Crowd-funded designer towns built to attract specific kinds of people
Image credit: McArthurGlen Outlet Village Noventa
Darko SavicJul 30, 2021
Please leave the feedback on this idea
Originality
Is it original or innovative?
Feasibility
Is it feasible?
Necessity
Is it targeting an unsolved problem?
Conciseness
Is it concisely described?
Bounty for the best solution
Provide a bounty for the best solution
Bounties attract serious brainpower to the challenge.
The idea is to establish a practice of building themed designer towns from scratch. People that are enthusiastic about something, would pool their resources by buying town shares ahead of construction. When built, such a town would attract like-minded people.
Imagine a designer party town, built in a rural area where 24/7 partying doesn't bother the neighbors. Basically - mini Las Vegas that can be built by a few entrepreneurs pooling their resources.
Ideally, the towns would be built in sparsely populated areas where land is cheap, noise doesn't bother the neighbors and permits are easy to come by. They should be alongside highways so that they are well connected to bigger cities and can be seen from passing cars.
There should be plenty of uninhabited land around such towns to allow for future expansion and eventually housing to be built.
Crowd funding
When ICOs (initial coin offerings) were popular, companies could easily raise millions, sometimes billions within days. Designer towns could be funded via a similar model. Enthusiasts could buy town shares ahead of construction. The town would then be built with that money.
Learn from the designer outlet model
Europe is full of designer outlet "villages" that look like mini towns, built after beautiful old-European architecture. The construction cost ranges from 100 - 200 million.
In the middle of nowhere, there is usually a huge parking lot that can accommodate thousands of visitors. Next to it is a beautiful mini-town replica solely built for shopping. No building is higher than 2 stories - anything above that is ornamental.
Inside, there are little town squares, caffes, restaurants and many, many shops.
This concept can be repurposed for any other theme.
Designer towns focused on different themes
Except for party towns, some other themes could be:
a startup town (mini Silicon Valley) where startup entrepreneurs come to work in proximty to other likeminded people and get their businesses off the ground
retirement town, where old people live independently but get excellent care upon request 24/7. Placing this one near a hospital wouldn't be bad.
art town where Burning man type of people hang out
biotech town, where scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs in the biotech field come to work around likeminded people
cryptocurrency town, built by entrepreneurs in decentralized finance industry
what ever else with enough enthusiasts to want to be around similar people
Iterate on the business model
Similarly to how McDonalds perfected every aspect of their business, we should try to improve on the entire designer town building concept. Open source all the information. Every new town that gets built can use the best practices that have worked so far and try to improve on them.
[1]Google keyword: "designer outlet construction million"
Building not only in sparsely populated but secluded areas
Povilas SAug 12, 2021
I'm not sure that building such towns near big highways is such a good idea - it might help to attract additional clients, but the people already in the town wouldn't be very happy about it - because of the noise caused by the highway and because of people watching (even from afar). It would be best to have a dedicated road paved to a rather secluded area (where the town resides) only for the purpose of going there and the infrastructure required for building, delivering supplies, etc. The main road/highway could be at least a few kilometers away. If such a town is in a secluded area it also makes the experience of going/being there more interesting.
Please leave the feedback on this idea
Towns made for everyone
MC
Michelle ChristineAug 13, 2021
This appears to cater to the wealthy and/or the very well-informed, the people who want to be surrounded by people just like themselves, and only just like themselves. I'm all for crowd-pooling of resources to make good things happen, but I'm not sure that includes dividing up society into super-specific little groups that will end up ego-asserting that they were the ones who did it best and therefore should "win" when almost no one really wins. How do we integrate the people who don't feel like they fit into any of these super specific groups and make sure that everyone feels like they belong, in a divided world of super-exclusive ("but pretty!" or "but progressive!") societies
Please leave the feedback on this idea
Darko Savic3 years ago
You bring up a good aspect. The constitution or laws could make it illegal to refuse people based on any differences.
I imagine that majority of tows would always be made for everyone. Even specialized towns would gradually lose their specialty. Many existing towns were started that way (gold-digging, etc) but have since become general-purpose.
There are two sides to this problem. What happens when a bunch of people move into a "surfing town", but don't like surfing and start lobbying for changes that make the town less friendly to surfers?
Please leave the feedback on this idea
I don't know
MC
Michelle ChristineAug 21, 2021
I'm not ashamed to say I don't know.
I also think "not knowing" doesn't necessarily mean "doesn't have any value" or is inferior to any other ideas.
My original comment said that people shouldn't be "divided" based on interest/skill, and that communities should generally be all-inclusive. You brought up a good point/example of a "surfing town." There are external factors to be brought in, if geography/landscape is outside of our power to design. Should everyone have the same access to a beach that surfers would love, if they wouldn't really use that beach / get the same usefulness out of it? I really don't know.
I'm not sure who should have the right to live on ocean front property.
But if, for example, a wealthy lawyer wants to live with an ocean view view and the comfort of seeing a bunch of surfers out riding the waves, and that location benefits him in part because of those surfers, the surfers should reap some of that benefit. Meanwhile, the surfers are (likely, not definitely) motivated by a completely different purpose - they should have access to that ocean, even if their motivations are not measurably the same.
I'm not claiming to know how to implement it but that should be the goal- to allow both types of people with different motivations/rewards access to the possibility of living in that desirable place.
I might change my mind completely, I'm not sure right now.
Darko Savic Jul 30, 2021
