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Why Tech Moguls Are Obsessed with Building Utopian Cities

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11–20 of 81 posts

Re: Why Tech Moguls Are Obsessed with Building Utopian Cities

#11

What a strange thing to pin on tech. Company towns have existed forever, to the point of having laws made about how they can function. Walt Disney and ford also wanted to create a utopia city. I think this is more of a rich man's hobby than anything related to tech moguls at all. Hell, some even establish their own currency https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_scrip#Coal_company_s...

Not to mention the government mandated cities and folks like Le Corbusier! I think the vast majority of current new city developments are government mandated (e.g. Neom, Egypts new administrative capital, many new projects going up in China, etc.)

Re: Why Tech Moguls Are Obsessed with Building Utopian Cities

#12
It's because tech moguls are Americans and America doesn't have any good cities. I don't care much for these techno-towns because most of what's wrong with America is architectural, not technological, but I do think America should do a lot more building new cities from scratch.

Re: Why Tech Moguls Are Obsessed with Building Utopian Cities

#15

Because government run cities are doing a terrible job? I'd love to live in a nice environment with services and smart people around me, it's just that most cities are quite degraded (at least here in Europe / UK). The choice right now is between living in a nice small town / rural settings surrounded by people who got stuck in their rural hometown, or live in a city surrounded by smart people, homeless and drug deal…

Really? I'm sorry to hear it's the same in the UK but I loved Berlin and Tallinn wasn't bad (most of what was bad was out of their control ie the weather). I've lived in SF, San Diego, northern Nevada, DC, Berlin, Tallinn, London (Enfield) and Yerevan and by far European cities were much better run in my opinion

Re: Why Tech Moguls Are Obsessed with Building Utopian Cities

#16

What a strange thing to pin on tech. Company towns have existed forever, to the point of having laws made about how they can function. Walt Disney and ford also wanted to create a utopia city. I think this is more of a rich man's hobby than anything related to tech moguls at all. Hell, some even establish their own currency https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_scrip#Coal_company_s...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neom

Re: Why Tech Moguls Are Obsessed with Building Utopian Cities

#18

Maybe I missed it but I'm a little surprised they didn't mention the new Innovation Zone legislation the Nevada Governor mentioned (and that was seeded by Blockchains LLC) and the broader Charter City movement (e.g. Pronomos, Charter City Institute, etc.)

Probably because "Innovation Zones" popped up a few weeks after this article.

Re: Why Tech Moguls Are Obsessed with Building Utopian Cities

#20
post #18

Maybe I missed it but I'm a little surprised they didn't mention the new Innovation Zone legislation the Nevada Governor mentioned (and that was seeded by Blockchains LLC) and the broader Charter City movement (e.g. Pronomos, Charter City Institute, etc.)

Probably because "Innovation Zones" popped up a few weeks after this article.

Sorry, yes it was a week after this was published when Sisolak mentioned them first!
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