
A Startup That Wants to Build Cities - jeremyrwelch
http://buildcampus.com/vision/
======
Animats
It's not that building a new city is hard. Real estate developers do it
routinely. The problem is jobs. There are, at present, quite a few places in
the US with more houses than jobs. Only in a few places, such as SF and some
areas of Oklahoma where there's heavy drilling activity, is the reverse the
case.

If you want to buy an empty town of new houses, there are plenty in San
Bernardino. Vacant lots run about $7500. San Bernardino even has a new
airport, fully completed and ready to go. But no airlines fly there. Because
there are no jobs.

~~~
epicureanideal
I know a way of solving this, but "ideas are worth nothing, execution is
everything". If anyone's willing to value the idea as significantly more than
nothing, I'd be happy to discuss.

See my reply to commenter below. I for one don't believe ideas are worth
nothing, and am willing to pay for ideas/information useful to me.

~~~
davidw
[http://journal.dedasys.com/2007/04/26/ideas-are-
worthless/](http://journal.dedasys.com/2007/04/26/ideas-are-worthless/)

Ideas may be worth something, but how would the market for them work?

~~~
epicureanideal
For the record, I'm very much open to buying ideas (or other information) that
help me make more money. If you're selling ideas that would help me make more
money, and willing to make payment conditional upon me being able to utilize
your ideas (and I'll certainly try, given that it's in my interest) post your
contact info and I'll get in touch.

I realize there isn't a very efficient market for ideas, and I have difficulty
understanding why. I suppose other market participants are just not like me in
being interested to buy them, but I suspect a reasonable number of similar
people exist. My 6-second guess about the situation is that the market for
ideas is inefficient because the small percentage of people willing to buy
ideas is difficult to market to and ideas are not equally useful to each
person.

~~~
kristiandupont
Well for one thing, the term "idea" isn't very well defined. If you are
talking about something like Elon Musks Hyperloop, I can see that it might be
worth money. But someone else might consider "Uber for dog walkers" an idea.
And it is to some extent, but how would you know before you buy? No worries,
you say, you'll just make a clause that says that you only pay for an idea if
you execute it? Right, but then you are looking to buy an idea without knowing
anything about it, and if you hear it but don't like it, you have now exposed
yourself to the anger of the idea-guy if you ever go on to do something
related.

I have once upset an acquaintance because he felt that I stole his idea. After
that incident, I have actually started to ask people not to tell me their
ideas unless they are cool with me possibly using them some day. Otherwise, I
just risk making enemies with very little upside.

~~~
epicureanideal
I think it's possible to sufficiently reduce this problem. For example, "needs
to be an idea I can execute on with skill set X (or hire for)", "needs to be
something I can execute on with $Y or includes a plan to acquire $Y that I can
execute on", "needs to have a potential ROI of Z%".

Also, enough information can be given in advance that I'd be able to filter
out ideas that I'm not interested in pursuing. General industry it's in,
whether or not it's legal, etc.

I have plenty of information/ideas that would be valuable to software
engineers, so I know that there exist scenarios in which information/ideas are
valuable. I would've benefitted from the same information/ideas a few years
back, and I suspect there's more ideas I don't have yet that would provide
more gains. However, as I mentioned in another post, not many people willing
to pay for information/ideas so I've had difficulty finding buyers.

------
stockninja
I live in one of their houses. It has beautiful shared spaces and nice
kitchens — but it is very expensive. Great place to live when you first arrive
in a new city, but most people move on after ~6 months.

A nice thing is that the effective land lords (campus employees) are my age —
which helps.

Previous versions of this vision statement described colonies on Mars ... so
they've scaled it back a bit lol

------
andymoe
OK, now let's figure out how to do something like this that might actually
work for families and then you will have something useful to society as a
whole. The current "managed roommate" setup they have going is probably not
going to work very well if families are involved. I'm not sure my two year old
running through the halls of one of the five bedroom houses after a shower
screaming "I'm naked I'm naked" would go over real well but maybe I'm wrong.

I'm betting they could do something better and more interesting for families
and lower income folks once they start building their own properties.
Certainly it's worth a try because housing is badly broken in the US and a lot
of other countries.

