About

Beyond serving its residents, New Athens serves four larger goals.

New Athens is:

1. Designed to do the very hardest thing in the world, which every developed country has failed to achieve for at least the last 50 years: increase the birth rate and avoid population collapse.
2. Founded on one of the very few political ideas with wide bipartisan support: it should be possible to raise a family on a single income.
3. A deescalation of current trends towards civil war: New Athens is a safe outlet for revolutionary political ideas that also relies on national stability. When the most politically energetic Americans need the country to not burn to the ground, that’s a good thing. America's founders saw the states as “laboratories of democracy” and a buffer against national upheaval. New Athens serves this same calming function.
4. A hedge against the total victory of the AI industry: New Athens profits from a future where humans and machines do not merge, but instead coexist. Or, if most humans merge after all, New Athens is a hedge against the electric grid going down: a self-sufficient group of people who are not reliant on brain implants for cognition.

Backstory

New Athens was instigated by me, Jackson Solway. Unlike most About pages, used by companies to paper over the chaos and associated felonies of their early days, I’d like to share the honest backstory on this whole endeavor. It’s somewhat interesting, and transparency is also valuable for its own sake. For anyone who’s drawn to the city, you deserve to know who’ll be pulling a lot of the strings, and for better or worse that’s me.

Five of my personal interests merged into New Athens.

Education reform

First, a few years ago I fell into the world of education reform. My oldest son had reached school age, and to avoid sending him to the local public school I dropped out of the tech industry and helped found a Classical charter school associated with Hillsdale College. A local activist called us “Trump’s new ultra-MAGA Christian Nationalist school,” and I caught eyebrows from some old coworkers. Oh well.

Importantly, I led school operations and waged an 18-month bureaucratic holy war to rid the school of screens. It basically worked, reading scores went through the roof, and I got to watch hundreds of old-school friendships blossom. Still makes me tear up.

On the other hand, outside school property I watched as the world grew—and grows—increasingly mad.

One day the thought crossed my mind: What does it mean for a school to cultivate students of high character, if the world they graduate into does not value people of high character? I know that’s hyperbole, but many people in the Classical education movement share a version of this fear. I’d seen school reform work—I was living it—so I started to think, very practically, about fixing whatever the thing is that’s bigger than a school. I eventually figured that’s what cities are.

(For clarity, the school I helped start was and is secular and non-partisan. If anything, it resembles the public school I attended in Seattle in the 90’s: books, math, pencils, paper, glue sticks, passing notes, screwing around at recess, etc. And not a screen in sight.)

The grandkids factor

Second, I want grandkids. The problem is that childhood in modern America, by default, turns boys and girls into political rivals. On the other hand, if my wife and I can raise our boys to be anything besides cruel actual-racist lunatics, and they marry women who are anything besides hysterical communist lunatics, and we get some grandkids out of the equation, we win.

If we’re going to get to grandkids, I realized I needed, somehow, to help repair the soil of childhood.

Humans vs. Machines (yea, we’re there)

Third, I came up with a theory we discuss a lot behind the scenes. I’m not sure how original this is (probably isn’t), but the theory is that disputes over the proper use of technology are accelerating just as fast as the AI industry, if not faster, and may spark a major social schism in the US, if not globally. One side will adopt the digital world as the real world, and the other side will step back from life online and recommit to physical reality. Not full-meal-deal Amish, but with a fundamental skepticism, in lieu of fundamental excitement, for new tech.

This schism will scramble politics—again. This is a big prediction that may not come true, but it’s been useful to ponder in fleshing out the basic contours of New Athens.

Steering human capital

Forth, I’ve long been intrigued by what America does with its “best and brightest,” as the saying goes.

In my lifetime there have been four destinations, always a blend of a genuine call to adventure and national security strategy.

Before I was born, kids got funneled into the space race and winning the Cold War. Think: “I want to be an astronaut when I grow up!” When I was little, leaders of both political parties went all-in on financializing the economy, so the smart kids got funneled into finance and consulting jobs, notably on Wall Street. By the time I left home, with tech companies positioned to dominate the global economy, the destination was Silicon Valley. New mission: Start a company and change the world (in line with American interests).

Which takes us to today, and a big problem: The U.S. economy is all-on on AI, but AI companies do not hire young people.

When financialization led to millions of blue-collar jobs getting shipped overseas, or when software turned millions of service workers into software jockeys, at least there was still an out: get in on the game yourself by going into finance or tech.

But the AI industry truly, fully broke the deal. Not only do AI companies not hire young people, their main product, agents (and soon humanoid robots) are sold to companies as a replacement for entry-level workers…and maybe even all workers.

This tells me two things: 1) Young people are rightfully pissed, and 2) If they don’t see a path out soon, they’re going to turn to the thing all hopeless young people have turned to throughout history: political violence.

I have a better idea: before the youths finish sharpening their pitchforks and burn down the country, how about we set them to work rebuilding the America dream for themselves? Maybe build a city, or cities, in physical reality, recommitted to America’s founding values? Socially useful. Deeply rewarding. Hardest challenge there’s ever been, or ever will be. And maybe we won’t go extinct.

Have a sandwich (and don’t shoot me)

Finally, back in 2014 when I was living in San Francisco, I got scared the San Andreas fault would pop and the entire West Coast would fall into the ocean. It wasn’t just me—a bunch of scientists were saying it’s happened before and will happen again.

I Googled “prepper” and got a bunch of gun ads. The deeper you go down that rabbit hole, the more people you find with shipping containers full of ammo, fridges full of ill-gotten antibiotics, and overwhelming fear and paranoia. I made me feel bad.

But I like people, I reminded myself, so I came up with another idea: why not build a resilient community here in the good times, so when the bad times come the people with more guns than days of food will choose to join the community rather than shoot everyone and take all our stuff? I got sidetracked with young kids for a decade, but in some respects New Athens is a revival of my desire to be helpful and thus joined, rather than useless and looted.

Bonus: Writers who inspire me

Along the way I’ve been inspired by…almost everything and everyone. Recently, I’ve been enjoying the writing and speaking of Mary Harrington, Paul Kingsnorth, Jonathan Haidt, Walter Kirn, Louise Perry, Rob Henderson, Charles Marohn, Eric Weinstein, Bret Weinstein, and Heather Heying.

Bonus #2: Communism sucks

At a later date I’ll write more about my brush with communism as a teenager, where, traveling alone in China, in the aftermath of man-made famine, I did not see a single adult man over 50 years old who rose above my shoulders. I was no giant at 5’9”—but they maxed around 5’5”. I recall searching an entire shopping mall in a regional city and not finding a single shirt large enough to fit me.

A few months later I visited the S-21 prison and “killing fields” in Cambodia, where I stood in front of a 25-foot pile of human skulls as the grandchildren of the dead tugged my pant leg, begging for money.

I’ve been asked, tongue-in-cheek, if I’m “excited to be in charge of a whole city.” I don’t love the word “excited” for any of this. I fear revolution in my bones and view government, in the first place, as a magnet for psychopaths. I’d live in the woods if I didn’t have children with their whole lives ahead of them.

Maybe not the happiest note to end on, but that’s actually how this all got started.

— Jackson (July 2026)

Quick links

• The game plan – Learn about the teams we’re assembling to build the city.
• Who New Athens is for – Who we’re recruiting to move to the city, and why they say yes.
• Newsletter – Progress reports, news, and essays from our team members.
• Partner with us – Do you represent a company or organization? Partner with us.
• Join the waitlist - Indicate your interest in moving to the city.
• Get involved - Help bring New Athens to life.
• FAQ - Questions we’ve been asked, including the wild ones, and our answers.