The issue is creating and maintaining critical mass for the superorganism of people, opportunity, money, and ideas. One such example is Stanford University and Palo Alto, arguably a mini "Venice" of our times by the deliberate sowing of the seeds by the Stanford family post 1884. Interestingly, A. Leland Stanford became something of a socialist in his later years. Jane Stanford either crossed paths with a sociopath or was detested enough to be murdered by one of her employees in Hawaii after a failed attempt in California.