Really interesting and in-depth article.

I’ve been reading about for-profit cities for a couple of years now, and the concept just sounds really wrong to me.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/28/magazine/prospera-honduras-crypto.html

should cities be for profit institutes or public good?

Building @nanograph @cast2save, moding /singapore

In principle a hybrid model should work best, and before that, prob. will see both models compete to certain degree: market mechanism works to find out best solution most times. 

Problem w/ those governance models & design innovation is: 

1. existing governance models: if u cannot benchmark it, u cannot tell which one works better and which one doesn't. imagine if we have a dashboard for governments like the one for us stocks: https://www.tradingview.com/markets/stocks-usa/market-movers-all-stocks/ and what findings will be made on governance? Lack of transparency data is a problem. 
2. governance model innovation: too much at stake (e.g. property law is not only economic design, also rooted deeply in respective jurisdictional culture-many weird, strange British property law cases), too long to figure out what works and what not, a whole governance model innovation feedback loop take at least 1 yr, most likely yrs to review and revise. This could be where we put AI simulation in good use:

In principle a hybrid model should work best, and before that, prob. will see both models compete to certain degree: market mechanism works to find out best solution most times. 

Problem w/ those governance models & design innovation is: 

1. existing governance models: if u cannot benchmark it, u cannot tell which one works better and which one doesn't. imagine if we have a dashboard for governments like the one for us stocks: https://www.tradingview.com/markets/stocks-usa/market-movers-all-stocks/ and what findings will be made on governance? Lack of transparency data is a problem. 
2. governance model innovation: too much at stake (e.g. property law is not only economic design, also rooted deeply in respective jurisdictional culture-many weird, strange British property law cases), too long to figure out what works and what not, a whole governance model innovation feedback loop take at least 1 yr, most likely yrs to review and revise. This could be where we put AI simulation in good use: https://altera.al/

Ideally a hybrid model (note: we have a hybrid model today, because of land ownership; I'm going to argue that we should have more opportunities for individuals to make profit from shares in the city, *and* weaker property rights in land!)

I think both for-profit and non-profit models have advantages. The key advantage of having an investor class is that, if the economics are designed right, they represent the interests of the class that democracies perenially exclude: people who are not yet here. Existing residents often respond to newcomers with YIMBYism, at both national and local levels, while investors are aligned to welcome newcomers. In addition to the myopic question of "do we welcome new person X and let a developer build a bigger apartment to house them", this also covers bigger-picture questions like "do we make a big thematic pivot and reimagine San Francisco's Sunset district as a new Hong Kong?". Meanwhile...

I think the core of the city should have evaporative access, where only those with not only proof of stake, but also proof of current work, have probationary access (inside would be high tech or entertainment).

the middle city would be like an at-cost public good, so there's price discovery vs freeriding.

outskirts would be full public good, ideally with well-structured commons (opportunity for proof of work & liquidity for stake).

it's hard to see a city run without surplus, yet forcing a surplus may decimate the population in some way. the geography can be the logic that minimizes this tradeoff.

I'd say a mix of both and let people choose

i think every city exists on a continuum and I'd prefer for my city to be closer to the public interest side