CIP-100: The Web3 City

For the TLDR, please find a Visual Roadmap at the end of the post!

Updates

08/08

In response to community feedback, we have made several updates to the CIP:

  • Floating Budget – We originally proposed a $500k for Art and $250k for Land. We will be switching to a floating budget for art and land, aiming to spend equal amounts on each.
  • Big Parcel Funding – We are adding a new Contingency: funding the Big Parcel!. To enter into serious negotiations, the Big Parcel team will require proof-of-funds. If this becomes the case, we will be working alongside Big Parcel to explore a merger of the Projects.
  • Scott joins the Team – @scottfits has agreed to join the team as the Independent Overseer and to focus on PR and Marketing!
  • Commitment to International Citizens – Our International Community is vital to CityDAO, and we want highlight that commitment – along with the artists detailed below, we will be considering the Turkish artist Refik Anadol, Japanese artist Takashi Murakami, and Chinese artist Ai Weiwei!
  • Commissioned Artwork – We will be giving priority to collaborating with artists on works commissioned specifically for CityDAO!

Introduction


We propose realizing CityDAO’s original vision: the development of an actual IRL city with community governance in the spirit of Web3. At first glance this may seem like an impossibly expensive and complex undertaking – it can, in fact, be accomplished with relative ease by a small team and $1M USD. Rather than developing all aspects of the modern city, we will focus on a singular foundation: the development of positive-sum feedback loops that catalyze organic economic growth.

These feedback loops are modeled on the first principles of city formation and draw from historical precedents such as the development of Marfa, Texas in the second half of the 20th century. We are inspired by the ideas of Glen Weyl and will use Partial Common Ownership, Quadratic Voting, and Gitcoin’s Quadratic Funding model. These systems provide the incentives necessary to create an equilibrium between cooperation and competition that will maximize the productive, fair and efficient allocation of capital and resources. Ultimately, we are creating the foundation of CityDAO’s future: an economic engine, situated in the real world, for Teams and Citizens to experiment, collaborate, compete, develop their ideas, and build.

This proposal is divided into four parts: the logic or why underpinning the feedback loops, what exactly these feedback loops entail, how we will go about building them, and frequent concerns that have been brought up.

Why: First Principles


In thinking about city development, we asked ourselves: what do all cities share in common? How do cities form? Do these formations share common traits? It was clear when examining these questions that three timeless and universal principles underpin all human settlements. Below we illustrate these principles alongside a historical example of the principle within the context of ski towns development in Colorado.

  1. Humans build settlements in response to stationary, intrinsic properties of the land on which they are built. These properties are initially natural and subsequently artificial as settlement compounds (“network effects”). The Rocky Mountains, with their snowy faces and gold underneath, have existed as stationary, natural properties of Colorado for the last 70 million years[1]. It was not until Colorado’s settlement by gold miners in the mid-1800s was skiing introduced. Originally a means of transportation and co-opted from Scandinavians, it enabled miners to more easily pass through high snow. As mining waned in the late 1800s and Colorado was granted statehood, skiing transitioned to a form of recreation, providing socialization, recreation, and entertainment to the growing population[2].

  2. Humans create stationary value for themselves by mixing their time, attention and labor with these natural properties. The act of value creation fundamentally changes a given property such that it affects how other humans derive value from the same property, a feedback loop. Demand led to specific innovations that made skiing easier and cheaper, such as Monarch Mountain pioneering the use of a 500-foot tow rope attached to an old gear box and powered by a car engine in 1939 to pull skiers to the top of the mountain. Subsequent innovations improved safety while lowering the time, equipment cost, and skill required to ski, increasing the sport’s accessibility to more people including newcomers for whom the barriers to entry would have previously been prohibitively high. Collectively these innovations increased demand for the sport which resulted in increased rates of tourism and settlement within Colorado, leading to further innovation, a continuous feedback loop.

