Frequently Asked Questions
Plus some 1-off’s that made us laugh
These are real questions (paraphrased) we’ve been asked. Some are straight forward. Some stem from skepticism. Some betray contempt. Everyone is served by transparency, so by default we’re covering as many honestly-asked questions as we can.
What are your politics? Are you Republicans? Democrats? Contemptible fence sitters?
New Athens is fundamentally for reform and against revolution. We’re not affiliated with a party. Everyone is welcome to join the waitlist and move to the city. That includes people who have flirted with the far-right and far-left. People with big ideas are essential to any healthy society—so long as they’re building instead of destroying.
In New Athens we unite in the belief that America is worth fighting for, that the Constitution should endure, and that righting the ship will take highly-motivated patriots of all stripes.
While idealistic, our approach is also deeply practical: by giving people something to do with their beliefs beyond screaming them into the void of the internet, New Athens is an offramp from social media nonsense and a re-grounding in the real world. There’s no screen to hide behind and compromise is not a pre-internet relic, but a normal, practical requirement of living in the physical world.
Where’s the city?
We’re going to do what car companies do when they want to open a new factory: solicit bids from multiple jurisdictions and select the best bid. The winning jurisdiction will get two things: tax revenue (from taxing our economic activity and residents); and, taking a longer view, stable prosperity: our residents will be primarily young, energetic families committed to local success.
In exchange, over a large geographic area the jurisdiction must cut red tape, especially zoning restrictions, so we may legally build the city.
Why build an entire city?
Because everything in America broke all at once, and a city is the smallest social unit at which everything can be fixed all at once. Not too big, not too small—just right.
And as normal people who appreciate a good time, if we build an entire city we’ll learn more, have fun, and make some memories.
Another lens: Reforming existing institutions requires god-level skills in bureaucratic knife fighting, a skillset possessed by masochists, psychos, maybe like 4 normal people globally, and nobody else. On the other hand, building a city is urgent work that demands the human spirit—and definitionally requires everyone’s help.
How will I survive without a smartphone?!
We’re hard core about banning smartphones, but we’re no Luddites. A smartphone is a general-purpose computer you carry around with you. If it’s not general-purpose, or if you can’t carry it around, it’s not a smartphone any more. Practically speaking, in New Athens this means you can carry a dumb phone that just makes calls, or lock your smartphone to your desk (standard security cables are $15 on Amazon), or both. That’s it—welcome to town.
Here’s what you get back when your smartphone is literally stuck to your desk: when you take a walk, you’re just walking; when you’re at work, you’re just working; when you’re eating dinner, you’re just eating dinner, likely with people who are also just eating dinner. Ditching your smartphone does not just return you to real life, but grants you multiple lives: a home life, a work life, friend groups, hobbies, side hustles, a good night’s sleep. That’s precisely what smartphones took from us: a smartphone in your pocket makes you one person to everyone in all settings at all times.
If smartphones became popular 15 years ago because they made people feel smart and connected, New Athens will thrive because residents feel sane and loved by real people in the real world.
How are you going to actually ban smartphones?
Everyone you see in New Athens will have decided smartphones are a bad deal. If you do the one thing everyone has agreed is bad, you’re an asshole.
This isn’t us being glib: social norms are powerful. Beyond norms, legal frameworks and precedents are actively being established in school districts across the United States. Importantly, banning smartphones is not a question of regulating tech companies. It’s a matter of regulating personal possession.
As noted above, in New Athens smartphones may not be carried. (When a smartphone is locked to a desk, it’s not a smartphone anymore.) “Don’t carry it” is a concept a child can understand. And it’s easy to spot violators: they’re the people walking around with their phones. Get spotted by a cop and you’ve earned yourself a ticket. Do it repeatedly and the device gets seized.
What are you going to build first?
Free public schools based on the non-religious, low-tech Classical education model. Why? A great free school system is a powerful reason for an existing family to move to the city, and for new couples to plan their future here. Schools are also deeply mistrusted by parents across the political spectrum, so prioritizing our school system serves our goals of attracting a wide range of families and minimizing political groupthink.
Also, to nerd out for a moment, school hours, bussing timetables, and holiday calendars significantly influence local workforce schedules and job opportunities, which drive dozens of other decisions made by families. Any credible effort to help families, not just say “have more kids!”, starts with school reform.
How big is the city going to be?
Big. We’re targeting 200,000 single-income families by 2050 (roughly 1 million total residents). By American standards this is absurd and indicates we’re not serious.
