A new lobbying group, dubbed the Freedom Cities Coalition, wants to convince President Trump and Congress to authorize the creation of new special development zones within the U.S. These zones would allow wealthy investors to write their own laws and set up their own governance structures which would be corporately controlled and wouldn’t involve a traditional bureaucracy.
According to interviews and presentations viewed by WIRED, the goal of these cities would be to have places where anti-aging clinical trials, nuclear reactor startups, and building construction can proceed without having to get prior approval from agencies like the Food and Drug Administration, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the Environmental Protection Agency.
Personally I don't think it's a good idea. It's literally Rapture from BioShock. Settlements without any administrative oversight gonna leads to problems rampant in company towns like environmental devastation, total disregard to labor laws (Company Stores, union busting, private security etc.) and high social costs. Proposed developments like medical research are morally questionable at best to outright dangerous (nuclear reactors without proper oversight and I proper handling nuclear and chemical waste already leads to massive fuck ups).
One proposed land for "Freedom Cities" is land own by federal government, it is federal because, among other things, wasn't suitable to be settled due to climate, geographic isolation and lack of natural resources needed to live in first place.
Overall some tech bros think they know how to run urban development and administration better than everyone else and push it because they are "stiff" by red tape.
Posted by k890
8 Comments
Let them. They will probably end up being yimby paradises with dense housing and mass transit.
> One proposed land for “Freedom Cities” is land own by federal government, it is federal because, among other things, wasn’t suitable to be settled due to climate, geographic isolation and lack of natural resources needed to live in first place.
in other words, in a place where workers are in a miserable climate, isolated from the outside world and dependent on the company imports to even survive.
Techbros want to become Feudal Lords so badly is not even funny anymore.
Very old idea. This has been discussed for many decades.
Manufacturing a city where people currently don’t want to live is a difficult task
Bladerunner was a great film. I don’t wanna live in it
If you want to know what these would look like, look into Curtis Yarvin, the philosopher behind this idea. He’s also supported by the VP and Thiel and likely Musk, who has been quieter but has dropped hints that this is where he’s at.
No gods or kings, only man.
We used to call these “company towns”
They want to be a modern day aristocracy so bad. It’s so fucking pathetic.