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Comment by houseatrielah | Hacker News Reader

I suspect it will be 100% private, including the streets, etc, like a mall. So they can kick people out for homelessness, trespassing and such. DW did an interesting doc on gated communities -- huge amount of Marseille is gated off. URL w/ timestamp: https://youtu.be/0KMlDzaths8?t=1759

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There are various ways government and private ownership can provide accountability. I lived in a town where the property lines met on all sides, including through what appeared to be the roads. Each lot was encumbered with an easement which granted every other lot owner the privilege to travel over the easements so everyone can get to their houses. Taxes were mostly used by the town to maintain those roads (actually easements) and for police and building inspections. Importantly the town did not own the roads. The police enforced typical driving rules, but anyone who dug deep could find out none of it was really enforceable because it was private property. No parking on roads was enforced by a tow off the private property.

If local government acted up against the wishes of residents, it would be a simple matter to repeal taxes and do the road maintainenace ourselves. The town had a calm neighborly feel and people were respectful of each other. It worked great, and local government always knew the people had the power.

Yes please! From your comment (maybe not intentionally?) this sounds like a bad thing. But for inhabitants being able to have stricter rules is a blessing.

Ideally that would work like with the countries: different cities have dramatically different sets of rules and compete for citizens. Private ownership allows for much more flexibility here.

And you also don't pay into the general issues in the country which are shoved off to the less fortunate home owners.

Leas fortunate in what? We don’t even know housing prices there yet. It could be dirt cheap since they bought the land very cheaply, instead of having a stack of landlords from multiple generations taking their cut in price increase as in a usual city. Such cities have a chance of actually being affordable - at least initially. And the more we have them, the more competition will that create and more affordable they will be. How is it different from buying a permanent license to a software product - but the one you can also sell and buy a new one!

It's got pros and cons. Most people vacation in walkable areas with vibrant street life like buskers, musicians and so forth. You can't just take your saxophone and setup shop in the mall or do any sort of political/community-oriented activity. That's what you lose. The upside, of course, is no heroin needles, tent cities, etc.

Why do you think you cannot have the good without the bad? What stops this new city council from allocating designated musician pods on the streets, having artist in resident programs, etc? The group from the list don’t look stupid to me and these are some of the most obvious things.

PS: HN is such a strange community. In one thread people complain about US cities and SF in particular crumbling due to government mismanagement. In another they think that a new city built by some of our own members will devolve into a dystopia and give it no praise. This is an amazing idea and they already have land! I wish them only the best and if they need any help, my email is in my bio :)

>In another they think that a new city built by some of our own members will devolve into a dystopia and give it no praise.

Because, as members of this community, we're typically up to speed with the history, thought processes, beliefs, actions, etc. of the people involved in these purchases, and it sounds like, based on that understanding, many people in here don't trust the goals, vision, and/or intentions of the people behind this. Just because one might think that "SF in particular [is] crumbling due to government mismanagement" doesn't mean they should blindly go, "Oh yay, an alternative!".

Edit: I'd love to entertain ideas around how we can get cities to function differently but, I'm sorry, I don't want to hear what Marc Andreesen has to say on the subject.

city council from allocating designated musician pods on the streets

'Sorry we don't like your new song, you have been designated a trespasser and fined $10,000, this decision is not subject to appeal or further inquiry.'

A city run by SV elites will be just as well run as tech companies terms of service are famous for fair dealing and customer cooperation, ie not at all.

Because you have fewer rights on private property than in public places. That's the fundamental reason. You can have the good without the bad -- a walkable city with some law enforcement and a DA that prosecutes. I suspect a new development won't be dense/mixed-use enough for interesting street life.

> Why do you think you cannot have the good without the bad?

In theory I think you are right, but I can't recall the last time I saw a busker in a private space like a mall or airport. Maybe the incentive to encourage this is just never strong enough for the owners?

I can't recall the last time I saw a busker in a private space like a mall or airport.

While not buskers per se, a lot of private spaces hire musicians to play in their spaces to provide entertainment or background music. Many airports I've been to have someone on a piano playing in a corner

I've also seen places like trainstations where they have a licensing system. IE you audition, apply for a license and then get given a spot and a time slot when you can busk.

If you are renting property to businesses for commercial purposes, why would you give, rent, or tolerate the occupation of that space by someone who is paying less per square foot in rent, unless they are consistently doing something that increases the rent you can get from your other customers?

What you want in a vacation destination is very different from what you want where you live. Also, I’ve never vacationed anywhere with street musicians. Where are you talking about?

Paris, London, Rome, Athens, NYC... Maybe you're not a city person?

Or we could do something crazy like respect democratic norms rather than descending into a plutocratic hellscape.

A neat thing about private property is you can be your own plutocrat and run it precisely how you desire. You can make a big paved area and open it up to car drifters, homeless, and lemonade stands. You can get it done exactly right.

In fact, you can democratize it and let everybody who shows up have a vote about what they can do on your property.

Descending to a plutocratic hellscape (without dragging others and this project doesn’t) is a basic human right we all should respect please!

There is an equally strong case for the person on the other side for the behavior they are trying to exclude to do the same. Just stop sucking please, they say.

Not saying they are right, just saying pleas in that manner are already falling on ears deafened to them.

The US is a huge country, it has plenty of space for experiments. It is not as if those people are taking over an ancient city of million people and bending it to their whim. Quite to the contrary, taking part in this project is entirely voluntary.

Isn't Irvine, CA a corporate-owner and planned city as well?

It'll probably be a cookie community similar to the ones springing up around Lathrop and Tracy. Now that long distance public transit has become better in Northern California over the past 10-15 years thanks to Govs Brown and Newsom, that border area between the Bay Area and SJV will see a lot of construction as both the interior Bay Area and Sacramento have become much more expensive.

Hey, buy they will probably be able to sustain REI store, unlike Portland

https://oregonbusiness.com/rei-announces-closure-of-portland...

Jokes aside, I live near Seattle and homelessness is a problem, and tents everywhere is not a solution.

Sigh, "The uploader has not made this video available in your country" (France)

It will be like Santana Row in San Jose, a walkable area without any homeless.

For a European, Santana Row is depressing. It's utterly soulless and fake. Just build an actual town, FFS.

A walkable outdoor mall right across a busy street from an indoor mall. It's kind of big for a mall but only by a little bit. I find large closed communities much more worrying.

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