Bill Gates just bought 25,000 acres in Arizona to build a new 'smart city'

Billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates has purchased nearly 25,000 acres of land in southwestern Arizona for the construction of a brand-new "smart city," AZ Central reports. In conjunction with Belmont Partners, who holds the property, Gates's investment firm Cascade Investment LLC has committed $80 million to build a community composed of offices, stores, schools, and homes. The community will be known as Belmont. Roughly 3,800 of the 24,800 acres will be devoted to office, commercial, and retail space, according to Belmont Partners, while 470 acres will be set aside for public schools. The new community will feature 80,000 residences, giving it a population of about 182,000, comparable to that of Tempe, Arizona. Belmont Partners expects its development to feature all the trappings of a futuristic city: high-speed internet embedded in the built environment, accommodations for self-driving cars (such as traffic lights that communicate with one another to minimize congestion), and smarter manufacturing technology.