This Could Be America’s First Solar-Powered Town

A new solar-powered town in Florida has already built a restaurant, a school and a community gathering space. Now in 2018, Babcock Ranch is adding something even more important: residents.

Below Tampa and Orlando, about half an hour northeast from the tourist attractions of Fort Myers, Babcock Ranch is built on and 18,000-acre expanse and hopes to have 19,500 homes and 50,000 residents within 20 to 25 years. Its first residents moved in January 4th.

While building a town is a multi-faceted project that no one person could accomplish, Babcock Ranch is the brainchild of one man: Syd Kitson, a Florida developer. “In 2005,” the town’s website states, Kitson “set out to prove that smart growth and preservation could work hand in hand.”

Originally used for logging and agriculture by Edward Vose Babcock, a lumber baron and mayor of Pittsburgh in the early 20th century, the land became known as the Babcock Nature Preserve. In 2006, Babcock’s heirs eventually sold the land to Kitson, who beat out the state of Florida in the bidding. He sold most of the land to the state and used the rest to create Babcock Ranch. At the time, Kitson told the New York Times, “This is how I’m going to change the world.” Read more…

This Could Be America’s First Solar-Powered Town