The Point wants to be a Utopian city (but it might just be a housing development): Everyone wants to build the city of the future--but is it really the future?

• Author: Alsever, Jennifer

BILLIONAIRE MARC LORE RECENTLY announced that Utah was among a shortlist of areas he was considering for a futuristic city designed to bridge the wealth gap.

But Utah may not need Lore.

The state revealed plans for its own innovative community called The Point, a 600-acre project in Draper designed to be a "one-car community." Residents may have more than one car, but they won't need one. The city is designed to be walkable, bikeable, and with easy access to mass transit in mind.

The Utah State Prison now sits on the property, but by the years' end, inmates will be moved to a new facility in Salt Lake and demolition of the prison will begin. The hope is that by spring of 2023, developers will begin construction for a 20-year project that state leaders say will be a "legacy that will remain for generations."

"It will almost be a mini-city, but one in which you can walk or ride your bike with ease and safety," says Peter Kindel, an urban design and planning principal at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), the design and engineering firm that created a framework plan for the community.

Rather than driving a car everywhere, some of the anticipated 15,000 residents of the Point could step onto an automated circulator bus that would make regular rounds throughout the neighborhood. Kindel notes that younger people under the age of 30 tend to be less interested in car ownership. "We're trying to anticipate the workforce of the future," he says.

Telosa's selling points include sustainability, energy efficiency, and water conservation. Still, its main hallmark was a land ownership model in which the city would own the land in an endowment--and would be investing the proceeds and using earnings to pay for equal access to healthcare, good schools, parks, safe streets, and transportation. Lore describes it as, "sort of a capitalism, reimagined."

Telosa's interest in Utah sent a ripple of revolt among a select group of Utahns worried about the lack of water and a "communist" agenda. Though largely welcome, The Point has faced similar backlash from citizens who have argued in public meetings that there should be no development of the site after demolition, citing traffic and air pollution concerns. Salt Lake has the seventh-worst air quality in the world, according to an analysis by California-based digital media firm Quote 360.

But state officials decided that if people are coming to Utah, they need to live and work somewhere. Why not figure out how to...