  3. This feedback loop can create positive-sum economic growth. As more people visited Colorado’s ski slopes, supporting small businesses (e.g. the slope operator, but also equipment stores, local restaurants and hotels) earned more money, increasing their communities’ tax revenue. These tax revenues were subsequently re-invested in the communities, in the forms of improved infrastructure (e.g. roads), education (e.g. more teachers to support the growing workforce’s families), and social services, lowering the cost of doing business for existing businesses (e.g. improving their margins via improved economies of scale and lowered labor costs) and enabling new businesses to form (e.g. real estate development for the increased number of workers required to operate the ski slopes). These investments improved the investment-worthiness of second home ownership for HNWI, increasing the tax base for a given community. This growth cycle is self-enforcing and positive-sum, growing economic activity until the point at which the marginal cost of growth becomes greater than the marginal value created for the community.

What: Our Approach


  1. We will first acquire a parcel of land that has low market value. Ideal candidates:
  • +100 acre lots in the United States with a mild climate
  • contain existent structure(s)
  • 2hr proximity to an international airport
  • access to infrastructure for the provision of electricity, sewage, and water
  • cheap adjacent parcels[3]

We will also consider municipal factors such as average land values nearby, supply of low-wage labor, and distance to airports and other high-speed transportation.

  1. We will increase the land’s value by developing upon it an open-air museum and supporting tourism infrastructure. We will purchase and install world-class sculptures that have demonstrated market and cultural value, such as those by Adam Parker Smith, James Turrell, and Richard Serra. We will follow the successful examples set out by Prada Marfa, Storm King, and Saudi Arabia’s Valley of the Arts in which remote, barren land – far from urban, cultural centers – have been developed into tourist destinations with 50-100k annual visitors. We will partner with Jupe to provide MVP (Minimum Viable Product, to be replaced and upgraded in the future) habitation and supporting infrastructure (e.g. bathrooms, a cafe) that enable tourists to spend more time on the land. Our intention is to attract high net-worth individuals (the primarily collectors and appreciators of high end art) to the land for a beautiful and spiritual experience filled with art, mediation, and nature, removed from the stresses of the world and filled with inspiration.

  2. All unallocated land (not used by the museum & supporting infrastructure) will be made available for lease to CityDAO’s Teams and Citizens via Partial Common Ownership. The benefits to CityDAO projects are fourfold:

  • Projects will have access to a pre-existing customer supply of High Net-Worth tourists who are already visiting the land to experience world-class art. This makes it much easier for projects such as Embassies, Retreats, and Festivals to unlock immediate revenue and rapidly achieve financial sustainability.

  • Projects do not need to acquire their own land and set up basic infrastructure (e.g. access to water), lowering their setup costs and unlocking entirely new ideas and business models that would otherwise be cost prohibitive.

  • Partial Common Ownership creates a forcing function for Projects to think sustainably and earn revenue in order to pay PCO’s Harberger Tax. Projects can take over each other’s leases which maximizes the Parcel’s allocative efficiency and Harberger Tax revenue while preventing rent-seeking by inefficient Projects, the benefits of which are expanded upon below.

  • Although the land will be based within the United States (in order to ensure that CityDAO legally and unambiguously owns the land and artwork), Teams and Citizens can develop their projects on the land, irrespective of their country of citizenship, experience, size (individual or teams), fostering a truly diverse meritocracy.

