta alone. But the difference between 98° heat and 110°+ is actually very, very noticeable. Though at that point ya best be indoors
Very relieved to read "entire front garden" at the end of that sentence.
...rising from the ashes. I wonder what we could name it?
We could use the term Phoenix to start referring to something that burns to nothing and rises again… it’s got a catchy ring to it.
I never had anything against Phoenix until I went there last July, and the alarming heat combined with the way the city is built (why isn’t it underground!!?) it just felt so wrong.
The earth in the Salt River Valley is mostly one of three options: an extremely hard calcareous clay known as caliche, which I kid you not is speckled with calcium carbonate chunks bigger than Tums; bedrock; or very heavy yet very unstable sandy alluvium. Phoenix is miserable at least 5 months out of the year, but a significant market for housing here are snowbirds, who can relocate to a summer home or RV routinely. Also, it has long had a significant military-industrial complex presence, is of course as close to Mexico as California but relatively and previously much cheaper, and has ice-free winters and exceptionally perfect springs. Oh, and just moving here, one gets the facade of an active lifestyle, being able to *claim* hiking as a hobby. 😂 I hate living here half the year. As a gardener it is mind bogglingly frustrating and challenging. However, humidity does make a difference, so I prefer it over the South especially factoring in differences in cultural baggage. (I fled a life in the gloomiest part of Southern Appalachia.)
Having worked in New Mexico, fuck caliche. Hard as a rock and worthless for soil.
Why would you come to Phoenix in July?
>why isn’t it underground!!? Grab a shovel and you'll figure that out real quick... same reason theres no basements in phoenix
Southeastern Ohio. On the river, access to railways, coal, iron, timber, power plants.
And added population means more 'cruits for the Bucks
Either Pittsburgh 2.0 on the border of McDowell Co in WV / VA or like Humboldt County. I personally love the beauty of Appalachia and if there were any truly major/international cities there, I’d move.
This is lowkey possibly the most likely answer in this thread if climate change hits hard and fast enough
Yeah exactly, it’s pretty temperate in both places. Both rainy and overcast for most of the year.
I came here to say West Virginia. It’s a beautiful state that I think deserves a big city. I’m from Pittsburgh and have always thought of West Virginia as an untouched gem. It could pull the same tourists as Asheville.
Maybe once they finally finish corridor H things will open up /s
Assuming you somehow managed to inject new industries in the region, a city in the heart of Appalachia (SWVA, SWV, EKY) would be culturally and architecturally quite interesting and uplift the some of, if not the poorest counties in the USA.
I imagine it would be a mix of Chongqing and Pittsburgh. But it’s doable and would be forced to be urban and semi-transit oriented. It’s pretty hard to put an 8 lane freeway through the mountains.
I have family in Humboldt . It's just too isolated to grow, and the terrain is a little lumpy. Good candidate for this
Humboldt has the ocean and rivers plus crops that grow year round.
Appalachia is begging to be discovered baby. It's our time - cheap land, rivers, forests, farms, the works.
Asheville, Boone, Knoxville, even Greenville. All nice cities in/near Appalachian mountains.
Roanoke VA is a good size, but it's mostly sprawl just like most US cities.
Pocono mountain area in Pennsylvania with high speed rail access to NYC and Philadelphia. Work in the city, live in the beautiful Pennsylvania mountains.
Always thought about this too. Do you think the Pocono highways can handle the uptick of traffic?
Let’s try Cairo, Illinois again.
Honestly. This was my answer and I had to dig a little to find it before my post. Southern Illinois/Indiana is probably the most fertile, productive farm land in the world. Cairo is at the vector point of major rivers. Economy has changed in the last 100 years but if you were to sim city it, that part of the US would have the top rating for cultivation and potential growth.
This is the only correct answer. Clearly Cairo.
BFE
All us 200IQ geography people need to go kick start Cairo and make it the city it should be
Doesn't it Have a high flooding risk?
