
How to build the world's most extraordinary town - hammerbrostime
http://omegaproject.us/
======
Klonoar
The tone of this site comes across as if it was written by a bunch of hippies
with little knowledge of how the world (or people in general) work.

This is a process that will take _years_ to even get started properly. They
try to condense it into 4 steps, but... well, let's break this down.

 _\- Need 10k enrollees._ The definition of "enrollee" seems loose here, so
given some mindless campaigning this is actually the easy part. Let's give it
a _modest_ 3 months.

 _\- Ah, nice,_ so now that we've supposedly got enough people, we need to
spin up a little marketing campaign to get people to sign off on it. Alas,
this isn't a feel good movie, so we're going to give this a nice... six months
(being pretty generous here).

 _\- Oh, shit, uhh..._ hey guys, you all also need to be pre-approved for
loans. We didn't really do anything to check this out when we got you all
mentally invested (if you're even still interested by this point). We're lucky
if we get half of you! Allocate at least a year for this, since there _won't_
be the 10k people that originally got onboard, and numbers need to be shored
up again.

 _\- Step three begins_ when we get a board to actually approve all of this.
There's really no guarantee this part will work; that said, if it does, we're
saying 1.5 years for all of the basic setup.

 _\- Step four, huzzah!_ We're building homes... for another 1.5 years. Can't
live here just yet! No worries, though, we've got a super high speed build
process... hey, wait, you're not listening, are you?

There are so many pitfalls with this it's not even funny (and I'm being
incredibly generous with the numbers above). I'm guessing the people behind
this are from the Bay area; surprised they never heard of a drop off rate. ;P

Speaking of the people behind this, who are they? There's absolutely no
information on this site explaining why you should ever bother placing some
level of trust in the efforts spearheaded by these people.

Then again, maybe this entire thing is a joke. I almost felt certain of it
when I read this line:

 _This step is all about social networking. We need 10,000 enrollees to
complete this step. Tell your friends, neighbors, cousins, distant
acquaintances, cats, dogs, and anyone who will listen. If everyone does this,
we will finish this step in about twenty five minutes._

~~~
tomelders
Yeah, it's probably going to be really difficult. May as well not even bother
trying. Best to just pick holes in it and offer up no constructive criticism.

Well done you ( _slow clap_ )

I'm so tired of people shooting stuff down for the sake of it.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Oh come on. This article might as well have read "We'll solve world hunger! By
signing up random strangers on the Interweb! And stop war!"

It was naieve, simpleminded, baseless drivel, and he called them on it.
Cynicism not required.

~~~
ctdonath
Well, the literal bottom line on the page is "This leaves $1-1.5 Billion to
invest in the most extraordinary series of civil expenditures ever put
forward" soon after a major bullet point of "universal healthcare".

Hey, if some group wants to create their socialist utopia by building a new
town devoted to that cause, great. That's a much better plan that the current
one of confiscating my wealth, via police powers, for their lofty and ill-
fated goals. I'll be watching with great interest. (Don't get me wrong: I also
watch, with more interest, the similar yet opposing plans of hardcore
libertarians.)

------
wooster
A new 10,000 person town in the North Bay? Great. Except for the county plans
for real estate in the counties (20 years each), the zoning laws, the
inconvenient lack of open subdivided land, the $120,000 per structure
planning/permitting/inspection overhead for new construction, etc, etc.

This isn't even close to realistic.

~~~
jacques_chester
You may have noticed that they're going to apply the power of the internet and
social networking. As you may know, the internet and social networking are
perfect tools for drawing the attention of many people to tedious legalities
for long spans of time.

~~~
wickedchicken
The success of YouTube comments and Android Market ratings resoundingly
confirms this.

------
gotrythis
I know of a group of people doing something similar near where I live. They
have successful serial eco entrepreneurs, experts in land acquisition,
builders, teachers, and several doctors, involved at the higher levels. Not
exactly a bunch of hippies. (Edit: If they were doing it somewhere more
sensible, as in warmer, I'd be on their board as well. I think people should
be encouraged to create intentional eco communities.)

They want to have full control and not all of the usual infrastructure
required for a town like sewers, roads, etc. One of the major problems of
course, is zoning laws, which can be circumvented by setting it up as a
university... or a religion.

I skimmed through the omegaproject site and didn't see where it was planned or
who was behind it, two things that would help. Without knowing more about the
people involved, it does come across as suspect.

------
wickedchicken
I legitimately can't tell if this is a troll site or not. "In step four the
town chartered bank sells $2.5 Billion in prime mortgage backed securities and
construction begins."

Groupon jokes aside, who trusts random guys on the internet with 2.5 billion?

------
dodo53
It's quite a community selection bias to ask people to pay for houses before
the whole town is constructed - presumably towards people who are already
pretty wealthy (or incredibly risk-tolerant).

I also wonder with that kind of money and momentum whether you could e.g. buy
a neighbourhood of Detroit and regenerate it.

------
brudgers
> _"pre-sell the homes, and use the profits to create the most extraordinary
> town ever built."_

Profits are what is left over after you build everything. When pre-sales
create profits, you have a scam.

------
kolinko
0% unemployment? Communists tried that a couple of times, never worked. I
wonder how they're planning to be different..

~~~
PakG1
To say nothing of those who want to take a break deliberately... :)

~~~
sologoub
If you deliberately take yourself out of the labor force, you are not
unemployed according to the rules used to gather official statistics ;)

------
davidw
Sounds interesting, but a couple of points:

1) I live pretty close to someplace with a claim to be one of the more
extraordinary towns in the world: <http://bit.ly/r2JHIn>

2) Universal health care & other benefits seem like it might be a lot to chew
off.

