Here’s the plan. We’re starting a wireless biometric crypto-AI blockchain company. Instead of a traditional headquarters, we’re going to buy up 50,000 acres of the desert and start our own city. It’ll look like Blade Runner perched on an Amalfi cliff face and run completely on self absorption and hair product. There will be a centrally located Soylent pump running to home taps and the police will be replaced with armed Ring doorbells. Our neighbors will be Burning Man on one side and a Legitimate Businessman’s Organization on the other.
Interestingly, the most likely part of this idea is founding a city in the desert. Nevada’s Governor Steve Sisolak (D) has proposed legislation to allow corporations to start their own towns. Calling them “Innovation Zones”, the proposal will allow companies in certain high-tech fields to stand up an entity with municipal authority given certain size, investment, and employment measures are sustained. The idea was met with concern about the last century’s company towns and the indentured servitude they created.
The worry is well placed. A municipality with police power only beholden to shareholders comes straight from Robocop. But the mechanism is not absurd. After all, cities are corporations. Incorporation is the literal mechanism used to found a municipality. The only difference between Seattle and Amazon is what part of the Revised Code of Washington their charter was filed under. (Amazon has reorganized in Delaware. Some legislators are likely investigating if Seattle can too.)
Also, the company town might seem like history, but they still exist. Start with Homeowners Associations (HOAs). HOAs are corporations set up by a developer where the voting rights are based on the ownership of land. They transfer as ownership changes. The HOA structure holds community land, maintains community standards, and prevents us from charging golf courses reasonable property taxes according to the King County Tax Assessor.
A certain experimental prototype community of tomorrow is its own, very popular, corporate-owned city. The Reedy Creek Improvement District is Walt Disney World’s private government. The arrangement gave Disney control over its territory, overcame straddling county borders, and prevented annexation by Orlando.
