[oldmanjoe]

Wouldn't that essentially be the beginnings of Fascism with a completely corporation owned city? Next Google could presumably install its "manager", lets call it the "Director/Dictator", that has no worries about democratic niceties and can therefore pass any legislation Google wishes (goodbye social justice, hello minimum work standards, corporate friendly legal environment).

[pnathan]

big nit: facism is an absurdly fuzzy concept; the popular definition winds up being "people more authoritarian than I like". If you dig up Mussolini's comments, it's something more akin to making the civil religion the major ideology of the people.

Anyway. I don't know what would happen, but a corp-owned city is a classic dystopia scenario. I've lived enough of my life working for corporations; I don't really want their tentacles creeping into my entire life and making my body's entire existence about maximizing their profit, or being research subjects, etc.