Model City Monday 9/4/23: California Dreamin'
Read the original on Astral Codex Ten →
Follow-up reading
↳ Highlights From The Comments On Last Week's Model Cities Post — Highlights (companion) · Sep 2023
Summary
A 'Model City Monday' roundup of new-city news: the Silicon-Valley-backed California Forever/Flannery land grab in Solano County (with a land-value back-of-envelope and its coalition of local enemies + the Orderly Growth referendum hurdle); Praxis, the paradox of an over-the-top 'terrifying angel' manifesto plus rumored competence (the Elon-Musk aura-of-destiny riff); Prospera suing Honduras for $11B (2/3 of its budget) at ICSID after a socialist government moved to kill the ZEDEs; and quick hits on Neom, Christiania, and African charter cities. Substantive per-item analysis but a topical news roundup.
Why this score
Quality 59 · Solid. Solid (upper)/low-Strong: an informed, analytical roundup (the Flannery land economics, the ZEDE legal fight, the Musk-aura observation) well above a bare link dump, but ephemeral news curation tied to a moment.
Claude’s paradigm shift 40 · Moderate. Moderate (low): synthesizes and comments on others' developments; the Musk-aura aside is a nice framing but the post is curation, not a new idea.
Real-world impact 2 · Minor. Minor: tracks real projects with real stakes, but the roundup itself has no material footprint.