The problem with this design (more info found here) is a fundamental, LeCorbusier-like, disconnect between the architectural students and the community's needs. I grew up in a small, outmoded coal town in Southwest Virginia and nobody I remember would have chosen to live in apartment style buildings. It's a community of proud farm owners and nature lovers (self proclaimed and problematic I know), citizens who want houses that are private and the ability to do what they want with their land. Often that land has been passed down for generations.
Christopher Alexander describes good design as "the goodness of fit" between form and context. The tenancies of most people I knew in my home town, and the type of clients this proposal would target, would fall under the idea of "context", anything that puts a force on the "form".
Most towns were founded in strategic places throughout the world, be it proximity to a river for travel or sustenance or at a certain valley along a trading route. Coincidentally, most mines have an inverse relationship to convenience and comfort. Most deep mines in SWVA were out of the way, remote. (Although stripmines are smaller, more common and more often located close to homes and town centers.)
The final argument in this story centers on the the lack of a need for a new town design in a region without much economical future. No one would trade in their hometown for progress. Just look at the arguments generated around the idea of school consolidation in Wise County Virginia.
Here is a quote to from the above article to exemplify the self preservation and self identity localized in the community you live in:
"Peggy Jordan-Austin of St. Paul said towns stripped of their high schools would shrivel and die and asked the board to “preserve the town of St. Paul.” Ann Gregory of St. Paul, a former member of the board, urged board members to hold public hearings on the issue in all six communities."
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