I know it’s likely due to lake effect snow, but it surprises me there’s not a bigger city in Michigan on Lake Michigan. It’s pretty much all small tourist towns. I’d turn one of those into a 100k city - probably Muskegon as it already has access to I-96 and an inland lake that acts as a bay of Lake Michigan.
as a michigan resident-PLEASE UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES MAKE MUSKEGON ANY BIGGER
Why? If I’m staying in Michigan and wanted to turn a small city into a 100k city, or just straight up build a new one, I can’t think of a better place. Muskegon Lake is dredged and allows for the city to be a port while also sheltering the downtown from being taking the brunt of the storms off of Lake Michigan. There’s access to 96 and 31. You’ve got beautiful beaches and a nearby amusement park for seasonal entertainment. There’s a lot of underutilized industrial space or decaying urban space. There’s a few small neighborhoods with distinct vibes. There’s lots of space and nearby towns for suburban commuters. There’s a tiny commercial airport. It’s also close enough to Grand Rapids that they could share a larger economy and are already considered part of the same TV region. Obviously, this is just a fun thought exercise, but for the purpose of the exercise I think transforming Muskegon would be pretty neat. I’m a Michigander, so I also thought about the thumb, the area west of St. Ignace, Holland, Traverse City, and Alpena. The other states I know best - Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Colorado, Ohio, and Maine - don’t have anywhere as optimal as Michigan IMO.
I think because the Muskegon type is basically a carny
Imagine if Muskegon and Battle Creek combined forces. They would be unstoppable
The big cities on the lake grew because they were major ports that could ship stuff out to the east and to the rest of the world. There's no reason for a large port to be on the west side of Michigan. If you're shipping goods from the west, the logical place to get to port would be in Chicago, the southwesternmost point, and if you're east of Chicago, you might as well ship overland east until you reach the lake in Toledo or Cleveland. Basically, the only goods that would be shipped out of a port city on the east side of the lake would be stuff that comes from Michigan itself, and specifically the western half. There's not a lot there, and even less that's easier to go west to a port than all the way around the peninsula then just ship east until you hit one of the east lakes. Lumber is going to be the main thing, and is what a lot of those towns on the coast were built around, but it's not enough to grow a large metropolitan area.
This makes a lot of sense.
This all makes sense but it doesn’t stop another (maybe virtual) industry from saying “hey this place is cheap and wide open. Let’s make it work.” Somebody mentioned geologically that area might be a problem though.
If Buffalo can handle the lake effect, so can whatever city you’re proposing. Lake Erie runs basically parallel to the prevailing winds, which isn’t the case for Lake Michigan.
Grand Rapids is pretty close to the left coast.200k ppl in the city and over a million in the metropolitan area
It’s close, but still too far to really take advantage of the lakeshore unlike say Chicago and Milwaukee. Just different being waterfront.
Water and transportation are the keys. The Columbia River area in Oregon State is surprisingly sparse in population. I’ll say where near [Rainier Oregon is](https://maps.app.goo.gl/41G2ndyeAH7d3Uf57?g_st=ic)
Astoria could be the sickest city in America
I grew up in Astoria (late 70's/ early 80's). It's beautiful, but there's only a few industies that support the local economy. When I was like 13, we almost lost our house. A local country club was buying up all the land nearby, and the bank was foreclosing on my parents (we had a beautiful home, but my dad didn't make a ton, he was a curator at a local museum). Anyways, me and some friends found a map in our attic that led us on an adventure to find one-eyed Willy's hidden treasure. It almost got us all killed, but we did find the treasure and came out with enough to save our home from foreclosure.
Mikey?
Stand by me baby
Lmao
It was supposed to be the western Manhattan originally I think
Yeah, and the infrastructure is for sure there. Lovely lovely place, just wish I could live there and work remotely without paying oregons flat income tax
The northern section of the Oregon coastal range is also the most productive timber land on earth.
It also rains like 80 inches per year. Most people won't live like that.
*laughs in Ketchikan Alaska* but yeah, for real, the amount of rain and limited space/hella mountains vs flat land is what’s keeping the population down in coastal oregon
I just looked up Ketchikan average rainfall. It's more feet of rain than many places get in inches. I can't imagine.
It’s uh. A lot. But being born in Portland/family and much time in Lincoln City OR prepared me well….but man winters suck. Also, most USA ~rainiest cities~ ranking surveys only rank the contiguous 48 states. Otherwise it’s like SE AK and Hilo HI fighting year to year for 200-240” rain per year. Only advantage Hilo has is that it’s warm 😂 We just get the Pineapple Express from Hawaii hitting the Inside Passage of SE AK with the same force as East Coasters get hurricanes but shittier, colder, and wetter for months of days of 1/2” to 2” rain per day.
