You have enumerated some of the loose ends and pitfalls associated with this idea or really set of ideas. As you know, the idea of new cities (an idea that combines Utopian thinking, the drive for profit, and happenstance in varying proportions) is not new in the West or elsewhere in the US. The creation of cities on public lands by independent (distributed and autonomous) entities (organizations) is not new. There is for example, Cody. Created from scratch by William F Cody and his associates and investors (for whom a few Cody streets are named - Beck, Rumsey, and Salsbury). They were autonomous and self-organizing. And they were plagued by all the practical realities of people living together resulting in the immediate creation of a municipal government.
The notion that 1,000 people owning land (and maybe living on it, that part isn't clear, but this being America, one has to assume that some who buy in will be speculators whose interests are not the same as those of the residents) in close proximity will somehow spontaneously create a functioning community is supported by no evidence nor even any credible theory of human behavior. It seems too kind to even call it wishful thinking.
People will bring structure with them - in the stories they know about how to live together - and if what they bring is a story that freedom = autonomy (as opposed to equalling connection), which seems likely in this case, they are going to share the fate of past attempts to create new communities based on new princples. How many of the communes that sprang up during the back to the land movement are still around? And those communities were at least nominally founded on the ideal of people coming together, not the idea that the blockchain (may as well say the invisible hand because that is what the blockchain is about) will automatically mediate relationships.
It is not impossible that the current discussion of using Federal lands for community-building could lead to some interesting efforts. It seems more likely given its origins that it will lead to more sprawl consuming more habitat. But if something good comes out it, it will not be because its organization was distributed or autonomous (both terms that in this context push against the idea of organization, creating an ugly, but not unfamiliar dynamic), it will be because whoever made it happen was telling a story of connection and cooperation.
PS: There is, by definition, no supply side solution to the housing "crisis," as the advocates of using the public lands to build housing would have us believe. Just as there has been no supply side solution to any other problem since the idea gained currency in the Reagan-Thatcher era (one would think that if it were going to work 40 years would be long enough to see that). That doesn't mean that current efforts to increase housing supply and, especially, choice should be stopped - there are other good reasons for them - but our current system offers no incentive to solve the housing problem. No one will invest in more housing if they believe their return on that investment will be too low. As soon as rents soften, they'll stop building. Free land (and its not really going to be free) could prolong the willingness to invest, but it won't result in so much building that the cost of housing falls very far. The only people served by that happening have no power to make it happen. The only solution to the housing crisis is ethical, not economic.
Thanks for the thoughtful reply with many interesting tangents. Personally, I see the founding of Cody as more centralized and less innovative: the Shoshone Land and Irrigation Company was a standard top-down corporate structure. But I agree, these innovations are utopian fantasies. (We're skeptics.)
I disagree with your PS. Solutions to the housing crisis could create more housing where people actually want to live (e.g., walkable neighborhoods around subway stops) and one way to accomplish that is to allow increased density in those neighborhoods (an uphill battle politically, because "They Want To Destroy Our Suburbs"). This has nothing to do with selling federal land, but it IS a supply-side economic approach. A demand-side approach, such as a real-estate transfer tax or increasing tax rates on a family's second, third, fourth, and fifth homes, might also alleviate the crisis. It too seems politically unlikely, but I do believe in the power of economic tools to achieve ethical aims.
Thanks, John, for a thought-provoking newsletter.
You have enumerated some of the loose ends and pitfalls associated with this idea or really set of ideas. As you know, the idea of new cities (an idea that combines Utopian thinking, the drive for profit, and happenstance in varying proportions) is not new in the West or elsewhere in the US. The creation of cities on public lands by independent (distributed and autonomous) entities (organizations) is not new. There is for example, Cody. Created from scratch by William F Cody and his associates and investors (for whom a few Cody streets are named - Beck, Rumsey, and Salsbury). They were autonomous and self-organizing. And they were plagued by all the practical realities of people living together resulting in the immediate creation of a municipal government.
The notion that 1,000 people owning land (and maybe living on it, that part isn't clear, but this being America, one has to assume that some who buy in will be speculators whose interests are not the same as those of the residents) in close proximity will somehow spontaneously create a functioning community is supported by no evidence nor even any credible theory of human behavior. It seems too kind to even call it wishful thinking.
People will bring structure with them - in the stories they know about how to live together - and if what they bring is a story that freedom = autonomy (as opposed to equalling connection), which seems likely in this case, they are going to share the fate of past attempts to create new communities based on new princples. How many of the communes that sprang up during the back to the land movement are still around? And those communities were at least nominally founded on the ideal of people coming together, not the idea that the blockchain (may as well say the invisible hand because that is what the blockchain is about) will automatically mediate relationships.
It is not impossible that the current discussion of using Federal lands for community-building could lead to some interesting efforts. It seems more likely given its origins that it will lead to more sprawl consuming more habitat. But if something good comes out it, it will not be because its organization was distributed or autonomous (both terms that in this context push against the idea of organization, creating an ugly, but not unfamiliar dynamic), it will be because whoever made it happen was telling a story of connection and cooperation.
PS: There is, by definition, no supply side solution to the housing "crisis," as the advocates of using the public lands to build housing would have us believe. Just as there has been no supply side solution to any other problem since the idea gained currency in the Reagan-Thatcher era (one would think that if it were going to work 40 years would be long enough to see that). That doesn't mean that current efforts to increase housing supply and, especially, choice should be stopped - there are other good reasons for them - but our current system offers no incentive to solve the housing problem. No one will invest in more housing if they believe their return on that investment will be too low. As soon as rents soften, they'll stop building. Free land (and its not really going to be free) could prolong the willingness to invest, but it won't result in so much building that the cost of housing falls very far. The only people served by that happening have no power to make it happen. The only solution to the housing crisis is ethical, not economic.
Thanks for the thoughtful reply with many interesting tangents. Personally, I see the founding of Cody as more centralized and less innovative: the Shoshone Land and Irrigation Company was a standard top-down corporate structure. But I agree, these innovations are utopian fantasies. (We're skeptics.)
I disagree with your PS. Solutions to the housing crisis could create more housing where people actually want to live (e.g., walkable neighborhoods around subway stops) and one way to accomplish that is to allow increased density in those neighborhoods (an uphill battle politically, because "They Want To Destroy Our Suburbs"). This has nothing to do with selling federal land, but it IS a supply-side economic approach. A demand-side approach, such as a real-estate transfer tax or increasing tax rates on a family's second, third, fourth, and fifth homes, might also alleviate the crisis. It too seems politically unlikely, but I do believe in the power of economic tools to achieve ethical aims.