"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." - Buckminster Fuller
Often, folks ask me, "Gary, why are you so passionate about building startup cities? Haven't we got enough cities as is?"
Honestly, there are myriad reasons, so many that you could randomly pick one and lose sight of what sparked your interest initially. Yet, after a lot of thought, I think I've pinned down my prime reason:
“Innovation”
You see, my interest in startup cities, or startup villages, or even startup countries (though that's significantly tougher) boils down to them being zones for innovation. I care deeply about innovation in all its forms—technological, scientific, health, and social.
Innovating within an established context, one that's developed over hundreds, if not thousands of years, is immensely challenging. Even traditions that have been around for just a few decades can establish these invisible structures that restrain our capacity to innovate. Look at how hard it is to build a new building in San Francisco - even with the ridiculous cost of housing and the homelessness crisis! It seems that reforming places that once served as hubs of innovation is usually futile.
Startup cities, zones, and villages are all about fostering innovation, writing new rules, and catalyzing what is simply not possible in places bound by the weight of the past.
Think about it: new types of eateries, new recreational activities, improved ways of connecting with one another, better regulatory frameworks for all kinds of advancements. Imagine unique housing arrangements and methods to involve diverse groups in these exciting experiments. Perhaps equal in importance to the technological and scientific breakthroughs, this potential for lifestyle innovation is exciting and should never be underestimated.
A fascinating aspect of the innovation story around startup zones is the potential to experiment with how self-sustaining a group of people can be. I've come across brilliant technologies that recycle materials far better than our current systems or that can produce energy and food simultaneously—circular economy stuff.
However, it's virtually impossible to build a circular economy on top of a non-circular one. Hence, you need these specific zones where you can experiment and push the boundaries. The ultimate goal is not merely to lessen our negative impact on the world but to foster a regenerative effect.
I'm intrigued by these self-sustaining, regenerative zones, which simply can't be developed without large-scale thinking. We need to designate a blank canvas, a clean piece of land, and start from scratch, questioning assumptions that we've accepted as given in our existing cities and systems.
So, that's why I'm into building startup cities—it's a venture into the frontier of innovation, a bold attempt to construct a better, more regenerative world.
