How do you build America’s first completely solar-powered community? You start from scratch. Developers Kitson & Partners designed and constructed Babcock Ranch, a South Florida town that spans 17,000 acres (440 of which are a solar field), in partnership with state and local government. It took them more than a decade. Getting around will be groundbreaking too: the developer says the town will launch the first self-driving shuttle network in North America in November. The automated electric vehicles will pass downtown, a charter school and multiple neighborhoods, where prices for model homes currently start at about $350,000. The first residents – of a potential 50,000 – are expected to begin moving in by the end of the year. – Julia Zorthian