The New Metropolises of the Authoritarians
The 'freedom cities' championed by the Silicon Valley techno-libertarian elite and Donald Trump are enclaves of deregulated, digitally powered and centrally planned innovation. The challenge is not to build new cities, but to ensure that they serve democracy rather than undermine it
by Robert Muggah and Carlo Ratti
Few political ideas are as radical - or as misguided - as 'freedom cities'. Endorsed by Silicon Valley's techno-libertarian elite and recently embraced by right-wing politicians such as Donald Trump, the idea is to create enclaves of deregulated, digitally powered and centrally planned innovation.
This sounds promising. Proponents of freedom cities want to reduce bureaucracy, boost innovation and solve America's housing crisis. In practice, however, these projects risk becoming redoubts for the wealthy, managerial fiefdoms where inequality is built into the foundations. While the promoters talk about freedom, their model entrusts governance to corporate boards rather than the ballot box.
However, the basic idea of using purpose-built settlements as platforms for experimentation should not be discarded. Throughout history, cities have served as crucibles for political and economic reform. From Periclean Athens to modern Barcelona, urban communities have pioneered innovations in governance, planning and participation. The challenge is not to build new cities, but to ensure that they serve, rather than undermine, democracy.
Trump's proposal for 2023 to launch ten freedom cities on federal land was not invented out of thin air. The concept has intellectual roots in Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Romer's 'charter city' model, originally conceived as a lever for economic renewal in developing countries. Venture capitalists have since reinterpreted the idea, imagining privately run start-up cities isolated from supervision. Investors such as Sam Altman, Marc Andreessen, Brian Armstrong and Peter Thiel promote these enclaves as proving grounds for artificial intelligence, biotechnology and fintech; think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute have proposed dozens of new cities on federal land; and the newly formed Cities of Freedom Coalition is pushing to build 'as many cities as the market can handle'.
Experiments of this kind are already underway. In Honduras, the short-lived 'Próspera' project was supported by US investors and operated briefly under its own regulatory regime before succumbing to democratic protests and controversy. In California, Andreessen and associates launched the 'California Forever' project, a plan for a 400,000-person settlement in Solano County designed to circumvent urban planning restrictions. Thiel's seasteading movement goes further, imagining autonomous city-states in international waters. And in 2025, investors unveiled plans for a high-tech enclave in Greenland. Marketed as a centre for artificial intelligence, advanced energy and geoengineering, it has been criticised as a form of neo-colonialism that threatens protected ecosystems and indigenous lands.
