356: Ideal and planned cities. Hubris or genius?

Along with special guest Longinus, the boys review an Amber "non-alcoholic brew" from O'Douls, then discuss planned cities. Pigweed was curious who was secretly buying lots of land near Travis Air Force Base. The fear was it was the Chinese, but it turns out to be Silicon Valley millionaires and billionaires. They want to create an "ideal city" -- because they know best about everything. There is, of course, a long history of people believing they could design the perfect city. It's not an encouraging track record. Longinus starts off the show with the development and history of cities and city planning. Such planning was usually a response to the organic growth of the city rather than a pre-emptive plan to design it from scratch, although there are exceptions. Philadelphia, Williamsburg, and Washington, D.C., were all planned cities. Crowhill reviews a list of nine planned cities that turned into disasters. * Brasilia * Chandigarh * Ordos * Magnitogorsk * Pruitt-Igoe * Home * Palmanova * New Delhi * Milton Keynes * Arcosanti * Skopje * Jonestown And when it comes to planning, you also have Homeowners' Associations!