~~~
jmckib
Your comment reminded me that there's actually a community in Alaska that is
located within a single large building. It looks rather pleasant, actually.

[http://www.npr.org/2015/01/18/378162264/welcome-to-
whittier-...](http://www.npr.org/2015/01/18/378162264/welcome-to-whittier-
alaska-a-community-under-one-roof)

------
jeremyrwelch
didn't expect the post to hit frontpage so quickly! Just thought some other
HNers might be interested.

regardless of the lofty plans, what they have actually built already is pretty
great. The communities indeed evolve overtime, but the team is careful about
how they transition communities and how quickly they add new people.

The services are useful too. Literally showed up at my place and Internet,
common room furniture, cleaning, basic kitchen utensils all already provided
and working. Sure there are some kinks in the processes, but remarkably smooth
considering all the logistics.

And did I mention the month to month lease? I wish this company existed years
ago when I was moving cities more often.

------
headcanon
I'm curious as to why they are choosing to start their pilot program in the
Bay Area - they're not a software startup, so why choose one of the most
expensive areas in the world to rent/purchase land? There's a lot of land out
there with easier avenues to self-sufficiency that are just a plane ride away
at the most, I cant imagine them needing to be close to an urban area at all
actually.

~~~
andreasklinger
From my understanding they essentially start as a "co-housing network"\- which
makes a lot of sense in SF/Bay

~~~
headcanon
At second glance, you seem correct - I seem to have misunderstood the nature
of this venture. I was under the impression they were building distributed
urban settlements in strategic but unpopulated areas (which would require
large amounts of capital and/or land).

------
netcan
This is obviously an ambitious big goal, and so naturally seems like a low
likelihood shot.

It's one of those cases where I would like to hear the founders talk. Long,
earnest interviews. Podcasting would be great. WTF are they talking about
exactly? Step 1 sounds like a house-share idea, maybe purpose built. The
likely market is students and recent grads. Beyond that they are talking about
building cities.

If these guys have a chance of succeeding, they probably have interesting
ideas.

It's actually a cool question: "How do we build new cities as a startup?"

One interesting idea that (I think) seems like a potential bridge between
phase 1 and phase 2, is "student villages" where alumni and staff are
encouraged to settle permanently. Residents would already be more intimately
involved and invested in the community than they would be anywhere else, have
things in common.

If 5-10% of a graduating class stayed long term it would give you a fairly
rapid growth rate. The eventual size would be reached at whatever size that
5-10% equals the natural rate of attrition. Say 200 graduates settle per year
and 1/10 of residents leave in any given year, they would reach 1,000
residents in 7 years and top out at 2,000 residents within a few decades.

You really can't know in advance, but I suspect that a decent number of
graduates (especially of post graduate programs) from top universities could
be tempted to buy in to alumni communities if the price was right.

But.. you really need to be a badass team to pull off something at this scale
and in this space. The list of Big problems is daunting. Financing, governance
and ownership structures would be tricky.

------
mbesto
Here's my idea to solve the same problem (aimed at tech people):

\- Buy a decent expensive plot of land in SV

\- Buy several tiny homes (let's say 10)[0] and put them on said plot

\- Buy a large cheap plot of land way out in the middle of California (or
potentially Nevada for tax reasons) that can accommodate 100 tiny homes

\- Move the tiny homes (they're portable), effectively swapping them, from the
SV plot to the cheap plot every time someone wants to get funding

Now, I know this is SV echo chamber speak, but hear me out for a second. I
think there is a sizable market of people who realize that living in the SF
Bay Area is stupidly expensive, and are willing to go ramen style because
they're close to VCs. This brings the best of both worlds - cheap comfortable
living + proximity to VCs during the time they need it most (rounds), with a
community of founders to keep them from going bored.