On the contrary, we’re quite serious and not crazy: we’re just the first people (besides tech billionaires) with the balls to say a big number out loud. Other countries, especially China, scale cities even faster on a regular basis. For every reason, America needs grand projects like New Athens.
What do you mean by “single-income family?”
New Athens represents a strong, though limited, set of opinions about children, parenting, and family formation.
We have two primary stakes in the ground: First, we believe is it normal and good for all people to strive to have kids, even if they ultimately don’t. Second, the strongest families are those where one parent is home. We are intentionally not taking a stance on who that should be, husband or wife, though it shouldn’t bother anyone to recall that, for most of human history, the homemaker role has been played by women. There’s also Option 3: both parents work part-time—which is a great option. The point is that, whenever a kid is home, a parent ought to be too.
A few more beliefs: For women, having your first child in your mid teens (as women did through most of human history) is jumping the gun, and if you’re 30 you waited too long—but better late than never. For kids, we broadly believe that playing with other kids is healthy and looking at a screen alone is harmful. Philosophically, we believe the concept of a “free range” childhood is directionally correct, and that intensive parenting stunts a child’s growth and makes parenting harder than it needs to be. Parents should feel like they’ve qualified for the Olympics if their children have reliable food, shelter, and clothing; are getting enough sleep; feel safe at home; and can hear the word “no” without totally melting down. Finally, young children should be read to for at least 10 minutes a day.
There are many other things we, the people behind New Athens, do for our kids, but we’re disinclined to suggest any are right for all families.
Is this a housing development with fancy marketing?
No. Housing developments are short-term business ventures. Typically, an investor gives money to a developer to build and sell a large humber of housing units, then the investor and developer share the profits. Investors are also essential to New Athens, but they are rewarded differently.
In exchange for their up-front investment, investors in New Athens receive a portion of gross yearly tax revenue for a period of time. In financial terms, investors in housing developments make money on customer acquisition (people buy houses), whereas investors in New Athens make money on customer retention (families stay and thrive).
Notably, this means investors are incentivized to keep housing prices as low as possible to attract new residents. Most importantly, this model aligns investors with the long-term success of residents—from the quality of the education in public schools, to the happiness and stability of families, to New Athens’ overall economic strength. We think this investment model is fundamentally better for everyone.
How much will houses cost?
As little as possible. Our goal is for houses in New Athens to be the best bang for the buck in the United States. Our primary tool is investor incentives. As noted above, investors in New Athens only make money when a family stays and makes money in New Athens—not when that family buys a home. In other words, investor profit margins depend in large part on population growth, which aligns investors—and their lawyers—with everything it takes to built a large number of high-quality houses with low price tags.
Tactically, there are many ways to achieve this. That process will begin with negotiations with our host jurisdiction. If you’re new to this topic, a brief primer: Cities and states use laws and regulations to shape almost every aspect of the housing market. Laws and regulations make it faster or slower to get permits, increase or decrease building requirements, allow or restrict corporate, foreign, and non-resident ownership, set rules for the rental market, pass laws that influence transaction costs, and much more.
What about same-sex couples and families?
Laws around gay marriage and gay adoption are almost always handled at the state level, and are increasingly addressed in state constitutions. As a city, we’ll be in the passenger seat.
Morally, good people disagree on these questions. Gay couples with or without adopted children are welcome in New Athens. People who think homosexuality is evil are also welcome. This is surely a disappointing answer for many people.
Candidly, of course our team members have personal opinions. But if we wrote out some manifesto we’re positive everyone—everyone—would find something to hate about that, too. We’ll return to the point of the city: we are primarily interested in helping young men and women start families.
What tech am I allowed to use in New Athens? …And why not ban everything?
You may use a dumb phone. You may use a smartphone if it’s locked to your desk or stays in your car (which, again, makes it not a smartphone any longer). Any device that doesn’t live on your person, including TV’s, laptops, and game console—is fair game.
Some people can’t imagine life without a smartphone in their pocket. Others ask why we don’t ban the entire internet. We think tech policy is the art of the middle ground. We’re not out to boil the ocean and we can’t deny the world as it is. Broadly, anyone who is willing to give up their smartphone is on the right track. We don’t have to—nor can we realistically, nor should we—police everything. It should perhaps be enough to know that the culture and laws of New Athens will be shaped by its residents, who by their presence agree it is unwise to mindless welcome every new device into their lives. And when things get crazy again, as they inevitably will (sex robots?), we’ll have the legal framework in place to keep life sane.
Man, aren’t you just, like, playing SimCity here man?
Yes and no. Yes, because it sometimes feels like that. No, because real people are signing up to move here in real life. Maybe you should move here too. We’ll buy you a drink.
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.