TMT construction begins Monday 15 July

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

Do telescopes in the southern hemisphere preclude the need for any telescopes in the northern hemisphere?

If you only want to see half the universe.  (Or some percentage less depending on how the southern hemisphere observatories are sited)

[TomK]

Neither ELT nor GMT are in the northern hemisphere where TMT was planned.

Do telescopes in the southern hemisphere preclude the need for any telescopes in the northern hemisphere?

If so, "the" Hawaiians have won, at the cost of the UH astronomy program, jobs, economic diversification, etc.

I forget how many times I have pointed out here that only having large telescopes in the southern hemisphere means they can't observe half of the observable universe. What you wrote was, "The next generation of large ground-based telescopes might never be built." which is clearly untrue.