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Elon Musk Is Planning a Texas Utopia—His Own Town (www.wsj.com)

The entrepreneur is laying plans for a new community outside Austin next to Boring and SpaceX facilities, dubbed Snailbrook. Entities tied to Mr. Musk’s companies or executives have purchased at least 3,500 acres (former ranchland and generational homes). 

Not a far cry from the old European set up of lords and serf-tenants, imo. The article even mentions that his employees will be “able to live in new homes with below-market rents” – benevolence, or necessity due to wages?

What happens when/if the employees are fired or laid off? I’d imagine they’d be forced to move to make room for active workers.

Oh, yep, here it is: “As of last year, Boring employees could apply for a home with rents starting at about $800 a month for a two- or three-bedroom, according to an advertisement for employees viewed by the Journal and people familiar with the plans. If an employee leaves or is fired, he or she would have to vacate the house within 30 days, those people said.”

If he treats his employees anything like his people have been treating the local governance, it could get really ugly: “Last June, Robert Pugh, then Bastrop County’s director of engineering, complained in an email to Clara Beckett, the county commissioner in charge of planning, that staffers had been “regularly hounded” by employees and contractors of Boring and Starlink, a SpaceX unit. They want the county to “expedite and approve permit applications that are incomplete and not in compliance” with the county’s regulations, Mr. Pugh wrote. 

Mr. Pugh left his job that same month and didn’t respond to requests for comment. Ms. Beckett didn’t respond to requests for comment.”

Others quoted further down the article take a much more quietly respectful tone in speaking to the press. Local government as well as landowners who’ve agreed to sell all had to sign NDA’s. 

Locals have expressed concerns over wastewater dumping permits amongst other things. This could come into play down the road, “The Texas land purchases have taken place through at least four limited liability companies.”

“Some locals have sold land to Mr. Musk’s companies. Others who own land in Bastrop and Travis counties said they have gotten few answers from Mr. Musk’s companies about their plans, and have said they won’t sell.

Some said they feel steamrolled by eager public officials who aren’t asking enough questions. “They’re just going as fast as they can,” said Mr. Ambrose, whose home overlooks the Boring site.

In 2013, when Mr. Ambrose bought his 10 acres of hilltop land, there were only about a dozen residences within a mile. Since the spring of 2021, Boring has erected several warehouses and dug at least two test tunnels, and SpaceX is constructing the largest building in the county.” – will be interesting to see how these holdouts fare as Mr. Musk’s plans progress.

What do you think?

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theylie
theylie
1 year ago

This isn’t even that old of a concept. I recently lived in an old textile mill that was converted to apartments for awhile. Huge neighborhoods of tiny, crappy houses surround these old mills which were all for workers. The mill only closed down in the 80’s. The same concept applied, if you worked at the mill you could have the house and once you were fired or quit you had to be out in a week. The people were forced to grow gardens and raise animals in their TINY yards to survive because they weren’t paid enough to eat well. The workers tried to form unions to protest horrible working conditions in the mid century and were met with guns pointed at their faces (literally) and soldiers as they went to work each morning while being threatened they would lose their jobs and their houses and maybe even be killed if they continued to demand better conditions. That was just a few decades ago and this information is in the museum the mill has set up to talk about it’s history. This kind of thing has never not been around. He who holds all the money and resources will ALWAYS make slaves of the idiots surrounding him, and the only reason it works is because the idiots are compliant instead of figuring things out for themselves.

Wildeer
Wildeer
1 year ago
Reply to  theylie

Bethlehem steel is another example

Fleurdamour
Fleurdamour
1 year ago

Company town.