Making the case - $$$$

How do you 'prove' the case that living sustainably really is a better way of life? What's the metric you use to gauge how much better this place is than say your average apartment, condo or suburban home?

But there are *tons* of different measures to use!!! Uh - I guess we get to pick :)
So - by what measures can we use to prove the case?

We have to look at the audiences.

Investors need rate of return, usually something higher than they can get elsewhere for risky or unproven concepts. So, measure #1 is time till the entire facility is profitable. Since we don't yet know how much this thing will really ultimately cost I can't really touch this yet.

Administrators want residual income. They want to know what's the facility going to provide each month and how much is left over after all the costs are considered. Cool thing about this place... since so much is cycled back into inputs for other aspects of the system... inputs like utilities Water, Electricity & waste management (things that cost money) are almost all minor - or, like in the case of residential trash - the bill is footed by the residents as they buy goods and dispose of the remains which then become resources that are usable and even sellable for additional income streams.

Now, ongoing income can come from a number of sources: Taxes & fees, the sale of any extra electricity generated, profit from sales of specialty goods, sales of the apartments & condos, but most especially - RENT. Rent of the retail areas, entertainment centers, parks, apartments, hotel rooms. Rent is the real profit center of this idea. Go figure... we're talking about bringing together 10 thousand people in the land area normally allocated for a couple thousand to a mere couple hundred residents. Densities rivaling, or at least aspiring to highly urban areas like Tokyo and New York.

Governments are going to want to know what the tax base will be and how much revenue it's going to generate. Mixed use development like this isn't common in most of the wide spaces of the US - especially in the south where land is plentiful and sprawl a way of life. Ensuring that the government gets it's share is an important part of this calculation. But to do that, we have to know what the property values are going to be... since a majority of the taxes collected by local governments are based solely on this measure.

Now lets look at the most important audience of all - the residents. Cost of living is a big deal and no matter how green this lifestyle is... if it doesn't appeal to a huge number of people - aka the masses - you don't have a real solution.

Examining my own 2008 monthly bills I see (approximations):

• Internet: $85 (I have a lot of bandwidth - yay for 15 Mb down)
• Electricity: $140 (hurray for low wattage CFL's)
• Phone: $95 (two cell phones)
• Mortgage: $1200 (1700 square foot building on .4 acre - 30 year loan with crappy interest rate + fees)
• Natural Gas: $125 (hot water, house heating, dryer and food prep)
  Ugh - that was $40 last year - /cry
  
• Water & Waste water: $60
• Auto: $500 (one payment)
• Gas (2 vehicles): $260
• Insurance: $180
• Home-Owner's Association dues: $200 (yes I know... a freaking steal but I don't get shit for that cash besides the occasional picture of a weed and a fee)
  

I don't have cable TV or a ground line phone - two common costs. Lets call that +$60 for the normal household considering likelihood that bundling these with the internet give a good discount.

Debt service & other costs - way too much; but as they have no bearing on the gaia ship's services or would be equivalent we're going to ignore those.

Total living expenses: $2745

Lets break this down

• Internet:
  
• It's all 1 building... if we don't run full Gigabit Ethernet (fiber) our residents would kill us. Lets just say it stays the same price though.
• Result $85 for 1000 Mb full duplex internet
  
  
• Electricity:
  
• Subsidized by our porch solar panels: (-) $30
• No AC costs - place is heated & cooled passively to a major extent: (-) $50
  
• Lights are fiber optic solar with hyper efficient LED's helping out: (-) $45
• Computers aren't insane power hogs - but we have more of them: no change in price
• Stove and other cooking is primarily electric: (+) $10
• Result: $35 bill!!!
  
