Freedom Cities could address two major challenges confronting the United States: a sclerotic bureaucracy and a stagnant society. Government red tape has slowed down innovation in critical areas, from drones and vertical take-off and landing aircraft to energy production, self-driving cars, and biotechnology. Meantime, Americans have become less mobile and entrepreneurial, a shift from the nation’s dynamic past. Freedom Cities would create new opportunities, reinvigorate building in the real world again, and inspire the American imagination.
Planned cities are not a new idea. In fact, many have been built in the United States since World War II, including Irvine, California; Reston, Virginia; and Walt Disney World. Irvine, established by the Irvine Company and incorporated in 1970, has grown to a population of 300,000. Reston, inspired by the Garden City movement, now has more than 60,000 residents. Disney World secured substantial legal concessions from Florida, which functionally delegated county governing authority to it, though the state legislature recently revoked those concessions.
What makes the Freedom City movement novel is its federal government-led approach to creating deregulated new cities. In nineteenth century America, dozens of cities grew organically, fueled by manifest destiny, industrial might, and the rapid expansion of the population across a new continent. Today, while America’s population continues to expand, suitable locations for organic urban development are less obvious. Moreover, modern economies emphasize agglomeration—the clustering of industries in dominant hubs like New York (finance), San Francisco (tech), and Los Angeles (entertainment). We’ve thus reached a turning point in which state governments and federal agencies need to take a more active role if new cities are to arise.
The Brooklyn Navy Yard’s transformation from military installation to modern industrial park represents the political, economic, and zoning possibilities of Freedom Cities. The establishment of the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation (BNYDC) in 1981 as a nonprofit manager led to the creation of an industrial park that now houses more than 300 businesses and has become a model for other such projects in the U.S. The result of a federal-to-municipal land transfer to a public-private partnership, the BNYDC sustains itself through leasing to tenants.
Such government-led efforts in urban creation have varying degrees of success. Many fail, but those that flourish sometimes do so spectacularly. Two of the most prominent examples are St. Petersburg, Russia, and Shenzhen, China.
St. Petersburg was built by the Russian Tsar Peter the Great to orient his country permanently toward the West. Peter realized that Russia was falling behind Europe technologically, scientifically, and organizationally. By locating St. Petersburg on the Baltic Sea, he ensured that Russian elites would be exposed to European ideas and trade. The city eventually became the center of Russian industrialization and helped to ensure Russian competitiveness with Europe for centuries.
Shenzhen was less of a top-down building project than was St. Petersburg—it was more of an emergent experiment. To quote China’s paramount leader at the time, Deng Xiaoping, it amounted to “crossing the river by feeling the stones with one’s feet.” But it would prove similarly influential in China’s modernization. The Chinese government set up Shenzhen in 1980 as one of four special economic zones. The factors that made it work include its size (more than 320 square kilometers); its relative autonomy; its introduction of labor, land, and financial markets in a Communist country; and its proximity to Hong Kong. Within four years of its inception, Shenzhen already boasted the tallest building in China. The special economic zone model would eventually sweep through the rest of the country, playing a critical role in China’s rise over the past 40 years.
While the United States needs a re-orientation, its situation is obviously hardly as dire as those of eighteenth-century Russia or twentieth-century China. American Freedom Cities should not just reshape the nation’s priorities but also build on its many strengths.
Entrepreneurs are already taking up this effort. But the experiences of California Forever, a real-estate development corporation, illustrate the cultural and regulatory barriers to building today. With backing from some of Silicon Valley’s most successful investors and entrepreneurs, California Forever set out to found a new city. The company has acquired more than 50,000 acres of land about 60 miles northeast of San Francisco and is lobbying for a ballot initiative to rezone the land from agricultural to urban use.
California Forever recognized that agglomeration matters—locating the proposed new city close to San Francisco is designed to exploit the incredible productivity and desirability of the Bay Area. The project also underscored that San Francisco is not building enough housing units, causing a huge spike in rents, thus driving away local residents. But local political buy-in turned out to be far from guaranteed. Facing strong local opposition, California Forever had to withdraw and reschedule the original ballot initiative.
Earlier new cities in the United States had a smoother road. Disney World, for instance, initially enjoyed strong political support from the Florida legislature, which passed the law creating the Reedy Creek Improvement District, effectively a county government elected by landowners, of which Disney made up the significant majority. Irvine, for its part, benefited greatly from the University of California’s opening a campus there.
