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Esmeralda

esmeralda.org

20 pointsyeesian18 comments

How is Esmeralda funded?

Esmeralda Land Company is backed by patient, values-aligned investors

OK, who are they?

Edit: Did some more digging, found this: https://www.healdsburgtribune.com/edge-esmeralda-my-experien...

  "The most well-attended talks were led by top researchers and CEOs from sectors like cryptocurrency, AI (artificial intelligence) and neuroscience."

Oh no.

I could smell it from across the Atlantic

What? The unwashed dirty hippie smell or the crypto investor smell?

Wait .. can these two be combined?

Anarcho-libertarianism, ofc

Yeah, they don't say it out loud on the website, but the project has strong crypto roots and connections. Only one or two steps removed you have associations to: "Join Edge City" (pop-up city organizers that AFAIK directly work with Esmeralda), "Zuzalu" (pop-up city project by Vitalik Buterin), "Praxis" ("network state" project; essentially the same thing on a nation level) and a whole host of ex-crypto executives and VCs backing these things.

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I'm wondering who would actually be interested in this? It seems so undercooked and full of contradictions.

What is the economic perspective for it? I doubt the idea is that people will commute into SF, as that would clash with the car-less vision. I guess service workers for the city will likely live outside of it, which surely won't create an unharmonic class system. Will all the residents be remote tech workers? Realistically it seems like it would mostly be affordable to really rich people that would only spend part of the time in the city, torpedoing any community from forming.

The size is also half of a Disneyland so really quite small, and from what it reads on the website they effectively are executing on an already zoned spa development on the property?

It sounds like any one of those idealistic libertarian 'crypto island' projects that ends up just trying and failing to be a playground for rich people, instead of succeeding as a community project that takes the interests of people other than the investors in mind...

I'm a big proponent of livable spaces. I've spent the last 18 years in Davis CA, which has a lot of walkable, bikeable path, and is human friendly. But let's be serious. In its form, its not affordable, and this project strikes me the same way...at least in terms of their marketing.

This is interesting to me. I'm developing a similar idea across the Atlantic. If the organizers are on here, do reach out.

I used to live in Sebastopol CA, which is close by to Healdsburg. That was a nice town, it felt like it had a bit of a community. Very walkable, I'd walk into the town centre every day for a coffee, sometimes with my youngest kid. Always someone playing music in the town square. Occidental was also a nice place. I felt like I saw the best of America there, it's probably too expensive a place now though. Healdsburg was to manicured, I didn't enjoy it.

Chautauqua sounds like something that should exist everywhere, every city, every town. Who wants a commercial district built for cars and companies and drive-thru fast-food? A walkable community area sounds like a good target for all human settlements.

> Why don’t more places like this exist?

They do. They're called villages. What usually happens, though, is that they either grow to become cities, or people voluntarily migrate towards cities. The main reason is convenience. Few people want to do hard labor to sustain themselves or their community.

The author has a rosy vision of these places from childhood memories, but seems to be unaware of the work required to keep them running. Life won't just be yoga classes and board game nights.

But maybe I'm just bitter from seeing hippie communes discovered by city dwellers and marketed as ideal places to live, so good luck to them.

Honestly, i've lived on and off a hippie commune in Europe for four years (18-22), and spent a month in one in the Appalachia (not during winter, so i had a limited view of the living conditions), they are good place to live in general (when you're young at least, but i know a half dozen of oldtimers). I've experienced a great deal, discovered a lot about what i like and not, and overall had a lot of fun, and a boatful of good memories (and i have _great_ parents and siblings, so it's not in contrast of anything).

Those memories really helped later in life, so if you find one and like the people there, maybe just try it? It's fun. And if more young guys tried, i guarantee the incel culture would disappear.

I don't doubt that these places can be educational and fun. I'm in complete agreement with the idea that we lose a sense of community and humanity in large cities.

What I scoff at is when communes and villages are marketed as being the greatest place to live in. Particularly when it comes from upper-class urbanites who are oblivious of the challenges of this kind of lifestyle.

But maybe I'm wrong in prejudging this particular case. That's just the impression I got from the website and the exotic sounding name. It's very similar to the show "The Curse" which satirizes these people.

I'm not from a city, and I would argue that you lose the sense of community and humanity even in small village if you don't get out of your own way.

I'm not as critical. It seems like a 'scam' at worse ('reality embellishments' rather than a true scam), a nice place at best, and a fun experience in most cases. I do not think those challenges are particularly hard (especially because California weather is very soft, and winter is always the harsher time in communes in my experience). I'd say 'let them try'.

But I get your point, nowadays peddling this kind of imagery feels scammy.

I recall healdsburg has a bunch of michelin star restaurants. wonder if this meshes with that.

Poor people of Chautauqua, now they will be overrun by people’s seeking a new home.

Cool project! When is the next hike of the property?

While captivated by the screen's song and animation, River softly whispers "Miranda..."

Or am I the only one that read the name "Esmeralda" that way?

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