  1. Revenue from the Jupes and Partial Common Ownership’s Harberger Tax will enter into an Economic Growth Fund. The fund will be used to incentivize outside investment and the development of real estate, small businesses, and public goods infrastructure on the parcel by teams from outside of CityDAO. These teams will also be able to lease land via Partial Common Ownership, contributing directly to the Economic Growth Fund. Traditionally, the cost to develop remote land (i.e. the type of land we’re going to purchase, because its the cheapest) is expensive because of its remoteness from existing infrastructure and does not benefit from economies of scale to amortize this cost. To overcome this issue, known generally as the “Last Mile Problem”, we will use the Quadratic Funding strategy pioneered by Gitcoin and provide matching grants on each dollar of capital invested in the land by non-CityDAO projects. These matching funds will subsidize, incentivize and prioritize the infrastructure necessary for healthy growth, for example developing waste treatment solutions prior to additional habitation units. “Healthy growth” is a function of two factors: a) maximizing the allocative efficiency of the investment capital, ensuring projects that value proposed infrastructure the most (because they benefit the most) generate the greatest amount of Harberger Tax revenue for the Economic Growth Fund, while b) minimizing the externalities of any given infrastructure or concentration of infrastructure by dominant project. We will measure and balance these conflicting factors using collective intelligence: lease-holding Projects will vote on the deployment of funds using Quadratic Voting. Funds not used for matching will be used to purchase adjacent parcels of land ensuring that the City can scale in a sustainable fashion.

Positive-Sum Feedback Loops

By developing on this Parcel, CityDAO Projects will be provided a platform for growth (access to existent tourism), a forcing function to be maximally efficient (a competitive market of ideas via Partial Common Ownership), and infrastructure to scale (via Economic Growth Fund investments, Quadratic Voting, and Quadratic Funding). To elaborate, Partial Common Ownership will force teams to compete against each other to maximize ROI of their respective land lest they a) lose the land to another team willing to pay more, or b) pay their lease fees without deriving sufficient value. This competition will improve the efficiency of DAO-wide operations while producing a positive-sum growth feedback loop. Teams that do well will pay higher lease fees which translate into increased investment by CD outsiders, lowering last-mile costs for the provision of and increasing demand for the goods and services of CD Projects (via increased supply of tourists due to lowered costs). These economies of scale unlock a flywheel of growth for both CityDAO and the parcel itself and will usher in the true Web3 City.

How


Team

  • Will Holley – Will is the CTO and Founder of 721 Labs and Duchamps.io, and co-founder of the Partial Common Ownership RadicalxChange chapter. He previously worked with Sotheby’s and Christie’s to build Monte Carlo simulations of the global art market. He is a collector of fine art, manages a fine art investment fund, and is a partner of a fine art gallery located in Chelsea, NYC.

  • Josh Rosenberg – Corporate attorney turned Web3 evangelist and DAO maxi, Josh found god in the highlands of Wyoming after years as an angry inner-city lawyer in Chicago. Josh has worked on over 100 significant transitions totaling over $500m in volume and brings a great deal of valuable legal and real estate experience to the table.

  • Independent Overseer – One Citizen will act as an independent overseer in order to make sure DAO funds are not misused. If you are interested in the role, please comment as such. This will be voted on in Snapshot as part of this CIP.

Independent Overseer

If you are interested in the Independent Overseer role, please comment and we will add your candidacy, along with any provided qualifications, to this list.

  1. Lyons [proposed by Will]
  2. Tradesman

Budget

  • $500k for Art
    • Purchasing 1-3 fine artworks that have proven cultural and market value is of the utmost importance. Art without this significance is a liability rather than an asset.
    • By choosing art for the museum that has demonstrated cultural prestige, the museum’s prestige grows by association.
  • $250k for Land.
    • Acquisition of a new parcel of land
    • Infrastructure to support Jupes
  • $150k for Misc. Expenses (e.g. real estate agent fees, licenses, and taxes)
  • $100k for Team Comp.
    • The funding will be allocated 47.5% to Josh, 47.5% to Will, and 5% to Independent Overseer in order to compensate each team member for their time. Josh and Will each will be working full time – 35 hrs per week for approximately 3 months on the project (approximately 455 hours at ~$100/hr).
  • Total: $1M

Operational Steps

If the CIP passes, we will:

  1. Establish a mutli-sig with Josh R., and Will H., and the Independent Overseer.

  2. Transfer the $1M from CityDAO’s multi-sig to the CIP100 mutli-sig

  3. Josh R. will create a special purpose vehicle that will own the land and artwork and be wholly owned by CityDAO. Once this has been formed, Josh will pursue certification for the SPV as a B Corp or a Non-Profit in order to demonstrate to the world our commitment to experimentation around public goods funding.

