Why Marvel’s ‘Company Town’ Could Become a Template for Future Cities

Trilith, Marvel’s residential ‘company town’ outside of Atlanta, Georgia, may be an effective blueprint for future cities with compact, walkable neighborhoods and environmentally conscious design features. Trilith is home to roughly 5,000 people, and though many are associated with Trilith Studios, the town is open to all and even has a waiting list for its new housing projects, Variety reports.

Trilith’s houses and condos are reinterpretations of classic European designs mixed with more modern amenities and facades, and each unit is powered by geothermal energy. Single-family homes start around $700,000, nearly twice the sale price of homes in surrounding neighborhoods, but a reasonable alternative to housing options for film buffs in New York or L.A.

Another thing that’s fairly revolutionary for new housing developments, Lefkowitz points out, is that Trilith isn’t just single-family homes — apartments, a hotel and “microhomes” (basically small condos with community courtyards) — make the community accessible to a wider range of incomes and work arrangements.

Lefkowitz sees only a few drawbacks to Trilith’s grand vision. The town isn’t integrated into a broader transportation system, he points out, since suburban Atlanta doesn’t have a deep public transportation system to begin with. And despite a variety of housing types, none of them are categorized as affordable housing. That means that while actors, catering managers and crew members could potentially afford to live there, it’s unlikely that the maintenance crew would be able to.

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