You’re right. I was thinking more of the lesswrong types than about Akon.

TESCREAL libertarians ignore the last 50 years of planning & urban studies because they think it’s all a conspiracy to destroy innovation. Celebrity cryptofans ignore it because they don’t even know the last 50 years of planning & urban studies exist.

My armchair analysis: The dream of “starting fresh” isn’t just that you end up with a new city, but that the kind of people who live there are new too, either because you believe that the quality of the urban environment affects people’s morality (as many people thought in the 19th century) or because you’ve hand-picked the kind of people who will live in your city (as crypto-fascists seem eager to do). So a city is more exciting than a new airport or a new railway because it’s about who people are, who people want to be.

E: & also a lot of TESCREAListas are convinced that San Francisco, New York etc. are “failing” cities, that urban life is falling apart

It’s part of their retrofetishism & sneaking admiration for dictators and autocrats. “Remember when we used to really build things? Build whole cities, even? When we used to displace 10,000 people at the drop of a hat so we could build a new freeway? We don’t do that anymore, because of woke bureaucracy”