Cities, like real estate, are all about location. The best locations are places already in high demand. Americans want to live in the Sunbelt and coastal areas. The Sunbelt population is booming because people are moving there. Though many coastal areas are losing population, their housing prices keep rising, an indication that demand remains high.
Freedom Cities can create their own demand with two mechanisms: regulatory arbitrage—the creation of a more competitive regulatory environment to attract businesses and residents—and new transportation technology. Shenzhen exists largely because of the regulatory advantages created by its special economic zone. Transportation technology changes human settlement patterns. Atlanta, for example, exists mainly because it sits at the intersection of two railways. Vertical take-off and landing vehicles will open up new avenues for urban development in the United States.
For all its faults, America remains comparatively well governed. Freedom Cities could pursue achievable regulatory reforms in areas including environmental permitting, drug approval/innovation, and friendlier regulations for drones and other vertical-takeoff-and-landing aircraft.
This de-regulatory approach could draw on inspiration from international special economic-zone models while creating an American industry-based framework for innovation. While maintaining core protections, a freedom city could administer a streamlined environmental review, shortening the approval process from years to months and saving entrepreneurs tens of millions of dollars. Performance-based standards, rather than prescriptive regulations, would maintain environmental compliance.
In the area of drones and unmanned aerial vehicle testing, companies could benefit from expanded testing capabilities afforded by designated drone corridors and testing areas like the FAA’s Beyond Visual Line of Sight sites and NASA’s Unmanned Aircraft System testing programs. Companies operating in a Freedom City could also explore accelerated pathways for clinical trials and medical-device testing that parallel existing FDA programs like the Fast Track, Breakthrough Therapy, and Accelerated Approval designations. Companies would maintain rigorous safety protocols while benefiting from more efficient administrative procedures and coordinated multi-agency reviews.
Sites that limit or eliminate environmental-permitting requirements—including the National Environmental Protection Act, for example—don’t require large populations; they could, for example, encourage building solar farms in Nevada. Other areas, such as biotechnology innovation, require a talented workforce. A good Freedom City plan would tailor the target locations with regulatory reforms to make the largest impact.
With hundreds of millions of acres of U.S. land under federal ownership, several locations, each spanning 20,000 acres or more, could be selected and developed near airports, major highways, railways, and other cities with existing infrastructure. But a Freedom City doesn’t necessarily need to be built on federal land. Private land within a land trust could be given the same special designation.
Some potential locations for a Freedom City might include Presidio National Park, Lowry Range in Colorado, and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Presidio is a two-acre national park, formerly a Navy base, in San Francisco at the Golden Gate Bridge. Lowry Range is a 100-square-mile (though some land has been sold off) former Air Force base located 20 miles southeast of Denver. Guantanamo Bay is a 45-square-mile American Naval base in Cuba.
Each of these locations could host a city. Guantanamo Bay would seek out Cuban refugees and serve as a way station for migrants to the United States. It would undermine the Communist regime by offering an easier exit than flight to Miami or Mexico, and help rehabilitate America’s image, given Guantanamo’s current association with the War on Terror’s excesses. With effective governance and a welcoming environment, a Guantanamo Bay site would powerfully demonstrate that the American model of capitalism can thrive anywhere.
Denver has a population of 3 million people and a well-connected airport. Lowry Range is a short drive from the airport and could be easily integrated into the Denver metropolitan area. A simplified permitting process and liberalized drone testing could unleash billions of dollars of investment.
Our favorite possibility is Presidio National Park. Though much smaller than Guantanamo Bay or Lowry Range, its location is ideal. San Francisco is the world’s tech capital, despite its many problems. The federal government can help San Francisco unleash its full potential by developing Presidio. With Paris-level density and six-story apartment buildings, a developed Presidio would add 120,000 residents, increasing San Francisco’s population by 15 percent. Further, given the city’s existing talent density, a Presidio featuring a liberalized biotechnology regime would quickly become a world innovation leader in this sector. America deserves a Bay Area that can compete; turning Presidio into a Freedom City could be an important step in that direction.
The second Trump administration has opened the door to Freedom Cities. They can play an important role in American revitalization.