  4. Will H. will source, negotiate and acquire the artwork using his connections within the art world and his experience as a fine art collector & investor.

  5. Josh R. will source, negotiate and acquire the land and manage the installation of the artwork. Josh will also lead the partnership with Jupe and the development of supporting tourist infrastructure.

  6. We will collectively draft and publish a subsequent CIP outlining the process for teams to develop their projects on the land. This CIP will expand the CIP100 mutli-sig to include more members of the community and ensure more voices are considered.

Contingencies

  • Acquire land but cannot acquire art
    • Land is transferred to another team
  • Acquire art but cannot acquire land
    • Team up with another CIP
    • Liquidate the art
    • Hold the art as an investment
    • Donate the art to a museum as a tax write-off
  • General Project Dissolution (e.g. team fallout)
    • The artwork and land are already owned by CityDAO and revert to its management
    • The funds in the CIP-100 multi-sig revert back to the main CityDAO mutli-sig.

Long-Term Investment Requirements and Financial Sustainability

  • Requires no ongoing funding after the $1M from CityDAO
  • Self-sustaining via the Economic Growth Fund
  • Taxes, licenses, etc. are paid for out of the Economic Growth Fund

Frequent Concerns


$1M is a lot of money. $500k for art (2x the land price) and $100k for comp seems excessive?

Expensive art, cheap land, and healthy comp is a feature, not a bug. In order to ensure that our artwork has both cultural and market value, we need to purchase something with proven demand – it cannot be cheap. Moreover, we are purchasing an appreciating asset, and the more valuable the artwork is today, the more valuable it will be tomorrow. We are exclusively considering artists who have already surpassed the $1m mark within their secondary market, a sign of confidence that our work will appreciate and we can sell it for equal or greater than our purchase price if worse comes to worse. Regarding team compensation, you are paying the opportunity cost of our full attention and we ultimately believe that the Team ought to be paid for the care, diligence, commitment, intelligence, and work ethic that you expect of us. As such, we believe that $100k is actually a discount relative to the value we will be creating for the community and this discount is explicitly reflected in the $100k being much less than our hourly rates for the same number of hours.

Can’t we do this without buying art?

We need to purchase something that has intrinsic value - a “talisman” - that will attract people to the land and generate economic activity, taking the land from 0 to 1 (in the words of Peter Thiel) We aim to do so in as risk free a manner as possible, and fine art has a proven track record that Will is intimately familiar with. We will acquire work from artists such as Adam Parker Smith, James Turrell, and Richard Serra.

What about using the Big Parcel land?

We believe that this project initially requires focused, centralized coordination between the core team and only after it has been properly set up should be decentralized. This runs counter to the thinking around Big Parcel and we aim to respect and not complicate their goals and process.

Quadratic Voting is confusing. Can’t we use regular voting?

Quadratic Voting and Quadratic Funding will be the most efficient way to allocate investment capital in a decentralized manner, as shown theoretically by Glenn Weyl and Vitalik and demonstrated practically by Gitcoin. We are excited to extend and promote these mechanisms into the real world. We believe that we will set an example for others to follow.

Why not focus on crypto art?

The crypto art markets are immature compared to the fine art market, which transacts $64B annually across the globe and counts amongst its ranks some of the most influential and richest people in the world. Will is intimately familiar with the workings of the fine art market, which are timeless and universal in comparison to the crypto art markets. As such, in order to de-risk the project as much as possible, we intend to focus on HNW art appreciators, collectors, and investors as the initial tourists.

What impact will this have on CityDAO?

