Let Cities Build Utopia

Cities should build utopia. Nations should let them. Residents should benefit from them.

Let Cities Build Utopia was serialized in 11 installments over six weeks. You can still support the series by collecting the print or digital pamphlet here. 👇🏻

The print edition has already been shipped to paid subscribers at the collector tier who get everything we publish in print. Paid subscribers can access the series in its entirety here:

• Foreword: Land should be a public good—not just private property by Progress & Poverty

• The Scottish island that bought itself

• Cadbury built a city for workers—then gave it to them

• Ebenezer Howard built a better city than the government

• San Francisco should be profitable—instead property owners are

• Disney World has more autonomy than any US city

• Cities should own their land—like Vienna and Amsterdam

• Singapore—where your home loses value and everyone’s better off

• Stop idolizing Hong Kong, Shenzhen, and Próspera

• An indigenous nation just built a better city than California Forever

• Decentralize America: The case for cities that don’t need Washington

A special thank you to this project’s patron, the Center for Land Economics, which supported my ability to spend three months writing one essay, as well as hire illustrators and designers to bring it to life! Their newsletter Progress & Poverty, was a godsend to me while I was writing this piece, as was their founder Greg Miller who answered a lot of my questions along the way.

Thank you so much for reading and supporting this project!

More to come,

Elle Griffin

Marginalia

For further reading, here are the primary sources I used to research this series. 10% of pamphlet profits are being distributed to those I could get ahold of.

• Scottish Islands

  • Isle of Eigg Heritage Trust

  • Stornoway Trust

  • Community Land Scotland

  • “Who Owns Scotland?”

• Saltaire

  • Saltaire, World Heritage Site

  • Sybil by Benjamin Disraeli

  • Special thanks to Colin Coates, Saltaire historian

• Bournville

  • “A ‘Trust’ for Social Benefit” by WH Tolman

  • Bournville Village Trust Charity Overview

  • The Model Village and Its Cottages: Bournville by W Alexander Harvey

  • Bournville: Model Village to Garden Suburb by Michael Harrison

  • Bournville Village Trust, 2024 Statement

  • Bournville Village Trust photographs: DanielCallicott@bvt.org.uk

• Ebenezer Howard

  • Garden Cities of To-Morrow by Ebenezer Howard

  • Letchworth Annual Report, 2024

  • The Building of Satellite Towns by CB Purdom

• London

  • Municipal Dreams: The Rise and Fall of Council Housing by Municipal Dreams

• The US/Georgism

  • Progress and Poverty by Henry George

  • “Progress and Poverty” Greg Miller, Lars Doucet, and Stephen Hoskins

  • “Urban Proxima” by Jeff Fong

  • Report on a plan for San Francisco, by Daniel H. Burnham

  • Plan of Chicago by Daniel Burnham

  • The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs

• Disney

  • The Original Epcot

  • The “Florida Film”

  • “How Disney Became One of the Largest Transit Agencies in North America” by Hayden Clarkin

  • The Imagineering Story, Disney+

• Singapore

  • Urban Land Rent: Singapore as a Property State by Anne Haila

  • Government Financial Statements, 2024-2025

  • Singapore’s Annual Budget, 2024-2025

  • SLA Annual & Sustainability Report 2024-2025

• China

  • Journal of Special Juridictions

  • “The Shift Towards Increased Autonomy in Special Jurisdictions” by Journal of Special Jurisdictions

  • Breakneck by Dan Wang

• Sen̓áḵw

  • Sen̓áḵw Website

  • Jeff Fong visited the building site last summer and took some pictures that can be viewed here.

• Community Land Trusts

  • On Common Ground by John Emmeus Davis, Line Algoed, María E. Hernández-Torrales

• Company Towns

  • Pullman by Kenneth Schoon

  • Fordlandia by Greg Grandin