I can imagine a city built around communal farming in which all the food is essentially free.
Without labor the fields will be full of weeds. The author trivializes the work of a farmer. He probably should leave the city one day, go 100 miles south, and see for himself how much labor goes into growing anything.
I share my cucumbers and in return get whatever I need from the other neighbors’ crops via an organized ongoing sharing arrangement.
What is he going to do with grain? Is he advocating pre-Bronze age technology?
We already know how to build homes that use zero net energy.
Absolutely. They are called "caves." Beware of bear, though.
Now add IBM’s Watson technology (artificial intelligence) to the medical system and you will be able to describe your symptoms to your phone and get better-than-human-doctor diagnoses right away.
Is he INSANE? No diagnosis these days, short of minor flu in winter, can be complete without examinations and tests. No doctor, aside from a friend who already knows you, will even give you a diagnosis over the phone.
In this imagined future you can remove much of the unnecessary costs of the cruel final days of life that are the bulk of medical expenses.
Nazis euthanized mental patients, but even they did not go as low as killing old people just because they are old. Logan's Run was NOT a documentary.
Everyone would be walking, swimming, biking, and working out.
Instead of working, of course.
the common center, which has security cameras [...] creates a natural “family” of folks drawn to the common area each evening for fun and recreation.
I see a contradiction here. Why do you need a security camera there? Aren't you trusting your neighbors? :-) (That's how utopias fall apart.)
The neighborhood would be Internet-connected so it would be easy to find someone to watch your kid or dog if needed, for free.
Yes, people are already lining up to watch for someone's kid for free.
When anyone can learn any skill at home, and any job opening is easy to find online
Let's see how you can learn at home to be an oil well worker, or a fisherman, or a scientist. Oh, Mr. Adams is an artist. Yes, you can learn to draw at home... as long as you have someone real who will hold your hand for a while.
In the future, homes will be designed to the last detail using CAD, and factory-cut materials of the right size will appear on the job site as a snap-together kit with instructions printed on each part.
Unfortunately, today workers have to grow trees at the work site to cut them into beams and to make plywood. They have no drawings, and there are no architects, and of course they have no idea what materials they need, and how much - especially not ahead of time. But it will change in the future.
The new city would be built on cheap land, by design
Does the author have any idea what makes land cheap or expensive? I'm sure that an old artillery firing range, with thousands of unexploded shells still in the ground, can be bought cheap enough. Is this his idea of cheap land?
Individually-owned automobiles would be banned.
Ah, you MUST hire someone to do work that you could otherwise do yourself for less money and with less hassle. That's freedom for you, remember! You are free to choose what I tell you.
Besides... where will Uber drivers live and keep their vehicles? Are they exempt from the requirement of hiring someone else to transport themselves? If they are, what stops everyone from becoming a Uber driver but transporting only themselves and their friends? If they are not, wouldn't it be inhumane to deny the drivers the right to live in a city that they serve? It's always easy to build a nice society, as long as you don't need to worry about workers who make it happen. Invariably, utopias cannot exist without magic.
You wouldn’t have much processed food in this city, so no cans and bottles to discard.
It must be nice to live in California (it is, actually :-) - but even here I cannot buy all kinds of produce all the time. I have to buy goods in jars, in containers, in bags, in boxes - unless I want to subsist on whatever is currently available in the garden. I'm eating a Washington Red apple now, but - surprise - the apple tree outside is not even blooming, unlike the peach and the plum. I have lemons, if that's a suitable substitute :-) Oh, rice will be out - CA does not have enough water for it, and never had. There are far less hospitable climates where you can't grow much, and even that would be not always tasty (beet, potatoes.) You'd likely develop vitamin deficiency.
In other words, Mr. Adams must be trolling :-)
“Yes, people are already lining up to watch for someone’s kid for free.”
Those people are called “grandparents” by most normal people. It’s usually easier to reach them by phone.