All the 'large areas of land' that people want to live in already have dense cities. This sort of ideas have been tried again and again, and it falls apart because people just don't want to move there.

Would you be enthusiastic about relocating if this was forty minutes away from Vegas in the desert?

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hdgvhicv 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Worked in the U.K. Milton Keynes is 250k population which was under 50k 50 years ago.

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nrhrjrjrjtntbt 2 hours ago | parent [-]

UK has the feature that you can bootstrap new towns because from the new town you are probably within 1000s of jobs in neigbouring towns. I used to joke to myself you could get a C# job in commuting distance (car may be needed) from anywhere in the UK even in the sticks. (Before remote working boom)

	▲	hdgvhicv an hour ago \| parent [-]
		It’s a half hour drive to the nearest station and I don’t exactly live in the middle of nowhere. US could build a new town 50 miles out of San Francisco with 4tph. Holster-Gilroy looks potential. Petaluma-SantaRosa too, or Fairfield. From a Quick Look on the map Those could all massively increase in size and be easily commutable to the entire SF area

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RealityVoid 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

People have and will move in the middle of nowhere if it offers them a way to make a living.

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AnthonyMouse 3 hours ago | parent [-]

How does a bunch of empty buildings in the middle of the desert offer them a way to make a living?

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RealityVoid 3 hours ago | parent [-]

It doesn't. But it could. My point is if you offer something attractive besides just housing, people will come. Imagine company towns or things like that. They work because people get jobs there.

	▲	fooker 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		That's exactly the point. The areas where you could easily do something that provides work for a lot of people are already occupied by large cities, near river deltas, trade routes and coastal areas good for ports. The only recent exception is SpaceX's Starbase town. And they could do this because of a very new 'requirement', frequently launch rockets where you have a south facing coastline as close as possible to the equator.
	▲	AnthonyMouse 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Company towns are built because there is e.g. a mine in the middle of nowhere and then you have to build a town to support all the mine workers. If there was actually something like a viable mine there then it would happen on its own and if there isn't then it's still just a bunch of empty buildings in the desert.