The PLSS grid favors doing this in chunks of exactly 40, 160, or 640 acres. That sort of thing has happened before, as a "planned community" or "company town".

The PLSS grid favors doing this in chunks of exactly 40, 160, or 640 acres. That sort of thing has happened before, as a "planned community" or "company town". Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't. It really depends on the folks running the show, and their goals in doing it. I think the usual failure mode is when the interests of the residents and the corporate founders diverge. The founders then shut down and move out the major employer business, and the town fails because almost everything in it was predicated on that economic support pillar being there. It's like they built shopping malls with only one anchor store.