Minnesota Experimental City

The Minnesota Experimental City (MXC) was a proposed planned community to be located in northern Minnesota (near Swatara in Aitkin County). Proposed and studied beginning in the 1960s, it would have been constructed as a public private partnership. In contrast with many of the model cities of the time, the MXC was to be experimental, trying new things rather than proposing to select from the best of the existing practice.

It was designed for 250,000 people over 60,000 acres (243 km²). In the plan, only 1/6 of the area would be paved, the remainder would be open space: parks, wilderness, and farms. The plan called for the MXC to be partially enclosed by a geodesic dome. It would contain a branch of the University of Minnesota and 3M Corporation.

Among other proposed features were:

• a car-free zone, cars were to be parked on the edge with a people-mover connecting them to the center. An automated highway system would connect the town with the outside world.
• no schools. The city itself would foster lifelong learning, with everyone both a student and teacher.
• waterless toilets

See also

• Epcot
• Arcosanti

External links

• Swatara Minnesota History
• The Newest New Town
• Creating Future Learning Systems

References

• Vivrett, Walter K. (1971) Planning For People: Minnesota Experimental City, New Community Development Vol. 1: Planning, Process, Implementation, and Emerging Social Concerns, Shirley Weiss (Ed.). Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1971.