Good on them for giving things a try though.

------
buff-a
Is it just going to be Alphas in this brave new town?

------
jacques_chester
I'd suggest picking a part of the world with less onerous planning laws.
Texas, perhaps. For Europeans, Germany has a constitutional 'right to build'.

~~~
ctdonath
Yesterday I stumbled across <http://www.cheaplandinamerica.com> \- among other
options you can get 643 acres in TX for $127K. On a related note, sites like
<http://tinyhouseblog.com/> <http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com/> depict tiny
homes at low cost & complexity. Getting 10,000 people signed up to commit
$2.5B for a turnkey socialist utopia may be rather optimistic, but a low-
entry-cost growth-oriented plan might work. Put in a road, well, and 3G/4G
tower and get this project started!

------
Aviwein77
Oh man, where is that 250 grand I had lying around... :)

Seems like this site is coming under a lot of harsh comments. I am not sure
about the sustainability, or even the ability of something like this being
created. But (to use their term) with the power of the internet you can reach
those who do know how to do it. Someone who knows all the legality of
something like this might never have an idea like this.

I think the point was 'Hey if realtors can do it, we can too and turn the
profit into something useful'. If a realtor knew how to do something like this
than it wouldn't take too much to assume that other people would know how to
accomplish something like this. From the posts you prove this, you have more
insight into this than the creators, but the idea has to start somewhere.

One would assume that if they are hoping to build a grand community then they
would be willing to take suggestions from their community as to how to build
this community. Just because it is idealistic, and secretly maybe you want to
be a part of it, doesn't mean it is going to fail.

------
Sukotto
I remember a similar initiative on Slashdot about 10 years ago. The goal there
was to get a whole bunch of tech people to all move to the same state and work
together as a (mostly) unified voting block to make that state a great place
for tech people to live.

It seemed a lot better thought out than the OP's plan. iirc, they picked New
Hampshire.

I don't have a bookmark and my googlefu is failing me. Can anyone else confirm
that memory for me?

[EDIT] thanks waqf . Yes, those were the guys. Browsing their site, they seem
a lot more nutjob than I remember them being. I wonder if that's just me
getting old (get off my lawn!), me adding a rosy sheen to my memory, or them
shifting focus over the years.

[EDIT 2] Looking at their original manifesto it's a combination of me getting
old, and a rosy memory. If anything, they've gotten _less_ nutjoby over the
years.

~~~
waqf
You're thinking of <http://freestateproject.org/>. It's moving pretty slowly,
but they claim it's not dead.

------
tryitnow
Interesting. I think this incarnation of the idea is overly idealistic, but if
it were more market-oriented and bit more small scale (think neghiborhood
instead of town) it could be doable and not a bad way to fight against
unsustainable real estate valuations.

------
kokey
This is brilliant, they should do this in many regions around the world. Now
that we are running out of communist states because they are failing, we need
new working examples of why it's a bad idea.

------
jackvalentine
There will be massive problems with planning laws. Sad, but I can't think that
there will not be.

I'd love to live in a town like this, where I can built a 1-2 person house of
significantly smaller square footage for $30,000ish but I think without the
power of an established player, or getting everyone who pledges money to pay
up front and form a corporation before spending millions on lawyers this will
go nowhere.

------
SudarshanP
<http://seasteading.org/> is an idea on similar lines by the free market
libertarians and <http://www.thezeitgeistmovement.com/> for the more communist
minded libertarians led by Jaques Fresco.

------
CurtHagenlocher
You can't _build_ an extraordinary community. You have to _grow_ it.

------
GoGlobal
The most important question is not about the technical etc. of the project per
se, but rather about: How can a project like this gain enough traction to
really get the first 20-30% funding. At this time (and by showing prominent
investors etc.) it could take-off. In it's core the marketing of visions are
not different to webpages...

They should: 1\. Reduce the core msg to 1-2 Sentences ON TOP 2\. Give it a
better layout and support it with pictures 3\. Give examples of interested
people etc. and how this project could benefit them ON AN INDIVIDUAL BASIS 4\.
Overall a better structure... it's too confusing atm

------
becomevocal
I'm thinking a campaign where they get 'the internet' to all pitch in and buy
$25 sponsored bricks would work better. I would do it, knowing my brick might
never materialize.

Now if a lot of people did that, then you could start offsetting costs to the
point where people might actually buy a house.

------
noahth
exactly one forum post, and it appears to be spam.

kudos for the raw ambition though.

~~~
hammerbrostime
Nope, not spam. I'm just a long time lurker.

~~~
Samuel_Michon
I think Noah was talking about the Omega forum
(<http://omegaproject.us/index.php/forum>), not HN.

------
mkramlich
"Therefore, all progress depends on unreasonable men."

a tip of the hat to whoever's behind this

------
0ffw0rlder
This looks like a leftist version of the free state project, but with slightly
more cool-aid.

------
rorrr
To build the world's most extraordinary town you first must be outside of US
jurisdiction. I suggest you build a modular island out of plastic bottles
instead.

~~~
ctdonath
Plastic bottles aside, that was the goal of the libertarian-oriented
<http://oceania.org/> project.

------
IAnsari
Man, I'd freaking love to do this..

If only my wife felt the same way..

FML..