  
• Phone:
  
• Phone == communicator - provided by others, not within the scope of the Gaia ship to provide... Perhaps we can tack on a small service fee for interaction with our infrastructure +$5
• Result: $100 for 100% portable communication & interaction with Gaia Ship Services
  
  
• Mortgage:
• let's just assume it's the same for a resident - it will fluctuate obviously and as some of the homes will be worth millions and others worth somewhat less. But, as we are aiming for the masses - and I consider myself a 'mass' (er...) we'll just leave it be for now.
• Result: $1200 bill
  
  
  
• Natural Gas:
• As we are trying to eliminate this particular resource from our situation, it doesn't exist as a viable bill. If you have a fire place that burns the waste gas generate from the trash and Bio machines... likely that's methane and would be vented to provide heat or electricity anyway. Let's call it a freebie given the 2ndary effects of having the residents burn it.
• Result: -zero- bill
  
  
• Water / Waste-Water:
• It's likely we'll want some cost for water usage, but this would be variable based on the amount of water collected via Rain-Water capture etc. Since it's hard to estimate - we'll keep it the same for now.
• Result: $60 bill
  
  
  
• Auto:
• We'll probably never eliminate the ever-present car payment, but if a normal resident has more than one vehicle I'd be surprised. With almost everything within walking distance - cars will be used only to leave the Gaia Ship when the light rail or commuter rail that goes into town won't work.
  
• Then again, why not cut into this with a ride-share. If you need a particular vehicle, you hit your communicator and say "I'll need a ride please" and one is assigned. No need to maintain the car, no need for a specific 'owned' vehicle.
• Result: $200 Ride Share & Tram fees
  
• Gas:
  
• Drastically cut due to locality of needs. Also, since the vehicles will be part of ride-share - we can make sure they run on our own diesel and electricity (plug in hybrid!!!) the gas costs are (within reason) rolled into ride share cost.
• Result: -zero- bill
  
• Insurance:
• Part of ride share cost
• Result -zero- bill
  
  
  
• Home Owners Association Dues:
• Yeah - we'll keep this around just because it's reasonable to have an organization that by design allows the residents say over their environment. Also, some method to pay for the cleaning and maintainence of the common areas is required. We may even need to increase this because of so much shared infrastructure - so bump it up a bit. hey, we've saved a bunch of cash elsewhere - we can afford this.
• Result: $300 bill
  
  
  
• Cable TV:
• Yeah, we'll still have TV... though likely with full gigabit connections to every household it will be more demand-pull instead of supplier-push. Lets' not change the price any though (those cable companies LOVE getting paid)
• Result: $60
  
  
  
• Phone:
• Ground line!!??! WTF!?!?! Nobody uses a ground line anymore. With individual communicators that never leave your person except maybe to shower and full video and audio communication via your insane internet connection... you don't have a ground line anymore. Poor AT&T.
• Result: -zero-
  

TOTAL GAIA SHIP LIVING EXPENSES: 60+300+200+60+1200+100+35+85

...drum roll please...

$2040

Thats a monthly savings of $725 for the average resident.

I'd say that's a pretty good deal! Totally green, luxury living - for about $700 LESS than standard suburban lifestyle. If you really want to own that car... I guess you can.
Oh and once they pay off the mortgage, only $800 monthly (now that's a sweet deal)


OK - Back to our Administrators

Since we now have a good idea of what the base 'masses' are paying ~$2000 in services. We can estimate how much the 'Administrators' are going to make off the residents for the first 30 years... (note that the admin are acting as mortgage holders here - makes the bank an 'administrator' for the purposes of this exercise)

150K
$2,000 monthly * 5,000 units = $10 million

Sweeten the deal with premium condos that sell for a lot more than $150K

$250K
$3000 monthly *2500 units = $7.5 Million

$750K
$4500 monthly * 1000 units = $ 4.5 Million

$1.5 million
$10,000 Monthly * 250 units = $ 2.5 Million

$10+ million
60K monthly!!?! * 50 units = $ 3 Million

Thats a total of $27.5 million monthly

Or - $330 Million annually
... for 30 years for a total of $9.9 billion

That allows for 1100 units of affordable housing and /or pure rental only apartments. They are worth more... but artificially restricted to allow for lower income people to live here. They are a bit of drag on profitability, but since they are embedded in the rest, it's not all that expensive to build them at the same time.

And that's only getting started - yes this place will be expensive to build, but with $27.5 million MONTHLY income just for having built the place and providing the basic services, I'd say it's beginning to look viable.

Add in retail rents, Hotel room stays (yes there is a hotel on-site), sales of electricity & left over waste oil. This is going to make a *ton* of money. Now, we have to figure out how much everything costs and if the money it can make as a result will provide enough of a ROI.

But it's almost 2:00 AM and I have to work tomorrow. Another time...

***All numbers treating inflation as irrelevant.