In the Unconventional City Planners series, Mackenna Caughron will explore three unconventional planners and their machinations of the city. This is part 2 of a 3 part series.
I remember first seeing Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark in Iron Man. He was brash, confident, techno-intelligent, and liberal spender. The exemplar of “making it” with a specific American flair of “I say and I do what I want”.
As headlines sour and the pressing issues of the day weigh on our minds, we look for a fanatical zealot to save us. Though not an Iron Man replica, we have a modern day rocketman in-training. Elon Musk, TIME’s 2021 Person of the Year, CEO, Chief Engineer, investor, prolific Tweeter, our savior (?), and city planner (???). Well, we’ll see.
Hard to deny a certain resemblance… (Source – Here & Here)
Where do our two male leads differ? Iron Man rescued our galaxy, Elon is looking to colonize it.
Elon Musk operates SpaceX, a private, for-profit company aiming to build reusable rockets to shuttle humans to Mars and other planets. Though Elon Musk’s multi-planetary plans are well-documented, it is a little town in Texas that we will be exploring today. Starbase, Texas – the launchpad for interstellar living.
Location of Starbase
Teetering on the edge of the United States sits SpaceX’s Starbase tracking station.
Elon Musk announced his hunt for a commercial space launch site in 2011. He courted Georgia, Puerto Rico, and Florida, before ultimately choosing Texas after publicizing his $15M in financial incentives and meeting with the state’s governor.
The site benefits from the Earth’s west-to-east rotation. A “fat” location on Earth rotates at a higher velocity angular momentum push (similar to why Cape Canaveral, Florida is NASA’s launch HQ).
The coastal location had an eclectic fan club. Allegedly once dubbed “the next Ft. Lauderdale”, the hurricane-prone settlement dwindled to 6 permanent residents, according to a Texas Ghost Town feature dated 2008. The town, officially named Boca Chica Village, still has non-potable water trucked in and lackluster cell reception, but that did not bother long-time residents.
The area is quaint. Single-story homes dot the perimeter of the $100M launch facility. The only restaurant in town “The Prancing Pony Bar and Grill” exclusively serves SpaceX employees (the restaurant lacks any online presence albeit Google user uploaded photos).
Brownsville is the nearest city. A 30-minute drive west on the Mexican border, Brownsville suffers from America’s highest urban poverty levels (34% in 2013), experienced by a dominant Hispanic population (88% In 2013).
Elon Musk sees this sleepy rural zone with nearby impoverished populations and sees our gateway to salvation.
Urban Experience
Elon Musk has not contracted a questionably named consulting company ala Akon City, however, we can analyze his historical actions and early perspective in interviews.
Starbase, Texas will send individuals to the moon, Mars, and beyond.
What kind of people would one meet? Residents may work for SpaceX (or supporting businesses). Tourists who time their visits to catch a launch. Ticket-carrying customers preparing to depart to worlds beyond, maybe grabbing the last of their favorite Earthly items (Avocados? Sneakers?) taking flight. The rhythm of the city gravitates around the launch schedule. Its economy depends on it.
Like the surrounding neighborhoods of a traditional airport, the port of Starbase will house employees (and their exclusive Lord of the Rings-hinting restaurant), interstellar tourists, space enthusiasts, and residents.
Currently, facilities are relegated into the manufacturing, testing, and launching of Super Heavy and Starship prototypes. Inherent risk – and fanfare – is possible within the operations of the city, akin to living near an industrial zone.
Starbase planners may look to Cape Canaveral, NASA’s home to the Kennedy Space Center for inspiration. With a handful of launches each month, Cape Canaveral acts as a space-themed amusement park. Neighboring Disneyworld, the Florida city’s main draw is the NASA’s Kennedy Space Center and rocket launch viewing areas (Sorry, Manatee protection areas, your days are numbered).
Florida’s “space coast” offers some lessons. It has a wide variety of civic initiatives including a community-led re-visioning project, sustainability and resilience initiatives, parks, and beaches. Elon Musk would lose valuable funding if he foregoes a tourist-leaning, revenue generating example.
Traveling through the city, you’ll see Elon Musk’s inner engineer fingerprinted within the city’s logistics and operations. In a manner less showy than Akon City, the city’s father will calibrate his vision of an efficient, low waste hub.
Purpose
Why travel to Starbase? Well, it’s all in the name. A base for the stars. Thoroughfare to galaxies far, far away. But also a testing ground where technology is (explosively – at times) being developed.
It raises interesting questions how the city should be structured, for humans flourishing or scientific experimentation, and whether both needs can be met harmoniously.
Challenges
It’s clear current Boca Chica Village residents are not part of the plan. SpaceX offered their “best and final” to the small group of existing homeowners that had not yet sold their homes to the ambitious company. When the homeowners resisted, the company suggested the use of “alternate approaches” to obtain the land. It is unlikely that county or state governance would take issue with the seizure tactics. Musk specifically has been shifting businesses to Texas due to an alignment toward a more lenient approach to governance (more on that in a bit).
And it makes sense. Airports as they exist today do not conduct high quality of life. Studies have shown deteriorating health caused by increased noise and pollution exposure. Starbase already expects residents to evacuate the launch area, pushing people from their homes and inciting local ire. A rocket with the name of Superheavy is not likely to be light on the ears, despite achieving some pollution benefits through Musk’s design objective of reusability.
Even the closest success case of Cape Canaveral may be tough to replicate. The Florida space coast has a population of dominantly white, older homeowners (93.8% white non-Hispanic, 35.8% older than 65, 10% poverty rate).
In contrast, Brownsville, the closest urban center to Starbase, is 18 times more populous, skewing younger with higher levels of poverty. In a certain and sad realization, their lives may be easier to “re-engineer” given traditional economic and social power dynamics. Shifting the economics toward amusement or science may disrupt or displace these lives. For those who have already spoken up, the response is quick.
What do we take away?
Elon has spoken to the fatality of Earth. He doesn’t see the longevity in Earth being a forever-sustaining home for our species. To save humanity, we have to build transport vehicles that will take us to other, more suitable homes.
It’s an admirable cause – to save the human race. Not dissimilar to Tony Stark’s Iron Man, looking to rid the planet of evil aliens, bent on destruction. Though, Musk sees our planet’s destruction as inevitable, and thus – perhaps not salvageable.
In traveling to our next planet, he’s also discussed an entire new form of organization. He’s recommended reshaping the government, perhaps a direct democracy with laws simple enough to avoid coercion of powerful stakeholders. Radical transparency, with a well-informed populace, and fewer rules and regulations (we can see why Texas again is so appealing).
And for an individual hell-bent on reusing materials, he’s ready to find a brand-new foundation for life.
Similar to Akon, we see Elon’s perspective of the future shaped in his city. Whereas Akon emphasizes the visuals in an attempt to form ultra-luxe Cosmopolitan African Wakanda; Elon values the processes and experimentation of those processes. They both see blank slates as valuable, open canvases for their imagination. The danger in that? When we are planning so far for our future generations, we forget the 186,000 people that currently live in Brownsville.