How to build the world's most extraordinary town

by hammerbrostime • 15 years ago

73 45 15 years ago

tryitnow• 15 years ago

Interesting. I think this incarnation of the idea is overly idealistic, but if it were more market-oriented and bit more small scale (think neghiborhood instead of town) it could be doable and not a bad way to fight against unsustainable real estate valuations.

jackvalentine• 15 years ago

There will be massive problems with planning laws. Sad, but I can't think that there will not be.

I'd love to live in a town like this, where I can built a 1-2 person house of significantly smaller square footage for $30,000ish but I think without the power of an established player, or getting everyone who pledges money to pay up front and form a corporation before spending millions on lawyers this will go nowhere.

wooster• 15 years ago

A new 10,000 person town in the North Bay? Great. Except for the county plans for real estate in the counties (20 years each), the zoning laws, the inconvenient lack of open subdivided land, the $120,000 per structure planning/permitting/inspection overhead for new construction, etc, etc.

This isn't even close to realistic.

jacques_chester3• 15 years ago

You may have noticed that they're going to apply the power of the internet and social networking. As you may know, the internet and social networking are perfect tools for drawing the attention of many people to tedious legalities for long spans of time.

wickedchicken2• 15 years ago

The success of YouTube comments and Android Market ratings resoundingly confirms this.

bherms• 15 years ago

10,000 home town. Assume each home houses more than one person and you're looking at 10,000-40,000 or so people. Irrelevant to how terrible (well, unrealistic) of an idea it is, but worth noting.

mkramlich• 15 years ago

"Therefore, all progress depends on unreasonable men."

a tip of the hat to whoever's behind this

buff-a• 15 years ago

Is it just going to be Alphas in this brave new town?

jacques_chester3• 15 years ago

I'd suggest picking a part of the world with less onerous planning laws. Texas, perhaps. For Europeans, Germany has a constitutional 'right to build'.

ctdonath3• 15 years ago

Yesterday I stumbled across http://www.cheaplandinamerica.com - among other options you can get 643 acres in TX for $127K. On a related note, sites like http://tinyhouseblog.com/ http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com/ depict tiny homes at low cost & complexity. Getting 10,000 people signed up to commit $2.5B for a turnkey socialist utopia may be rather optimistic, but a low-entry-cost growth-oriented plan might work. Put in a road, well, and 3G/4G tower and get this project started!

davidw• 15 years ago

Sounds interesting, but a couple of points:

1) I live pretty close to someplace with a claim to be one of the more extraordinary towns in the world: http://bit.ly/r2JHIn

2) Universal health care & other benefits seem like it might be a lot to chew off.

Good on them for giving things a try though.

dodo53• 15 years ago

It's quite a community selection bias to ask people to pay for houses before the whole town is constructed - presumably towards people who are already pretty wealthy (or incredibly risk-tolerant).

I also wonder with that kind of money and momentum whether you could e.g. buy a neighbourhood of Detroit and regenerate it.

Klonoar• 15 years ago

The tone of this site comes across as if it was written by a bunch of hippies with little knowledge of how the world (or people in general) work.

This is a process that will take years to even get started properly. They try to condense it into 4 steps, but... well, let's break this down.

- Need 10k enrollees. The definition of "enrollee" seems loose here, so given some mindless campaigning this is actually the easy part. Let's give it a modest 3 months.

- Ah, nice, so now that we've supposedly got enough people, we need to spin up a little marketing campaign to get people to sign off on it. Alas, this isn't a feel good movie, so we're going to give this a nice... six months (being pretty generous here).

- Oh, shit, uhh... hey guys, you all also need to be pre-approved for loans. We didn't really do anything to check this out when we got you all mentally invested (if you're even still interested by this point). We're lucky if we get half of you! Allocate at least a year for this, since there won't be the 10k people that originally got onboard, and numbers need to be shored up again.

- Step three begins when we get a board to actually approve all of this. There's really no guarantee this part will work; that said, if it does, we're saying 1.5 years for all of the basic setup.

- Step four, huzzah! We're building homes... for another 1.5 years. Can't live here just yet! No worries, though, we've got a super high speed build process... hey, wait, you're not listening, are you?

There are so many pitfalls with this it's not even funny (and I'm being incredibly generous with the numbers above). I'm guessing the people behind this are from the Bay area; surprised they never heard of a drop off rate. ;P

Speaking of the people behind this, who are they? There's absolutely no information on this site explaining why you should ever bother placing some level of trust in the efforts spearheaded by these people.

Then again, maybe this entire thing is a joke. I almost felt certain of it when I read this line:

This step is all about social networking. We need 10,000 enrollees to complete this step. Tell your friends, neighbors, cousins, distant acquaintances, cats, dogs, and anyone who will listen. If everyone does this, we will finish this step in about twenty five minutes.

tomelders• 15 years ago

Yeah, it's probably going to be really difficult. May as well not even bother trying. Best to just pick holes in it and offer up no constructive criticism.

Well done you (slow clap)

I'm so tired of people shooting stuff down for the sake of it.

mattmanser• 15 years ago

He's got some very valid criticisms, 10k people who have £250k of credit to spare for 2 years is an extremely small subset of people.