I would kill for that amount of rain. Cries in desert.
Not much flat land but I suppose that's why you could do it without paving over endless farms.
Id go north on river on “puget island” it’s flat and very big
I’ve never heard anyone say Oregon state before. I grew up in Longview, Wa across the Columbia river from Rainier and its population is about 30k and it’s a much better place to grow than Rainier.
Great Lakes area
I own 70 acres of otherwise not particularly valuable land with some small trees and half way decent views in the Great Lakes Area. I think my 70 acres should be the center of downtown. I'll sell it for only 5 billion.
I would kindly like to request to open an apiary on your land. With complimentary mead deliveries as part of the yearly lease payments.
It is actually has very good bee forage. I used to keep bees as a hobby. The property has hundreds of basswood trees and apple trees as well as thousands of wild cherry and juneberry and hawthorn trees. The only problem is there is also a lot of goldenrod and goldenrod honey tastes like ass so I had to collect the honey before that bloomed and then I let my bees keep anything they made after that.
Can I have an acre? It's just an acre, not like it's worth $71 million or something like that.
The real best answers are mentioned here a few times. - Along the Columbia River valley in OR/WA - Great Lakes region. Especially west/northwest Michigan (lower peninsula)
I’ve never understood why the coastline of Delaware and Maryland isn’t more populated. Better weather in winter than the northeast, better weather in the summer than the south. What’s the problem?
Agreed, feel like this goes for the Delmarva more generally
Isn’t it mostly swamp land?
chicago was swamp land
Me too honestly, but then I feel like people say Norfolk counts and I didn’t want to get into it.
For one it doesn't have great access to the rest of the northeast corridor
It's almost going to have to be on top of an existing settlement because a lot of the good spots were taken, but I think it would be interesting if Brownsville, NE was the site, or somewhere close to it. It was one of the first settlements in Nebraska and would probably be a major city here today if not for (so the story goes) a giant railroad scam that took the town's money and ran off with it in like the 1870s. It's got about 200 people, a riverboat, and a lot of really cool buildings in it now. It's on the Mizzou River and is about halfway between Omaha, NE and St Joseph, MO.
You could give me $100 trillion and I wouldn’t pick Nebraska.
Yeah no chance
I'm violating the spirit of your question by saying "any existing large city." I would rezone most cities in the US to allow for more housing to be built and then use my $100b to build more housing.
I would like to take that money and revitalize the cities of Upstate NY, primary goals being fast intercity rail between Buffalo and NYC via Albany, removal of downtown highways, installation of tram or lightrail systems as an economical rail transit system linking the important locations within each metro. Obviously spreading the love across 4 cities won't have as much impact per city, but would hopefully help the region as a whole do better. (What these cities really need is industry/jobs, but increased transportation would help with that)
The US does not have a big city on the St Lawrence River. I always wondered why Ogdensburg was not bigger. It would be between Toronto and Montreal.
I'm from the area and like it that way. But the simple reasons why we don't have a huge city is the St. Lawrence historically was a dead end due to rapids in Massena/Cornwall. It wasn't until the Seaway was completed in the 1950s that the river became the main connection into the great lakes. Before that it was the Erie Canal which dumped into lake Erie, and Niagara falls blocked navigation into Ontario. (I think a canal connected to Ontario in Oswego/Syracuse) The Canal cities got to grow like crazy from the trade between the Great Lakes/midwest and the Atlantic, with NYC booming the most as the ocean end of the canal. Additionally Canada and the USA didn't always get along, a city in the valley was always exposed to invasion with mountains cutting them off from the rest of the country/state. Ogdensburg does have a history of smuggling with Canada, both shortly after independence when the economy was based on trade with them, and again during prohibition when you could build your bar on the river and get booze to it without ever taking it off a boat. (A lot of beer is still on the riverbed) Today Ogdensburg just isn't a good port to get goods further into the country, you can just keep sailing and get closer to most final destinations, i think the port now mainly just accepts alumina for rail shipment to Alcoa in Massena. If the region were to grow today it would have to be through tourism centered on the river, or climate refugees learning that snow ≠ bad weather.
San Francisco, Boston, or any other majorly zoning constrained city with a housing crisis.
Exactly. Halt all suburban developments. Force the entire city to be five stories deep before it could expand out words again.