[0] - [http://www.wishbonetinyhomes.com/](http://www.wishbonetinyhomes.com/)

~~~
logfromblammo
Your idea, as well-considered as it may have been, is a complicated workaround
to the problem that Silicon Valley money does not want to leave Silicon
Valley, and is thereby causing an explosion of inflation, driven by too much
money chasing after too little common sense.

In the rest of the country, this is called a "trailer park" or "RV
campground". There is no second, remote property in Nevada, because all the
homes adhere to a common standard for utility hookups and foundation pads.
Even so, despite the theoretical possibility, most mobile homes do not
actually move more than once. This is because it is several orders of
magnitude easier to move people and their personal possessions than the
buildings they live in, even when such buildings are designed to be moved.

I don't want to be mean about this, because you did put your idea out there
and stand behind it, but it is not an ideal business plan. There is already a
solution to the problem wherein a businessperson needs to be in a certain city
for 10% of the year, while still enjoying most of the amenities of home--
several, actually: hotels, time-share condominiums, furnished apartments
rented weekly, couch-surfing, pieds-a-terre. There are also existing solutions
for portable homes: touring buses, RVs, camper trailers.

~~~
mbesto
This is a fair consideration. However, having seen "tiny homes" in person, I'm
convinced they are _very_ different than a traditional RV or trailer.

> _There is no second, remote property in Nevada, because all the homes adhere
> to a common standard for utility hookups and foundation pads._

Solution: Solar (electricity) and gas propane (for heat).

> _hotels, time-share condominiums, furnished apartments rented weekly, couch-
> surfing, pieds-a-terre._

None of these are economical because their high price is driven by regularly
unused capacity. Also, there are benefits to being "swappable" in that
entrepreneurs are always close to other entrepreneurs. YCombinator alone could
benefit from such a system where they have 100+ entrepreneurs temporarily
relocated to the Mountain View area every 3 months.

~~~
logfromblammo
I strongly encourage you to live in another city--possibly even one entirely
outside of California--for a year.

To mix two entirely appropriate metaphors, you are attempting to summon the
molehill to Muhammad.

Different cities have different problems. As far as I know, "not able to live
in close physical proximity to potential investors" is one that is unique to
Silicon Valley.

~~~
mbesto
> _As far as I know, "not able to live in close physical proximity to
> potential investors" is one that is unique to Silicon Valley._

I think you're conflating two arguments here. I'm not suggesting this is a
solution that scales to other cities. I am suggesting however, it would solve
them in SV given the current funding climate.

> _I strongly encourage you to live in another city_

I've lived (professionally) in Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, London and
Germany. I'm not sure what my living experiences outside of SV have to do with
the context of the discussion... for more context, the problem that is being
identified here is not currently a problem that I have.

~~~
logfromblammo
Perhaps I need to live in Silicon Valley, then, to gain an understanding of
why your idea is not completely batty (or perhaps why the region itself is not
as barking mad as it appears to an outsider).

While I have no scientific evidence to back this up, you may also have noticed
that certain places have their own collective consciousness, where the local
social conformity creates standing waves of recurring behavior. People in
Chicago go to Portillo's, even though it's pretty much the same food as all
the Vienna Beef independents in the city, only with higher prices and longer
lines. I can't explain it, other than to say that people go there because
people go there.

And just like you can't smell the peculiar odor of your own house until you've
been away from it for a while, maybe you just don't notice the oddities of a
town until you live elsewhere.

Your suggestion might work. I think the real reason I don't like it is the
idea that someone might invest. The very idea that someone might possibly
throw a few million into it makes me angry. It's not your fault. It's just
sour grapes.

~~~
tptacek
You don't go to Portillos for the hot dogs. It's not the best italian beef in
the city, but it's not terrible, and it's reliably available, unlike Johnny's.
It's like our In-N-Out.

