I don’t love this New Yorker article all that much, because it is mostly a bunch of anecdotes strung together with the opinions of “high net worth individuals”, as though we should care more about their opinions than the opinions of other people. I don’t. But the article had a few interesting parts, including this description of a “the Survival Condo Project, a fifteen-story luxury apartment complex built in an underground Atlas missile silo” in Kansas.

The original silo of Hall’s complex was built by the Army Corps of Engineers to withstand a nuclear strike. The interior can support a total of seventy-five people. It has enough food and fuel for five years off the grid; by raising tilapia in fish tanks, and hydroponic vegetables under grow lamps, with renewable power, it could function indefinitely, Hall said. In a crisis, his swat-team-style trucks (“the Pit-Bull VX, armored up to fifty-calibre”) will pick up any owner within four hundred miles. Residents with private planes can land in Salina, about thirty miles away…

The complex is a tall cylinder that resembles a corncob. Some levels are dedicated to private apartments and others offer shared amenities: a seventy-five-foot-long pool, a rock-climbing wall, an Astro-Turf “pet park,” a classroom with a line of Mac desktops, a gym, a movie theatre, and a library. It felt compact but not claustrophobic. We visited an armory packed with guns and ammo in case of an attack by non-members, and then a bare-walled room with a toilet. “We can lock people up and give them an adult time-out,” he said. In general, the rules are set by a condo association, which can vote to amend them. During a crisis, a “life-or-death situation,” Hall said, each adult would be required to work for four hours a day, and would not be allowed to leave without permission. “There’s controlled access in and out, and it’s governed by the board,” he said.

The “medical wing” contains a hospital bed, a procedure table, and a dentist’s chair.

It’s easy for me to say “no thanks” since, not being a “high net worth individual”, this is not an option for me. But even if I were sitting on a billion dollars I don’t think I would be interested in this.