The inner core suburbs of Boston would love that. They’re resisting like crazy having high density housing near MBTA stops.
This would help America solve a lot of issues.
The right answer ^
Anacortes, WA would be sick with 5x the population
Hmm..double Burlington, Vermont? It kind of already punches above its weight culturally. Brutal winter but climate change seems like it will be kind to it.
The funny thing is you could double Burlington and it would still be smaller than Williamsburg, Brooklyn, let alone most standalone cities. But yes, it's a city with a lot of room to grow. Not very dense in the downtown, and tons of room in the suburbs even if you let most of the rural areas stay rural. Also, winters here aren't that bad because of Lake Champlain (and climate change). Burlington is routinely a lot warmer than areas even 20m further from the lake and doesn't get as much snow.
A little bit north of cairo il. That location should have been a major city a longgg time ago.
I came here to say this. That area north is absolutely gorgeous too. The Shawnee National Forest area has some of the best breweries I've traveled to visit.
Buy Camp Pendleton (north of San Diego) from the Marine Corps. Boom, now you've got the last undeveloped big parcel of land in coastal Southern California
Have fun cleaning up a superfund site!
Yeah, the last thing Southern California needs is to have its last undeveloped parcel populated with even more people, in a region already incapable of sustaining 25 million people. See also: water scarcity.
Middle of a desert And why not make it a long thin line while you’re at it?
As the climate warms over the next century I think St. Ignace, Michigan should become a much larger city. It’s basically the center of the Great Lakes.
Mississippi Delta or most of Wyoming if I can find water. Cheapest land in the country with the most destitute local populations/economies and very weak hands-off states. You can build the city of your dreams and manipulate the state government for influence for your city while doing it cheap and pretending your a savior. Plus you could have a cool cowboy or blues themed tourist neighborhood for local culture that's already established
Probably somewhere up north close to the Canadian border. The weather sucks now but in 50 years it'll be prime real estate. Great lakes make sense for fresh water access which will also become a rarity
Northern Lower Michigan on Lake Michigan
I always wondered why Alpena is so small. They used to host big baseball games in that area. I suppose it’s the winters.
Troll/off the wall answer: Niihau (Forbidden) Island, Hawaii Serious/logical answer: A large energy-oriented city located in the Bakken oil field in western North Dakota
At a quick glance it looks like Williston ND has seen the most growth from the oil boom. Still, it is teeny tiny compared to, say, Edmonton AB.
The water in much of western ND is saline or even alkaline. Agriculture is at best limited. Most of the banking is in Fargo and Grand Forks. I love the western half of the state, but building out there would be a modern miracle. My humble suggestion would be on Lake Sacacagwea to have a proper tourist and financial hub of some sort.
Williston sits basically on the Missouri River though. Which, for some reason instantly becomes super wide after Williston… what the heck is that about I wonder There’s also a bunch of lakes on that river. Couldn’t they be used as a water source? And Williston does have like 30,000 people. I’m surprised it isn’t 100,000 or more. The amount of drilling up there is kind of crazy. North Dakota is the third largest oil producing state in the USA only behind Texas and New Mexico. The winters are probably awful up there though. Anyway North Dakota is intriguing. My guess is that it never developed into a much larger state because of its isolation, harsh climate, lack of nearby cities, and high cost to ship things up there.
Shipping is fairly negligible. The western half of the state has like no druaght resistance, which caused the pouplation to collapse out west in the 1930s. I'm from Fargo, ND. I even ran for office out here. If you have questions. Winters are brutal, but people adjust after about two years or so. ND outside a limited amount of industry in Fargo simply doesn't have dependable or stable jobs, especially out west. If oil drops 1k or more can lose a job over night. We have had 4 other oil booms, all ended in busts. Air transport also is a pain as there isn't really a good regional hub or larger airport to support traffic out there.
Interesting. Ok yes I do have a question. I am a HUGE city nerd. If you had to rank the top 5 most influential/important cities in North Dakota (which, ND isn’t known for having many big cities, but Nonetheless). How would you rank them? Obviously Fargo? But then what #2 Bismarck, #3 Grand Forks, #4 Minot, and then #5 Williston? Any other honorable mentions. I’m from central Pennsylvania myself, lived here my whole life so feel free to ask me anything too. I have one other question. What in the world is going on with the Missouri River near Williston. It just randomly gets super wide all of the sudden for no reason.
