by Not far from where he was raised in Senegal, the musician Akon acquired 136 acres of property in 2020 to construct his own city of the same name on the location of the beach village of Mbodi Ne.
Wakanda, the Afrofuturist utopia shown in the movie Black Panther, is what Akon imagined Akon City to be in real life. However, he left out one important aspect from his ambitious plans, which included a high-tech university, Africa’s most sophisticated hospital, 100% solar power, and an economy powered by Akon’s personal cryptocurrency:
The governance structure of Akon City.
Akon was never able to provide answers to the problems raised by his failure to plan for the governance of his own city. The Senegalese government announced last month that the project is no longer underway.
Akon’s ambition and lack of interest in government are strikingly similar. A growing number of governments, billionaires, and celebrities are attempting to build futuristic, paradigm-shifting new cities because it seems like the world is stuck. From the swampy delta of Northern California to the deserts of Saudi Arabia to the seaside cliffs of Borneo, wealthy, well-known, and powerful people are putting forward visionary metropolises that push the boundaries of sustainability and energy efficiency, develop new aesthetics, or pioneer new technology.
However, similar offers always fail for the same reason, despite their amazing grandeur. They provide no fresh concepts and frequently no information whatsoever regarding the governance of their ideal cities.
Why this gap? Because they think they can dictate to the future inhabitants of their magnificent cities, some urban creators are authoritarians who do not present a vision for governance. Others avoid governance issues in favor of project completion because they perceive them as challenging and contentious.
Ignorance is the greater issue, though. The world’s leaders show that the planet Earth suffers from a lack of creativity when it comes to local democracy and government by excluding governance from their future plans.
Perhaps the idea known as California Forever most exemplifies this basic failing to consider government. A company named California Forever, supported by venture capitalists who take pride in ground-breaking concepts, such as Reid Hoffman of LinkedIn, Marc Andreessen, a co-founder of Netscape, and Laurene Powell Jobs of Emerson Collective, covertly acquired land in Solano County, on the eastern edge of the Bay Area.
California Forever’s founder and CEO, Jan Sramek, promised a metropolis of 400,000 people that would represent the California Dream and demonstrate that great things could be constructed here when the purchases were made public. The largest sophisticated manufacturing site in North America, job centers with lots of housing, and the most walkable and sustainable neighborhoods are all part of his ideas.
Sramek has not yet provided a clear plan for the governance of this city. California Forever has responded to inquiries by stating that they must first get the city constructed. However, the project has already halted as a result of this inability to figure out governance. They initially tried to get voters to approve an unincorporated community, but they abandoned that plan when it seemed like a ballot initiative may fail. They have been considering combining California Forever with already-existing communities in more recent times.
It follows a similar path to Bill Gates’ innovative digital city of Belmont, which was put up in Arizona in 2017 but has since stopped. Gates’ ideas focus more on technological advancements to cut down on traffic than they do on any governance initiatives that go beyond the billionaire’s personal convictions. (Belmont has also never discovered a trustworthy water supply.)
At least California Forever is functioning in the largely democratic field of municipal governance, to be fair. While pursuing their own utopias, other tech visionaries reject democratic governance. Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison is one of them; he bought the majority of the Hawaiian island of Lanai to make it even more exclusive.
Next up is Trump supporter Peter Thiel, who said, “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.” He also contributed seed money to the Seasteading Institute, which advocates for the construction of cities that float in international waters and are not subject to democratic accountability. Additionally, Thiel supported Prspera, a corporate island-state that the Honduran government seeks to shut down for violating its laws.
Pronomos, a San Francisco venture capital business that makes investments in thriving towns that develop into powerful nations, was one of Prspera’s investors. The network state Praxis, Pronomo’s most well-known project, has enrolled over 2,200 residents but has not yet found a territorial home; it is currently searching the Mediterranean, Greenland, and Ukraine. Maybe that’s because its ideas, which emphasize vibrancy and opposition to mediocrity rather than describing government, have been branded fascist by detractors.
This counterargument is provided by the narrator of a Praxis promotional video: According to modern media, holding any kind of ideals is fascist. Conviction is fascist in every way.
To be fair, people who choose their ideal cities above democratic governments are not only computer bros. The same aversion to democracy has been displayed by national governments in recent urban developments.
Although Indonesia has strong local governments and is a decentralized democracy, the increasingly dictatorial national government has decided that the new capital, which is currently being built on Borneo’s east coast, will not have any local government at all. Under EU regulations, it will be controlled by a national government agency. Meanwhile, scandals and delays plague the building industry.
The Chinese government is creating a number of futuristic towns, most notably Chengdu Future Science and Technology City, which are meant to showcase new lifestyles but lack innovative governance practices. New forest cities have been planned by Malaysia and Mexico to show a more sustainable future, although the ideas exclude the governance specifics.
Regarding the governing system of The Line, a proposed metropolis in the northwest of NEOM, Saudi Arabia has remained silent. The Line’s captivating renderings show two buildings that span 100 miles across the desert and can accommodate 9 million people, but they lack any indication of local autonomy. The Line will most likely be run by a company that is owned by the Saudi royal family.
Get neighborhood news in your inbox. It’s free and enlightening.
Become one of the 20,000+ individuals who receive breaking news alerts and the Times of San Diego in their inbox every day at 8 a.m.
Weekly updates from San Diego communities have also been provided! You acknowledge and agree to the terms by clicking “Sign Up.” Choose from the options below.
Governance is not always left out of future city plans. Marc Lore, a former Walmart CEO, has plans for the city of Telosa that call for participatory democracy, openness in all government decision-making, and an inclusive economic system that would allow citizens to benefit from the city’s wealth. One warning: in order to become a resident, you would need to successfully complete an application process.
On a smaller scale, a few new liberal democratic locations have tried out novel concepts. Residents of Zuzalu, a pop-up city that briefly popped up on the coast of Montenegro, drafted legislation to promote longer lifespans. Models of shared participatory governance can be seen in Mexico City’s award-winning utopias experimental community developments in the borough of Iztapalapa, where local citizens, civil society organizations, and the mayor’s office share authority.
Democratic eco-villages are also becoming more common, as tiny communities develop environmentally friendly and democratic alternatives to society. All 150 residents of Germany’s Schloss Tempelhof, which I have visited, collaborate on choices and tasks.
However, without clear governance, many visionary cities will remain just that—dreams. In fact, the packaging tycoon Daniel Model in Switzerland allowed Avalon, the libertarian town-republic he established in the rural village of Mllheim, to remain a fictional place.
The story of Akon’s city in Senegal is not entirely made up. The Senegalese government recovered the majority of Akon City’s property because the rap artist was only able to construct a basketball court and a welcome center. Akon might construct a resort on the little area that remains.
Maybe a large conference might be held there to brainstorm new city governance models that today’s aspiring urban visionaries are unable to come up with.
Joe Mathews contributes to Zcalo Public Square, a publication of ASU Media Enterprise, with his Connecting California piece.
