The latest push for “freedom cities” in the US is not just a policy shift, it is the logical trajectory of a tech oligarchy that seeks to secede from democracy itself. From startup nations like Próspera to the lobbying efforts of venture capitalists and libertarian billionaires, the future they envision is one where the ultra-wealthy move between autonomous corporate enclaves, each operating under its own rules, while the rest of the country is left behind.
These so-called innovation hubs, designed to bypass federal oversight, are not about progress. They are about creating private fiefdoms where environmental laws, labour protections, and democratic governance are stripped away, leaving only the raw power of capital. The latest WIRED article ‘Startup Nation’ Groups Say They’re Meeting Trump Officials to Push for Deregulated ‘Freedom Cities’ makes it clear: the goal is a new frontier where nuclear startups, anti-aging biotech firms, and data centres operate without regulation, all under the control of unelected corporate overlords.
“These are going to be cities without democracy… where the billionaires have all the power and everyone else has no power.”
This is not a revitalisation of American cities, it is their abandonment. Instead of investing in struggling post-industrial regions like Detroit or Cleveland, the plan is to build anew, on federal land, where corporations can dictate the terms. The existing public sphere, flawed as it may be, is being discarded in favour of a future where only those who can afford entry are welcome.
“To be outside of the law and above the law, what does that mean for the rest of the country?”
The idea of private cities is not a thought experiment. It is a blueprint for a world where billionaires live in hyper-controlled techno-utopias, while the working class is left to navigate a landscape of collapsing infrastructure and eroded public services. The endgame is a nation of gated corporate states, each competing for capital, each exempt from the social contract, each another step away from democracy.
This is not freedom. It is the replacement of government with corporate rule. It is the transformation of America into a collection of privatised city-states, where the wealthy set the laws and the rest of us simply try to survive them.
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