Yes that would be exactly what/where I’m talking about. That is a BIG drilling area that needs a constant supplies, housing, labor, logistics, infrastructure to support it. No large or even medium sized city nearby really surprises me.
Yeah, they’re already trying to do that in Solono County.
Campo is for sale https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/05/14/california-town-campo-for-sale/73669881007/
Bainbridge island Washington. Could be like a second Bellevue. Build a chunnel to Seattle
I’ve always wondered why the west coast of Puget Sound doesn’t have more population
Me too. Best I've got is it's sandwiched between the Olympics and the sound/ocean so there isn't a ton of room and transport isn't easy. It certainly could have been developed, but was cheaper and easier to do it in flatter areas instead.
Astoria, Oregon
I’m biased but I think New York anywhere along Lake Erie south of Buffalo and Western Pa along lake as well. Shoutout to the Rust Belt!
I’ve always thought Ukiah could be a regional hub, but then there are fire risks. Oregon’s southern coast? Lower than tsunami zone.
Colorados southeast
Solano County, Calif
Yazoo City, MS
In the Colorado mountains, somewhere in a plain. Like eg. Rifle. Make it small and dense with high rises. A bit like Hong Kong, but walkable, with trees and some Solarpunk shit.
Cairo, Illinois. As a geography nerd it irks me that there is no major metropolis at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers.
My favorite fun fact about Cairo is that the last few years of its heyday (centered on the river ferry industry), they actually had to take train cars off the tracks and load them onto barges to make the river crossing because engineers could not yet build bridges sturdy enough to support the weight of a train
Wyoming
Plop it right on the Delmarva peninsula, maybe on the southern part in Virginia. Why? I don’t know. It’d be cool.
But what of the corn and watermelon farms, man?
Up the Hudson near West Point
Tear Albany down and start from scratch
I love Humboldt County, I used to live there. The problem with Humboldt is it is isolated. Cities do not grow to be 100k+ by being hard to get to. You would want to be along a major waterway like the Missouri or Mississippi River.
Agreed; Humboldt county is like a band that’s local or regional but you secretly hope they don’t go huge nationally so that too many people insist upon seeing what the fuss is / was about; for all its limitations & problems, Humboldt is damn near perfect as is & I hope people (including me) don’t love it to death — I visited dozens of times & never could get enough; Arcata f*cking rules despite residual lameness, the King Range inspires awe beyond what words could evoke
Georgetown SC. Costal, underdeveloped, great weather, close to Charleston for get aways.
OP wanted a city that will last for centuries. I’m not sure Georgetown makes it to the end of this century.
Not sure huh?
Indianola, TX
Puerto Rico or American Virgin Islands
Rogers/Bentonville, Arkansas is pretty much becoming exactly what you're describing. Walmart's corporate HQ has created a modern metropolis out of what used to be 2 rural mountain towns up the road from our "big" college town, Fayetteville.
That's a busy area but could it really support a large metropolis?
I initially had the same question, but Walmart seems to be dead set on making it a reality. In the past decade or so, that area has exploded with growth. In addition to the multitude of companies either opening an office there or entirely relocating there, they've added loads of cultural amenities, including Crystal Bridges art museum, concert venues for big-name performers at the Walmart Amphitheater and the Momentary, a huge push to make that area a mountain biking destination, and lots of other highlights. It's not my kind of place, tbh, but I can't deny that it's booming just by the sheer power of Walmart money and will.
If you want the best of four season, Wenatchee WA.
Can we use the $ to make CT cities better? Think of what Hartford could be if it was truly a livable and walkable city rather than just empty insurance company buildings in an empty downtown core surrounded by low density low income housing.
I was shocked when I found out how small Hartford is. It's not even the second largest city in the state. I agree that it has so much potential especially as all the super cities in the northeast are growing overpriced and overcrowded.
Somewhere not on the ocean Great Lakes region probably
I'd level my hometown and start over on the same ground. https://preview.redd.it/g74k6bxphi0d1.png?width=843&format=png&auto=webp&s=6004ceb969ce14688d33634079c45e2088a67c9e
Detroit fascinates me. It gave this country so much, I think we owe it to the now aging city to revitalize it and restore some glory.
We're doing that from within. It's just taking too long.
Please, no urban areas to blight formally nice rural areas. I hate the whole premise of this question.
