A Texas utopia, a modern eco-village in California, San Francisco's surprising new neighbor, and a tropical city for digital nomads. These tech entrepreneurs take on the grand challenge of new urbanism.
Whether they're working to colonize Mars, reverse the aging process, or pioneer novel solutions to climate change, Tech tycoons are leveraging their huge fortunes to support big bold ideas. These ideas aren't limited to technology labs or space travel, but also the places we call home. Some of the most impactful ideas are designed to solve the very real problems with urban living, and we will soon see cities that wouldn't look out of place in a science fiction movie right here on Earth, and not just on Mars.
Elon Musk's Texas Utopia
In March 2023, somewhere between endless articles about Twitter (before it became X), the world was abuzz with the announcement that Elon Musk was planning to build his own city. For several years, the billionaire had quietly acquired large tracts of land in Texas, near Austin, where he then began to concentrate his major businesses. This is the headquarters of The Boring Company, in 2021 Tesla's headquarters moved there, and now a giant SpaceX factory and warehouse are under construction. With the employees of these companies in mind, Musk decided to build a new city.
In a meeting with local landowners and real estate agents, Musk's team outlined a vision for the city, which The Wall Street Journal described as a "Texas utopia along the Colorado River". That was in March. So, what does the project look like six months from now? At the entrance gate, a sign greets visitors: Welcome, Snailbrook, TX, est. 2021. (The town is named after the mascot of The Boring Company, a snail called Gary.) Beyond the gate, a few modular houses come into view, along with a recreation area featuring a pool and a gym, as well as the outlines of several streets, currently leading nowhere. The landscape is rather bleak and, for the moment, bears no resemblance to a Texas utopia. According to Snailbrook's neighbor, there is little evidence of a grand vision in the work on the town so far. Some critics even see the project as an extension of Musk's employment strategy, since it's easier to stay at work after hours while living just over the fence.
The Troubled History of Company Towns
The coming years will reveal Musk's true plans for Snailbrook, although today it simply seems an economically motivated decision to build a housing base for employees. The company town concept is nothing new, but their long history has taken on different shades. In the U.S., they were established as early as the 19th century, particularly in regions with a concentration of mining, textile or metal industries. The large number of workers, and the location of the facilities far from urban centers, required the construction of housing developments. Unfortunately, the majority of American company towns were notorious for trying to squeeze as many people as possible into the buildings that were built as cheaply as possible. Sometimes, they included a church, a school, a company store with inflated prices, and little else. However, not all worker settlement concepts turned out to be quite so grim.
At the end of the 19th century, the idea of a utopian company town emerged in Britain, whose happy residents were to become more productive workers. Instead of gnarled barracks in the middle of nowhere, settlements were designed according to the idea of a garden city. Comfortable homes, open spaces, and green recreational areas.
An emblematic example is the beautiful, nature-rich Bournville, founded by the Cadbury family. Once an independent town, it is now a highly regarded district of Birmingham, still privately owned. The Bournville project can be described as something between a company and private town. The workforce of Cadbury's companies were to account for only 50% of the residents, with the remaining houses open to those interested in living in an attractive, privately administered neighborhood. The secret to Bounville's success seems to be the fact that the town's founder, George Cadbury, was a committed social activist and reformer. His heirs emphasize that his main concern in planning Bournville was how to address the problems of inequality and other social ills that plagued contemporary cities. Perhaps this combination of economic motivations (greater worker productivity) with ideological considerations is the key to the success of private cities.
Zucktown to the Rescue
Mark Zuckerberg's Meta (formerly Facebook) real estate project is certainly not short on lofty ideas. The company boasts of building a new town to solve the region's housing problems and boost the economic development of a declining neighborhood. In 2022, the city council of Menlo Park, California, approved a plan for Willow Village, often referred to by the media as Zucktown.
This modern village will be built on the site of a 1970s industrial warehouse complex, 10 minutes from Meta's headquarters. The project calls for the construction of 1,730 residential units, 312 of which will be rented well below market rate to provide housing for low-income families, as well as a building with 19 affordable apartments for seniors. Willow Village will also include offices, a large hotel, commercial space, shops, restaurants, parks and recreational areas.
Most interestingly, Willow Village's conditional zoning permit includes language to promote the environmental well-being of the site, along with a commitment that construction equipment with low CO2 emissions will be used, as well as ongoing monitoring of light pollution in the surrounding wetlands. In addition, according to the developer, Willow Village will be built in the spirit of sustainable construction, using wood for construction to reduce CO2 emissions. Buildings will be fully electric (LEED Gold certified) and the entire township will use only renewable energy and recycled water.
Willow Village marketing focuses on communication about working with local residents and Belle Haven neighbors. The project is expected to address their concerns and ultimately help solve the region's housing and economic problems. The green light from local authorities and the community bodes well for Zuckerberg's project, and could be a valuable lesson in the importance of building a private city by developing good relationships with locals.
