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Cities are some of the biggest capital outlays that humans create, and they generally sprout up naturally in prime locations of some sort. There are exceptions
by nwah1 7y ago
Cities are some of the biggest capital outlays that humans create, and they generally sprout up naturally in prime locations of some sort.
There are exceptions, like Las Vegas, of course. Or many newer Chinese cities.
To acquire hundreds of acres of prime land suitable for an urban environment is generally something only a government can do. And to additionally provide for the infrastructure and/or buildings would send the cost into the stratosphere.
Masdar has been canned, yes, but they have talked about replacing it with a new city called NEOM. It is projected to cost at least 500 billion dollars, assuming they stay within budget. No private actor has that kind of cash to spend.
Smaller private company towns have been commonplace, though. And many existing towns meet that definition.
Disneyland, Disneyworld, and Celebration, Florida are more obvious examples.
Lesser known examples would include Pullman, Illinois or Columbus, Indiana (no relation to the capital of Ohio)
- Piskvorrr 7y agoLas Vegas is also a prime location - legally in Nevada (gambling), yet close enough to the West Coast (lots of people). It doesn't have to be a natural advantage - this is what the Mississippi boat casinos were doing since forever, just several orders of magnitude larger ;)
- nwah1 7y agoTrue, but it also shares that distinction with pretty much anywhere in Southern or Western Nevada. My understanding is that the particular site was simply where the mob chose. But, having looked it up just now, apparently all the Hoover Dam construction workers created some demand for entertainment, so that seems to be the real reason for that particular spot. Also the federal government created a city called Boulder City to get the workers away from Las Vegas. Another planned city. So clearly the location of the workers was less important than the location of the mafia.
- Piskvorrr 7y agoInteresting...I thought that Boulder City was supposed to be a temporary habitation for the workers neart the construction site; perhaps I was mistaken, perhaps that was only the overt intent.
- ghaff 7y agoIn spite of being in the desert, Vegas actually has a good water supply from aquifers (though not really enough for the current city) which is why it was a railroad water stop and, in part because of this, why Las Vegas came into being in the first place. But it really took off when the Hoover Dam construction started in 1931. [1] In the twentieth century (even early 20th century), US cities just didn't get planned/organically evolved in a car-light way. Irvine, CA is a pretty classic example of a planned city and it's mostly industrial office parks and spread out suburbs. [1[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Las_Vegas#1930%E2%80%931941:_Hoover_Dam_and_the_first_casinos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Las_Vegas#1930%E2%8...
- hylaride 7y agoMasdar has been canned, yes, but they have talked about replacing it with a new city called NEOM. It is projected to cost at least 500 billion dollars, assuming they stay within budget. No private actor has that kind of cash to spend. Indeed, I can only think of a few ground up examples for cities that "suceeded" and they're almost always new capital cities where the Government can literally create demand for jobs via moving the bureaucracy. Examples include Washington DC, Brasilia(Brazil) and Canberra(Australia). But these cities often do not have a lot to offer unless you work for the government. DC has a large private sector, but it's attached to Federal work. The rigidity of top-down planning removes the ability of the city to adapt to new things and it often misses the nuance of what makes a place livable.
- TheCoelacanth 7y agoDC wasn't started from the ground up. There were two mid-size cities already inside it when it was chosen as the federal district: Georgetown, MD and Alexandria, VA.
- hylaride 7y agoYes, but considering how it grew after it may as well have been.
- ghaff 7y ago>To acquire hundreds of acres of prime land suitable for an urban environment Land isn't really the issue. You do need access to water and you probably don't want to be too far from an existing road network. The bigger problem is bootstrapping an environment where people would both want to live and where their would be employment opportunities.
- OrangeMango 7y ago> Columbus, Indiana I don't think Columbus fits into this category. It is one of hundreds of pre-automobile county seats that exist all over the US (east of the Rocky Mountains). It has an urban-like street grid with the county courthouse in the middle. What sets Columbus apart from the rest is having a successful multi-national manufacturing corporation that refused to let the town die. On top of that, the founder created a foundation that will pay the architect fees for any civic building if they use a famous architect. The government or church or bank or whatever still has to pay for construction, so you end up with a city with outstanding architecture that is sized exactly for what a small city needs. If you spend time in Columbus, you'll notice that their hugely successful downtown is mostly old buildings in excellent condition.
- erikpukinskis 7y agoLas Vegas is a prime spot. It was is the closest empty unregulated area that’s near to western seaboard populations. Regulations are a kind of natural formation as well.