We believe that CityDAO’s foundation and incentives can be improved using PCO, QV and QF within a greenfield plot of land. We plan on setting up these mechanisms to function effectively prior to decentralizing our multi-sig and inviting CityDAO projects to develop on the land. All the while, the land and art will be owned, legally, by CityDAO and will provide tremendous value to the community. We believe that this will propel CityDAO into the future.

Footnotes


  1. Rocky Mountains - Wikipedia
  2. Timeline of Colorado’s Ski and Snowboard History
  3. Examples A and B

Visual Overview


Roadmap


24 Likes

@will I’m in for any improvements planning/estimates/build oversite needed for this project. PCO does good work!

I think this is a good overall proposal. I agree with using tourism with high net worth individuals and allowing PCO to provide allocative efficiency. I’m also super supportive of the arts. I wonder if there is a way to fold this into the Big Parcel proposal so that our energy is aligned. If not, that’s okay. I still think there are a lot of valuable ideas here.

1 Like

I agree with all of the preamble. I grew up in a small town that transformed itself into a tourist destination over my childhood. However, I think the high end art is off base. It serves a tiny minority of the population, and gives no other incentive for organic city growth past the few individuals needed to maintain it. It would be a gamble to claim that it would create a feedback loop. What is keeping the workers from living 45 minutes away in the next town if they are just going to work bank hours? On the other hand, the 100+ acres of land would be an incredible asset and as you mentioned, is required for city growth. If you want to go the tourist destination route, I’d suggest something more proven and more appealing to masses. Look at undeveloped beach towns like St. Helena island, SC for example. Working class beach towns print stacks of money and blow up real estate. They can be seeded with a gift/bait shop and a few air bnbs

2 Likes

Hey, thanks for the feedback. If i’m understanding it correctly, you take issue with the low initial job creation?

The idea behind starting with high end art is to attract high net worth tourists from coastal US (often called the “Coastal Elites”) who have large amount of disposable income. Think somewhere between the burning man crowd, who spend around $2.5k to attend[1], and people who stay at Amangiri, which costs $4k per night[2] – basically people who spend lots of money for social/cultural/spiritual experiences in the desert.[3]

You’re completely right that it doesn’t take much, in terms of labor, to service these people’s needs. In fact, at the onset, the property will likely create zero jobs. This is because some tourists will be fine staying in Jupes, bringing their own supplies, etc. (e.g. those used to Burning Man). However, other tourists will only come for the day because the comfort-level of existing accommodations is too low. These market demands will then be met by the entrepreneurial CityDAO teams that will improve the quality of services (food, shelter, entertainment, transportation) and create the initial jobs.

These initial jobs will likely be drawn in from other towns and won’t demand many hours of workers. Workers are unlikely to move to the land until the cost of commuting cuts into too high a share of their earnings. I don’t know when this will be, but I know that there is nothing standing in the way of it; its an inevitability in response to tourist growth and the demand for higher quality services (up until the point where the marginal value created by one additional tourist is less than the cost to service that tourist).

The issue with purchasing land that already has intrinsic value and trying to replicate the beach town model is twofold:

  1. Its market value is obvious and will be priced in. This makes it much more expensive for us to get started (millions of dollars) and scale (because adjacent land will also reflect the expense).
  2. Natural value is more of a commodity than cultural value. Most beaches are the same (water, sand, sun) and the joy derived from visiting one is not much greater than visiting any other. A work of art, on the other hand, is valuable because of its rarity; most paintings are not the Mona Lisa. If we had millions to spend, we could build a world class museum and this would be a sure bet (which is what the Saudi Arabians are doing). Basically our spend on art is positively correlated with cultural capital (more money = better art) and negatively correlated with the projects risk (better art = higher tourist demand = less risky).

If I completely missed your point, I apologize. Otherwise, I hope this resolves your concerns!