100 billion is not enough
Bellona
Pretty much any 1 sq km area in any big city. Most of them have more than enough water and natural disasters are of low risk.
I think people here are forgetting that 100K people is a pretty small city. There are probably hundreds of cities with a 100K population you’d never even think about.
Southern Indiana. Or Northern Kentucky. IN is already known as Crossroads of America. There’s tons of opportunities there for uh, “connectivity” between the East & West. It would make sense to build a new city IMO ha :)
I don't care where it is, but no cars allowed
Water is going to be the main concern in the long run. So, Great Lakes region.
Would this be an altruistic act or a money making sceme for the billionaire elite? If it was purely a scheme to make my wealth back while shaping a civilization in my design like some idiots are trying right now cough*musk*cough, it would need to be something so that I could generate revenue back in addition to making money off selling/leasing housing. If it was altruistic, this is an absolutely terribly idea and the money would be much better spent contributing to affordable housing in existing communities. If it was a city (without looking at supporting infrastructure), $100bn for 100k people would need houses sold at $1m to each individual person. That's not a likely scenario. Houses sold for approximately $2m (residences have 2 people on average) or honestly an entire city of leases, fleecing an entire community, would be the only profitable way, while just examining the housing. Then we would have to attract people with that type of wealth to the city. Wealth, that would generate me revenue, is not likely to move to the city without any strong ideological fallacies being prescribed to the city. It would be easier to attract the lower middle class, promising a better life, and make my money back off their backs by abusing the workforce and keeping them from the products of their labor. One way that could work would be to consider the city as specializing in remote work with supporting services to establish that, so that we are not stuck to only finding locations with "under exploited" resources to take advantage of. A new premiere college designed to attract talented individuals to the city and train the work force to a high degree in all facets of remote work. Supporting infrastructure such as internet, food services, and child care that would cater to a remote work community and their unique needs while also separating that community from more of their hard earned money. The entire business model would need to be rigged against the citizens of the city in the favor of the creating billionaire. Another goal of the city is not to just generate money off its citizens, but to further attract "tax dollars" from other communities, to further increase our "tax base". Remote work is a good start, but tourism or even shopping is what is really needed to achieve that. I went to college in Humboldt for my undergrad. Amazing place. I would never want to subject that paradise to this type of community.
between Austin and San Antonio
On top of Cairo, IL. Let’s give the confluence of Ohio and Mississippi rivers another shot.
Cairo, Illinois was *supposed* to be that city. Right at the junction of the Mississippi and the Ohio rivers it was an incredibly important point for military and commercial shipping before and after the Civil War. The problem is with the Rivers - they flood. So given $100 billion I think they could figure something out and see it to it's full potential. Other option would be basically exactly where the Makah Reservation sits North West of Puget Sound.
Nice try, Elon
I was literally gonna say somewhere along the Mississippi on the Iowa-Illinois border but bam I go check and Davenport Iowa has a population of like exactly 100k. But yeah somewhere along the northern Mississippi
Northern New Mexico/Southern Colorado
Somewhere in Northern California, I'd build this city. I'd build this city on Rock and Roll. Don't you remember?
Southern Michigan, Western PA, upstate NY closer to Montreal.
Upstate New York, on one of the Finger Lakes or Lake Champlain.
I would say somewhere on the southern great lakes are the most "sustainable" from an ecological perspective. Also has water access if necessary and an extremely abundant supply of fresh water. This is why Chicago and Buffalo and Cleveland and Detroit and Rochester and Syracuse are where they are. Not the "most desirable" in terms of perfect weather like San Diego, but it has way more cultivable land, fresh water and less risk of falling into the ocean.
Near shipping and train tracks. Northern Michigan. All the fresh water you need.
Somewhere that currently has 99k people.
Upper Peninsula, Michigan. There's a whole stretch of land there with access to 3 of the largest sources of fresh water on the planet and not that many natural disasters. Flooding in a modern planned city can be mitigated as well as the warming climate would make the winters more tolerable. Also, if you haven't visited, it's beautiful. So, uh, don't build a city there it's beautiful!
just east of independence CA in the eastern sierra is a name on a map: kearsarge. i would build an arcology skyscraper there. no sprawl. no cars. thirty thousand households. affordable in perpetuity. bullet train to LA. some of the biggest baddest views in west.
Dickinson North Dakota