This is a startup community, if you're going to get prickly when someone points out the obvious holes, you're in the wrong place.

jacques_chester3• 15 years ago

This is like complaining about people who tell kids Santa isn't real.

Presumably the people behind the website are adults. They should be ready to accept criticism. Maybe they'll find a way around these problems, maybe they won't.

But there's no reason that we should avoid criticism because someone somewhere might not like it.

JoeAltmaier• 15 years ago

Oh come on. This article might as well have read "We'll solve world hunger! By signing up random strangers on the Interweb! And stop war!"

It was naieve, simpleminded, baseless drivel, and he called them on it. Cynicism not required.

PakG12• 15 years ago

Hey, it worked in The Village. ;) To a point...

rdtsc• 15 years ago

Good points, I mostly agree, except:

> We need to spin up a little marketing campaign to get people to sign off on it.

Facebook, twitter, local news, the crazier the idea the faster it will spread. Mostly through the "Oh look at the crazy hippies building a commune" kind of attitude but there will be some in the network that might like the idea. So nowadays it doesn't all have to be paid advertisements in NYT or on TV.

> hey guys, you all also need to be pre-approved for loans.

Why not make that the first step before signing-on. It took us a relatively quick trip to the bank to get pre-approved for a mortgage loan. This is different, maybe it will fall into a 'building a house on an empty lot' housing loan category...

> We're building homes... for another 1.5 years.

Don't have to build all at once. Can build some quicker and bring in a few businesses, then extend out. Those who sign-on first get their first.

Overall it does seem like a joke. But if it is not I can see idiologically motivated people with disposable income signing on. Maybe retiring hippies who have money, or young adventurous individuals who have good jobs, and want to do something different.

praptak• 15 years ago

Wait. Step zero. Who are you and why do you expect ten thousand people to trust you with a several years worth of income?

An answer of "'we' are 'you' - the 10000 people who enroll! Together we'll figure out how to manage the money and stuff!" doesn't score well.

OmegaTown• 15 years ago

Klonoar, you make some very good points, I'll address them one at time:

"Need 10k enrollees. . ."

We are just getting off the ground and have planned on a 60% attrition rate; however, we will readily admit this may be optimistic. To that end we have raised our goal to 50,000 enrollees (people signed up through the website). Our initial plan called for 4000 units at 2.5 occupants per unit. In creating the website we have created a higher targert to account for attrition. We have changed the wording on the website to reflect this ambiguity. We have allotted one year for this phase of the project.

"we need to spin up a little marketing campaign to get people to sign off on it. Alas, this isn't a feel good movie, so we're going to give this a nice... six months (being pretty generous here)."

We have allotted a year for this phase.

"hey guys, you all also need to be pre-approved for loans"

This can happen in parallel with marketing campaign and will take approximately one year with the help of a strong volunteer base.

"Step three begins when we get a board to actually approve all of this. There's really no guarantee this part will work; that said, if it does, we're saying 1.5 years for all of the basic setup."

This is what the "marketing campaign" is for. Of course there is "no guarantee" we will get approval. The re-zoning alone will add $200 million to the value of the land and will not be granted without strong public support. As noted elsewhere, we have allotted one year for this phase of the project.

"Step four, huzzah! We're building homes... for another 1.5 years. Can't live here just yet! No worries, though, we've got a super high speed build process... hey, wait, you're not listening, are you?"

Snarkyness aside, we are listening. . .and have just launched the site, so please give some slack. We are proposing to use Variable Density Aggregate (foam concrete) poured in form with windows and plumbing intact. The VDA will act as insulation, fire proofing, as well as an earth quake tolerant structural exterior. We anticipate building 4000 homes, including infrastructure, in 12-18 months.

"Speaking of the people behind this, who are they? There's absolutely no information on this site explaining why you should ever bother placing some level of trust in the efforts spearheaded by these people."

Point well taken, we will be putting up bios on our new "About Us" page.

Thanks for your response.

-The Omega Project Team

jtheory• 15 years ago

The "who we are" bit definitely needs to be front & center, and if you don't have enough people with serious & relevant credentials, it's important to get more on board.

As a very small start, are any of you currently living in a house like the ones you're proposing? Have lived/are living in one of the many eco-villages around the world? Helped found any of them?

I love this kind of idea -- but it's one of those kinds of things that explodes in complexity when you get beneath the surface. Don't listen to the naysayers, generally -- but listen very carefully to the ones who have experience/expertise you're lacking, and get started sooner rather than later on attacking the problems they foresee.

IAnsari• 15 years ago

Man, I'd freaking love to do this..

If only my wife felt the same way..

FML..

kolinko• 15 years ago

0% unemployment? Communists tried that a couple of times, never worked. I wonder how they're planning to be different..