Footnotes

  1. Burning Man 2022: How much does it cost? - We Are Global Travellers
  2. https://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g56933-d1563873-Reviews-Amangiri-Big_Water_Utah.html
  3. The other convenient thing about these people (besides their propensity to spend) is their perception of value: their appreciation of cultural experiences is proportional to the demand for the experience they perceive from others. In other words, they respond to hype. As such, people visiting the land/art and sharing it on social media (or otherwise spreading the word) increases land/art’s cultural value.

This a very well thought out proposal. I think this is a great go-to-market strategy for The Big Parcel. Can we merge the two?

Or alternatively, can this be scaled down? Maybe the Baby Parcel would be a better fit?

This math doesn’t work out. 35 hrs per week for 3 months (approx. 13 weeks) is 455 hours each, which is 910 hours. 95k (95% of 100k) / 910 hours is about $100 per hour. I don’t have a problem with $100 per hour (probably worth it), but I do have a problem with the misleading numbers here.

2 Likes

Thanks for pointing this out! I’m honestly not sure how I got 2100 hours from 35 * 12 * 2 – this was a stupid mistake and it was not my intention to mislead anyone. Sorry, everyone. I’ve gone ahead and updated the original post to correct my mistake.

1 Like

Hey Will,

Awesome proposal.

I think that this solves a major issue for the big parcel and any other parcel we pursue in the future with CityDAO that we expect people to come to and/or stay for short/medium term.

The issue I am referring to is culture. I think that CityDAO has a huge opportunity to do something cool in the space of blockchain and web3 and overall, this is interesting in and of itself and contains a certain cultural element. However, i really think in order for us to have a hugely successful big parcel, or any IRL Citizen Space, it is imperative that there is a unique and positive culture that is curated by the leading citizens of CityDAO and the project endeavour.

I think that for this proposal, or big parcel, there are a few very important points that should be considered:

  1. Proximity to a City - i think that in order to maximise the use cases (And use) of a parcel of land, we should aim to be within 2 hours from a major city/airport.

  2. Existing Structures - I think that any parcel we buy with this size of a budget should require existing structures on it. The reason for this is to create more than one use for the land (not just an art exhibition- which is still cool af :slight_smile: ) This way we can maximise the audience that this will pertain to and create more of a “splash” for CItyDAO.

  3. Budget/Financing - I think that the next big endeavour that citydao pursues ($1mil +) is really a rare opportunity for us to raise a lot of money for what is essentially research. I think that we could use $1 million from the treasury but then aim for a $4-5 million parcel due to scarce funding opportunities in the markets right now.

Happy to discuss further and would love feedback on above from anyone !

3 Likes

@will I would be willing to throw my hat in the ring for Citizen Overseer, with Lyons.

500k for art? Lol 250k for land. How about 5k for art
And 745k for land.

1 Like

Spent the weekend working on a Visual Roadmap for CIP-100!

Hopefully it makes it much more digestible.

Please find it at the bottom of the post!

2 Likes

I’m a big fan of this proposal and think it’s got enough focus to drive the amount of traffic and interest to scale without having to fund everything ourselves. I have a hard time imagining we’d like to raise more money without a very very specific goal. Raising money would most likely be a liability anyway and come with external pressures.

I’ve got respect for the Big Parcel idea and think some of those ideas could be played out here. The main difference for me is that the art portion gives us an external image that people who don’t care about crypto can still get involved and enjoy the project. It moves past an inward small group focused experiment to one that can ripple into other circles. I can imagine a small article in an art magazine discussing a crowdfunded open air museum, and not once having to mention crypto and the tools we need to do it (which would be great imo). An open ecosystem of outside people and amenitites operating on our playground over time is fascinating. If we do all the pieces ourselves, it’s like a monopoly. Cities play with many groups of power.

I also see the possibility of employing partial common ownership and other experiments in a different spectrum than gitcoin and other cases. What makes these experiments interesting here instead of on a blank piece of land or one with limited diversity, is that it would be like a glass of luke warm water. Without temperature differences the water doesn’t move, add temperature differences (art pieces, sleeping structures) you allow for real reasons to value areas differently or provide possibilities for others to want to provide infrastructure (showers, pools, bathing fountains, food and beverage, internet)

The volume of the art investment doesn’t scare me away, and I understand why if you go too small it won’t achieve the magnitude of awe needed to kickstart itself.

