[nonethewiser]

That's not exactly true. Its possible to bootstrap entire cities successfully. Look at China. In the US, redeveloping Gary Indiana would be a good option for this sort of thing.

And I guess some billionaires are trying to do something more greenfield in Solano County, California.

"Prime location" is not some static thing.

[wanoir]

Building from scratch is much easier / when you can demolish everything that pre-exists.

I don’t think this is realistic in already-developed areas where home values may already be very high.

Not aware of the Gary story! Would be curious to see how that’s going and if there’s local support / resistance.

[nonethewiser]

There is no large effort in Gary. There is a growing case for a 3rd Chicago airport and proximity to Chicago, low cost of real estate, and being in Indiana instead of Illinois makes it attractive for other projects, but there is no holistic effort to redevelop it into a new city. That's just a location I'm identifying as a prime location.

Totally greenfield is easier for some things and less easy for others. Would be interesting to try and spin something up in Wyoming based off the pro-business culture but it would take huge amounts of migration. Would be cool to see and not impossible but less analogous to success stories in China, which was my point of comparison.