Future thinking net-zero sustainable off-grid 3,800-acre alternative city being built

[Sempiternity]

The Burning Man organization is actively planning an off-grid 3,800-acre city with net-zero sustainable infrastructure in Nevada. This would be an ambitious Stage Green/Yellow community living project.  

Includes; human habitation spaces, venues for learning and discovery, permaculture systems for food infrastructure for water harvesting and blackwater recycling, zero-emissions construction, and energy infrastructure to generate power from solar, wind, geothermal, and biomass. Sustainable alternative to concrete that absorbs CO2 through the curing process of building components. Solar chimney, solar PV, geothermal, passive cooling, composting, greenhouses, aquaponics, biodigesters, and greywater recycling. Solar photovoltaic and recycled materials to contribute 300 MWh of electricity per year. Electrochromic glass, a bioceramic dome, seed banks, solar photovoltaic, cisterns, drip irrigation, composting toilets, and native restoration plants to provide shelter, food, medicinal herbs and teas, habitat enhancement, water harvesting, 36 MWh/year of electricity, and 40,000 liters/year of harvested water. 

This could be one of the most forward thinking cities in the world, once completed. 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimdobson/2021/03/03/the-future-of-burning-man-emerges-at-fly-ranch-an-outrageous-new-world-in-the-black-rock-desert/?sh=59acbb041e45&fbclid=IwAR2b4EBg-v82lKzjnac4IkeLZFzY317krhAoVQVdox9-HN3mx07sQ_t7MP0

[Sempiternity]

How many people this could house, I don't know. But the temporary Burning Man city that gets built in August every year, for the past 35 years, which includes an airport, hospitals, fire departments, and community hubs, houses 100,000 people. So that might give some indication of the population possibilities. 

[Roy]

Absolutely fascinating! My immediate wonder is how would you populate these places with the right kind of people so they would function as intended and people would be happy and productive living in them?

In our current culture in the West people live with very selfish expectations and notions of privacy, isolation, control of water/land, storage, etc.

So while it's entirely possible a place like this could be built, it would take a radical shaking up of living habits for people to be able to occupy them. I guess it will just take time. The world will be forced to become more communal anyways, with overpopulation and resource depletion a guarantee.

[Sempiternity]

Good question. Burning Man has a unique culture with rules by which the community lives by. This assures everyone is on the same page. This culture pushes everyone towards selflessness, and away from selfishness. This works very well for the temporary city, but for a permanent city situation, I'm sure they would have to have some vetting system and actions to take if someone is a negative presence. 

The community’s ethos and culture:

Radical Inclusion
Anyone may be a part of Burning Man. We welcome and respect the stranger. No prerequisites exist for participation in our community.

Decommodification
In order to preserve the spirit of gifting, our community seeks to create social environments that are unmediated by commercial sponsorships, transactions, or advertising. We stand ready to protect our culture from such exploitation. We resist the substitution of consumption for participatory experience.

Radical Self-reliance
Burning Man encourages the individual to discover, exercise and rely on their inner resources.

Radical Self-expression
Radical self-expression arises from the unique gifts of the individual. No one other than the individual or a collaborating group can determine its content. It is offered as a gift to others. In this spirit, the giver should respect the rights and liberties of the recipient.

Communal Effort
Our community values creative cooperation and collaboration. We strive to produce, promote and protect social networks, public spaces, works of art, and methods of communication that support such interaction.

Civic Responsibility
We value civil society. Community members who organize events should assume responsibility for public welfare and endeavor to communicate civic responsibilities to participants. They must also assume responsibility for conducting events in accordance with local, state and federal laws.

Leaving No Trace
Our community respects the environment. We are committed to leaving no physical trace of our activities wherever we gather. We clean up after ourselves and endeavor, whenever possible, to leave such places in a better state than when we found them.

Participation
Our community is committed to a radically participatory ethic. We believe that transformative change, whether in the individual or in society, can occur only through the medium of deeply personal participation. We achieve being through doing. Everyone is invited to work. Everyone is invited to play. We make the world real through actions that open the heart.

Immediacy
Immediate experience is, in many ways, the most important touchstone of value in our culture. We seek to overcome barriers that stand between us and a recognition of our inner selves, the reality of those around us, participation in society, and contact with a natural world exceeding human powers. No idea can substitute for this experience.

Gifting
Burning Man is devoted to acts of gift giving. The value of a gift is unconditional. Gifting does not contemplate a return or an exchange for something of equal value.