PakG12• 15 years ago

To say nothing of those who want to take a break deliberately... :)

sologoub• 15 years ago

If you deliberately take yourself out of the labor force, you are not unemployed according to the rules used to gather official statistics ;)

steve-howard• 15 years ago

True that. If we pretend they're not talking about frictional (between jobs) or structural (tech makes people redundant) unemployment, they seem to be claiming that they can eliminate the kind of cyclical unemployment that happens when the world economy goes down the drain. I'd be fascinated if the Power of Social Marketing can fix that.

wickedchicken2• 15 years ago

I legitimately can't tell if this is a troll site or not. "In step four the town chartered bank sells $2.5 Billion in prime mortgage backed securities and construction begins."

Groupon jokes aside, who trusts random guys on the internet with 2.5 billion?

noahth• 15 years ago

exactly one forum post, and it appears to be spam.

kudos for the raw ambition though.

hammerbrostime• 15 years ago

Nope, not spam. I'm just a long time lurker.

Samuel_Michon• 15 years ago

I think Noah was talking about the Omega forum (http://omegaproject.us/index.php/forum), not HN.

rorrr• 15 years ago

To build the world's most extraordinary town you first must be outside of US jurisdiction. I suggest you build a modular island out of plastic bottles instead.

ctdonath3• 15 years ago

Plastic bottles aside, that was the goal of the libertarian-oriented http://oceania.org/ project.

0ffw0rlder• 15 years ago

This looks like a leftist version of the free state project, but with slightly more cool-aid.

becomevocal• 15 years ago

I'm thinking a campaign where they get 'the internet' to all pitch in and buy $25 sponsored bricks would work better. I would do it, knowing my brick might never materialize.

Now if a lot of people did that, then you could start offsetting costs to the point where people might actually buy a house.

kokey• 15 years ago

This is brilliant, they should do this in many regions around the world. Now that we are running out of communist states because they are failing, we need new working examples of why it's a bad idea.

gotrythis• 15 years ago

I know of a group of people doing something similar near where I live. They have successful serial eco entrepreneurs, experts in land acquisition, builders, teachers, and several doctors, involved at the higher levels. Not exactly a bunch of hippies. (Edit: If they were doing it somewhere more sensible, as in warmer, I'd be on their board as well. I think people should be encouraged to create intentional eco communities.)

They want to have full control and not all of the usual infrastructure required for a town like sewers, roads, etc. One of the major problems of course, is zoning laws, which can be circumvented by setting it up as a university... or a religion.

I skimmed through the omegaproject site and didn't see where it was planned or who was behind it, two things that would help. Without knowing more about the people involved, it does come across as suspect.

brudgers• 15 years ago

>"pre-sell the homes, and use the profits to create the most extraordinary town ever built."

Profits are what is left over after you build everything. When pre-sales create profits, you have a scam.

Aviwein77• 15 years ago

Oh man, where is that 250 grand I had lying around... :)

Seems like this site is coming under a lot of harsh comments. I am not sure about the sustainability, or even the ability of something like this being created. But (to use their term) with the power of the internet you can reach those who do know how to do it. Someone who knows all the legality of something like this might never have an idea like this.

I think the point was 'Hey if realtors can do it, we can too and turn the profit into something useful'. If a realtor knew how to do something like this than it wouldn't take too much to assume that other people would know how to accomplish something like this. From the posts you prove this, you have more insight into this than the creators, but the idea has to start somewhere.

One would assume that if they are hoping to build a grand community then they would be willing to take suggestions from their community as to how to build this community. Just because it is idealistic, and secretly maybe you want to be a part of it, doesn't mean it is going to fail.

GoGlobal• 15 years ago

The most important question is not about the technical etc. of the project per se, but rather about: How can a project like this gain enough traction to really get the first 20-30% funding. At this time (and by showing prominent investors etc.) it could take-off. In it's core the marketing of visions are not different to webpages...

They should: 1. Reduce the core msg to 1-2 Sentences ON TOP 2. Give it a better layout and support it with pictures 3. Give examples of interested people etc. and how this project could benefit them ON AN INDIVIDUAL BASIS 4. Overall a better structure... it's too confusing atm

Sukotto• 15 years ago

I remember a similar initiative on Slashdot about 10 years ago. The goal there was to get a whole bunch of tech people to all move to the same state and work together as a (mostly) unified voting block to make that state a great place for tech people to live.

It seemed a lot better thought out than the OP's plan. iirc, they picked New Hampshire.

I don't have a bookmark and my googlefu is failing me. Can anyone else confirm that memory for me?

[EDIT] thanks waqf . Yes, those were the guys. Browsing their site, they seem a lot more nutjob than I remember them being. I wonder if that's just me getting old (get off my lawn!), me adding a rosy sheen to my memory, or them shifting focus over the years.

[EDIT 2] Looking at their original manifesto it's a combination of me getting old, and a rosy memory. If anything, they've gotten less nutjoby over the years.

waqf• 15 years ago

You're thinking of http://freestateproject.org/. It's moving pretty slowly, but they claim it's not dead.

CurtHagenlocher• 15 years ago

You can't build an extraordinary community. You have to grow it.

SudarshanP• 15 years ago

http://seasteading.org/ is an idea on similar lines by the free market libertarians and http://www.thezeitgeistmovement.com/ for the more communist minded libertarians led by Jaques Fresco.

How to build the world's most extraordinary town

Related Stories