Some 21st Century Infrastructure Concepts

If you are building a new town from the ground up, not burdened by sunk costs, a variety of infrastructure choices come into focus:

* In places that get cold in the winter, geothermal heat pumps and good insulation make the most sense relative to the alternatives. Conditioned on that choice, requiring electric stoves and ovens, and electric water heaters make sense, so that no natural gas infrastructure needs to be put in place. In places that don't get that cold and are arid, evaporative coolers and a different heating solution (such as a non-geothermal heat pump or electric heater) may make sense. Wood and natural gas stoves and fire places would probably be absent, or a rare and expensive luxury by permit.

* The town doesn't need landline telephone, cable, or Internet service. Provide free town-wide wireless high speed Internet access and a 5G cell phone network with good service everywhere instead.

* Power lines should be buried, so that they don't go down during storms. To make the electrical power system even more robust, houses and businesses should have standard battery backups.

* Roundabouts should be preferred to four way stops and traffic lights in the vast majority of case. They reduce accidents, reduce accident severity, and don't require power to function.

* In arid areas, water hungry grass should be disfavored or banned in favor of Xeriscaping. And, golf courses should be omitted, or at least rationed and designed to be radically water thrifty. In addition to greatly reducing the dominant source of demand for municipal water, it would also greatly reduce the need for potentially health harming fertilizers and herbicides.

* All vehicles and landscaping equipment should be electric. Houses and businesses should have car chargers as standard equipment. This way the town doesn't need a gas station for cars and trucks, although it might need one or two specialty gas stations for boats, aircraft, and equipment not available in electrical versions. This also means that the town doesn't need businesses that repair and maintain internal combustion engines. And, it dramatically reduces the number of hazard prone fossil fuel carrying trucks and trains and ships in the vicinity of the town.

* Electricity would be generated with solar power, wind, hydroelectric, tidal, geothermal, and/or nuclear power, but would be fossil fuel and combustion fuel (e.g. wood, incinerated trash, biodiesel, corn ethanol) free. 

* Homes and businesses would routinely have solar panels on them with net metering. Parking lots would routinely have car port style covers with solar panels on them with net metering, which would also greatly reduce the need to clear snow in parking lots.

* Street lights would be LED and have light pollution reducing designs.

* Appliances and light fixtures would be energy efficient.

* Land use would be reasonable dense and mixed use to facilitate shorter travel distances, with transportation routes sensitive to walkability and bicycle friendliness.

* Very cost housing, like dorms and single occupancy hotels without baths in individual units, accessory dwelling units, very small apartments, multi-family shared uses of single family homes, boarding houses, and tiny house/RV/van/tent camps with bath houses would be legal to minimize the income needed to avoid homelessness.

* There would an electric powered high speed rail connection to the nearest major city and major airport.

* All rail lines would be designed to eliminate all rail crossings from roads, reducing accidents and allowing for higher speed rail traffic. They would also be fenced to keep out people and animals, with animal and/or pedestrian bridges/tunnels installed at regular intervals.