Elon Musk may want to talk about building a city of the future on Mars, but he’s building a city of the past in Texas. On Thursday, Musk’s aerospace company SpaceX filed paperwork for approval. star basethe launch site is located in South Texas, in a corporate town. SpaceX and its employees currently stationed around Brownsville, Texas filed a petition They asked Cameron County Judge Eddie Treviño for approval to incorporate Starbase as a new city.
In typical Muskie fashion, the CEO tweeted “SpaceX headquarters will officially be located in Starbase City, Texas” is not how a petition works, and you won’t immediately get what you ask for. But the effort was planned even before SpaceX broke ground near the southern border. musk first proposed the idea of star-based cities In 2021.
Since then, more than 3,400 SpaceX employees and contractors have set up shop around the base, one report said. June Report from Judge Treviño’s Office. And the company has steadily created city amenities to retain residents. Earlier this year, SpaceX announced plans A $15 million shopping center and restaurant will be opened. In the petition, Starbase general manager Kathryn Lueders said that by incorporating, SpaceX would be able to perform “public functions” such as “maintaining roads, public facilities, and providing education and health care to residents.” He argued that it would be easier.
Of course, if you ask the people monitoring SpaceX’s cities, they’re not exactly performing those functions to begin with. At the beginning of this year, NPR reported SpaceX is said to have ignored environmental regulations in order to proceed with its launch plans.
The Environmental Protection Agency and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) determined that SpaceX violated the Clean Water Act. Both agencies imposed fines totaling more than $150,000 against the company in September. The company received slaps from both the Environmental Protection Agency and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. ignore the rules Protect local water. Currently, the company is promoting an increase in the frequency of releases. Avoid a full environmental reviewthis seems like something a company with a history of environmental protection violations would want to do.
And it’s not just environmental damage caused by SpaceX’s ever-growing corporate city. There is also social pollution. new york times reported Earlier this year, residents of nearby Brownsville found themselves essentially inundated with Mr. Musk’s propaganda, from murals to the growing influence of billionaire money in local politics.
This isn’t Musk’s first foray into a corporate city. The model that looks at its roots is anti-labor group and corporatist fascism. Further north in Texas, near the suburbs of Austin, SpaceX operates Snailbrook, a city that will be incorporated in 2021. promoted as a kind of utopia For SpaceX and Boring Company employees.
Unless your idea of utopia is a millionaire dumping wastewater into the local river, Snail Brook isn’t exactly reaching that aspiration. ignored all concerns raised by local Texas residents and city planners.in that case they will work. sherwood news explained The city was built with “unfinished walls and broken playgrounds,” consisting of “uninsulated warehouses, a smaller-than-planned school, and about 15 trailers, rather than the 110 homes originally planned.” It was an emergency construction project.
I’m sure Starbase is different…right?