------
brudgers
Looking at the website beyond the landing page, their current business is
yuppie boardinghouses. Which isn't really building cities and doesn't scale in
that direction because what makes cities hard is economic
diversity...Greyhound Stations and methadone clinics have to go somewhere or
it's just prettier gated suburbia.

~~~
netcan
If you look at their "vision" page:

Phase 1 is "communities." These are the yuppie boarding houses. 4, 20, 200,
then 5000. Looks like they on about 30 now.

Phase 2 is cities.

I like it, personally. It's got that too-ambitious element but they set
themselves a proving ground. If they hit 200 "communities," are profitable and
are managing scale exponentially, I would definitely be listening to them talk
about creating cities.

------
makeitsuckless
Ah, the arrogance of completely ignoring history and human nature.

The problem with building a community of like-minded people is that after a
few generations it won't be a community of like-minded people that have chosen
to be there anymore. And I'm not even talking about any other form of social
and economic reality. All else remaining the same (it won't), just bringing in
new generations will change the entire dynamic.

What they are basically describing is trying to start a cult.

~~~
jmckib
On the other hand, as workers become increasingly mobile, it should become
more feasible to maintain a physical community of like-minded people.

------
infecto
Looks at some of their properties in SF. 3 level house in Haight-Ashbury, ~18
units.

Each unit is around $1500/month and they estimate clean/utilities at $200-260
per month. Is that insane to anyone else? Where the heck is all the money
going for utilities?!?! I have a two bedroom in the richmond, one roommate and
we use maybe $30-40 a month in electric and gas, including the washer/dryer.

~~~
nazgulnarsil
Shrug, 1500 a month in SF is cheap.

~~~
aetherson
It's not really cheap for a room in a shared apartment/house.

------
logfromblammo
Is this "not invented here" syndrome again?

There are plenty of little towns and cities out there already. They were all
programmed in non-portable assembly for obscure processors. Some even have a
rudimentary OS written in C. And the startup in the article wants to scrap the
entire code base, and rewrite the whole thing from scratch in Python, or
Scala, or Clojure, or Brainfuck, or whatever closes the first round of funding
this year.

Never mind that this has been done before, countless times. They're called
"company towns". If the company did it well, they diversified their economies
and still exist. If not, they failed, and were absorbed by natural
communities.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town)

-or in the extreme case-

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_republic](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_republic)

I can't quite tell if Silicon Valley has already jumped the shark, or if they
are still seeking funding to build the ramp.

------
maerF0x0
I wonder if they'll choose to make a whole diverse city or just a
"monoculture" of 20 somethign roommates. ? I dont imagine seniors are usually
attracted to Campus' main market (see the communities on their website). But
cities usually have all sorts of demographics.

~~~
stockninja
Most houses are a monoculture of 20 somethings

~~~
maerF0x0
its a shame. We all can benefit from more community. I think we can also
benefit from diversity of ages etc, wisdom passed down/up etc.

~~~
mc32
Maybe as they develop and become bigger... But kids out of uni are more or
less still 'getting away' from the adults. And empty-nesters probably would
have a different tolerance for noise and active hours.

------
bitshepherd
As a mid-career professional, this strikes me as the kind of thing that might
have appealed to me when I was 19-23, but even then I hung out with 40
somethings. Perhaps I'm just not the target audience. Cool idea, nonetheless.

------
Paul_S
I looked at the admission form and this looks to me like a modern day commune.

~~~
netcan
A share house is inevitably commune-like.

------
PhoenixWright
This reminds me of the Downtown Las Vegas Project spearheaded by Tony Hsieh's.
Definitely interesting to see the "hacker" mentality applied to city
development.

------
rodburns
Am I missing something? This company is a Real Estate Agent masquerading as a
"startup"

------
novaleaf
Isn't this just... sprawl? Sprawl with good infrastructure?

------
honksillet
Don't build Brasilia. That is all.

------
highoctane51
This looks very cool, kudos to you guys

------
kumarski
This is only humorous because SF has created a hyper-inelastic demand market
for housing in which ideas like this can flourish.

------
wcummings
But who will build the roads?

------
madisonmay
Any plans to come to Boston?

------
itsbits
doesn't this mean SEZ's??

------
Backlash85
A slightly different approach then just building or planning your regular tech
startup. That is a bit refreshing I might add..