Phantom City of Silicon Valley Billionaires
Meanwhile, the residents of Solano County, California are watching the activities of a mysterious group of investors from Flannery Associates with more than a little concern. Over the past five years, the company has purchased more than 40,000 acres of land in the Bay Area near San Francisco. It wasn't until August of this year that the Wall Street Journal revealed the prominent Silicon Valley figures behind the brand, including Reid Hoffman, Michael Moritz, Marc Andreessen, Chris Dixon, Laurene Powell Jobs, Patrick and John Collison. The group was said to have invested a staggering $1 billion, often buying land several times above market value, and some transactions were reportedly made under pressure.
Communication about the project has been sparse, and officially we know as much as Brian Brokaw, a Flannery representative, wrote in an emailed statement. In a nutshell, the company is incredibly proud to be a partner in the project, which aims to provide Solano County residents with many good-paying jobs, affordable housing, clean energy, sustainable infrastructure, open space and a healthy environment. We know a bit more from an unofficial opinion insight survey sent to county residents, which Flannery did not officially sign and has not yet commented on.
The survey asked questions regarding the resident's attitudes toward many aspects of building a new city, including planting over a million new trees, building a solar power plant, the concept of a car-free pedestrian city, public transportation, 10,000 acres of new parks and recreational spaces, thousands of new jobs, and hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue for the county in the first 10 years. Finally, respondents were asked if they would support such a project in a possible ballot initiative.
Local government officials and the county community are rather skeptical of the project, largely due to an aggressive land acquisition strategy. Some appreciate the private initiative to solve the housing shortage, although voices of disbelief seem to prevail. In stark contrast to Willow Village, local community activists are disappointed by the lack of consultation with residents before announcing such grand plans to develop this agricultural region. Flannery needs support from local and federal officials, as well as ballot initiatives, so the project's biggest challenge at this point seems to be doing its homework on relation building.
Building a New Way of Life In a Tropical Paradise
One organization taking a radically different approach to building a private city is Samana Group Holding, led by Marek Zmysłowski, an entrepreneur known for his successful ventures in Africa and Europe, as the co-founder of Jumia and Sunroof.se. Samana Group's partners have been working with local landowners since the early 2000s, accumulating land, building investments and, most importantly, strengthening relations with the government and the local community.
Today, the Samana Group is one of the largest landowners and real estate developers on the Samaná Peninsula, owning approximately 10,000 acres of land. The company has excellent relations with the local community and the Dominican government, allowing for the smooth execution of projects. They currently control several trendy hotels and are building the region's first modern residential-coworking complexes: Nomad City and El Valle Views, described as estates for digital nomads, guaranteeing the comfort of working in the middle of a tropical paradise. Ultimately, these developments will become part of a new eco-friendly town for about 10,000 residents.
Samana Group says its main goal is to protect the local wildlife and plans to develop 20-25% of the area, building in harmony with the natural landscape. No wonder, since the project's greatest strength is its location: untouched nature, heavenly beaches and crystal clear ocean waters. This is what distinguishes the Samana project from its predecessors in this article. The city will not be built near large corporations, so the brand's target customers are primarily remote or hybrid workers, for whom excellent internet and convenient offices are sufficient for work. It's also a choice for renters and people looking for a second home in an idyllic location where they can spend part of the year and earn commercial rent for the rest. Samana Group supports this model by offering full management of such rentals for a reasonable commission.
As with Zuckerberg's project, Samana emphasizes the importance of sustainable development. Marek Zmyslowski has declared his ambition to bring a bit of conscious capitalism to the real estate industry, believing that the creation of the right type of private cities are an opportunity to correct the mistakes of past urban planning. Samana is betting on environmentally friendly solutions not only in construction, but also in the lifestyle of future residents. In terms of transportation, they will use co-sharing electric vehicles, and the town is expected to be energy self-sufficient thanks to SunRoof solar roofs and facades. Interestingly, this is the brand that challenged Tesla Roof a few years ago, when its co-founder, Marek Zmyslowski, first competed directly with Elon Musk's company. While the two's ventures aren't really competitive today, it's hard to resist making comparisons and following the two businessmen's next steps in the urban construction arena.
A New Urban Way of Life
The concept of building cities is perhaps most fascinating at the first stage of urban planning. Done right, It's an opportunity to avoid the mistakes of historical settlements that expanded unchecked for centuries. Every aspect of a private city is planned in advance, leaving no room for destructive uncontrolled land development. The master plan can be integrated into the natural landscape, respecting nature and preserving more open, green spaces that are desperately lacking in traditional cities. Eco-friendly solutions can be implemented in the construction of buildings and infrastructure, choosing materials with a smaller carbon footprint and new, greener technologies. The city of the future should most likely be equipped with green energy, advanced recycling systems, and reduced car traffic.
But that is just the first stage. For such a project to be truly successful, it must also look to the future from a sociological perspective. Designing a city is also very much about lifestyle design and the delicate balance of social dynamics. Is it possible to design a new and better model of urban life? How to prevent a utopian vision from slipping into a dystopian future? What does it take to realize such an ambitious vision? Tech tycoons may not be short on capital, but as history teaches us, the best results come when economics is aligned with a righteous idea.