This proposal can light a fire in the imagination of what could be more than a simple retreat or coworking space for web3 enthusiasts can achieve. It’s center is art, the backbone of every major cultural city. I also agree that crypto art should not be a focus. We can be a DAO that looks beyond our little bubble.

Criticisms are only for the logistical steps of creating another multi-sig for these funds. I imagine only the compensation portion is handled in crypto, the rest should be off-ramped through standard CityDAO channels (albeit they need some work this quarter).

I’m ready to take a closer look at land and art and logistics and help where I can!

3 Likes

The visual roadmap really helps solidify the goals of this project for me, so thank you! I think it’s ambitious and it’s a big spend, but at some point we need to take a chance on a big project like this. We also need to find out if CityDAO is a bunch of builders in the physical world or just folks who chat about doing things on Discord. This will see if folks will put their money where their mouth is and build something in the real world.

5 Likes

Is the assumption that it’s free to visit and pay to stay?

Yes. People who visit will likely also share on social media, so I see these non-paying visitors as still contributing value.

1 Like

I love the idea and vision behind a large art project. It is bold and could attract tourists. I wonder more than anything if it is something that should just be merged with the big or small parcel. I don’t see the need to buy land just for this.

Also, I get a bit concerned with using certain terms, for example.

positive-sum growth feedback loop

These are not well defined, and what you describe could be applied to any successful business, school, or city in human history. Growth requires some time of positive-sum dynamic and positive feedback loops. They don’t describe how you get growth. They are growth by definition. Some of your thinking tends to be circular; we get growth by a positive feedback loop which gets positive sums. It is like saying we get growth by having growth and more growth. The mechanism, to me, is still a bit questionable – that lots of people will come to see this art, which might work. Again, I do appreciate it. Things like the burning man emerge from nothing and are huge – art alone can create growth and a city.

I also am cautious of using partial common ownership, Harberger, and things like that as a panacea. They are useful tools to experiment with, but they have been around for a long time. There are reasons they haven’t been applied widely in the past.

Thanks for the feedback. A few thoughts:

  • This could be merged with the Big Parcel; the question is less a logistical and more of a political one.
  • Doing this on the Small Parcel would likely place an artificial scale cap (10 acres) that precludes certain types of development (e.g. standalone buildings).
  • Positive-Sum Growth Feedback loops are created via the QF-funded subsidies which lowers last-mile cost for infrastructure development and improve operating margins for existent projects, which creates more Harberger Tax revenue, more QF, etc. You are correct that this system is recursive. It is sustainable until the cost of marginal gains exceeds the value created by the allocation of the HT revenue.
  • You have an incorrect understanding of HT and PCO. PCO was first published in 2018 and there haven’t been any rigorous real world experiments around it. HT and Georgism, on the other hand, have been around longer but haven’t been experimented with because of the difficulty of performing scientifically-rigorous large-scale social experiments.

Sure, I agree with the last part. Though not sure why you boldly declare I have an incorrect understanding of HT and PCO. When you essentially are repeating what I have said. They are exciting ideas, but we don’t know if they work cause they haven’t been tried.

I support the project, which is why I gave it my like. I don’t want to engage in some negative-sum negative feedback loop to tear each other down.

I genuinely wish you luck with this. Let’s build a City!

2 Likes

I like the idea of using art to attract people to a parcel.

I think this proposal will struggle to pass CIP in current format, due to the $1m ask as a result of this vote on a plan.

I would recommend breaking the process out into multiple steps with milestones and only asking for the $ amount necessary to get to the first milestone. Ideally we can see progress and likelihood of success prior to authorizing $1m in spend.

4 Likes