The development in Honduras was shot down by the supreme court...which ruled that an amendment to the constitution was unconstitutional!!!:

http://www.futurecitiesdev.com/about-us/......

that was kinda my thought-but hong Kong is still doing well. My issue, beyond that weak link, is the requirement for coming to the city state. You know, in AS there's no rule book on who is in the gulch. Anybody should be allowed to come in and anybody can leave at any time. The idea that you have to pass a monetary smell test, then the FIRST focus is on real estate aaarggghhh! spare me the real estate angle! now we can settle in and offer services to the world seems back a double s wards.

Your comment reminded me of a post I read regarding "Galt's Gulch in Argentina" aka La Estancia Cafayate which Doug Casey (the idea man behind it) calls "the best development in the world at any price."

Here is the post and its source:

"We almost bought a lot in the Casey "paradise" called "La Estancia de Cafayate". Made the deposit, and finally on the last day when they needed our signatures on the dotted line, they sent us the "building regulations" and "general rules and regulations".

Wow! What a total shock! The reality is exactly 100% diametric opposite of what Casey and his fellow agora wordsmiths had been saying! This was not anything like "Galt's Gulch" as they repeat endlessly. In fact, just the opposite! First, they squeeze all individuality out of everyone by forcing them to follow utterly insane building limitations. I mean, we were "easy" and could put up with plenty of conformity in that particular way, but they outright prohibit large windows to look at the great views! Say what? That's just crazy! And not only that, but the windows must be deeply inset to make the views even worse from inside.

But that's just the annoying part. Even worse was the nature of the community. It is somewhere between the kind of "nanny state" and an "outright totalitarian dictatorship" that Casey would verbally trash. I am not kidding. The "insider elitists" (not what they call themselves) cannot be removed without 75% of the owners voting them out. Which means, they can unilaterally change the rules any time they wish, in any way they wish, and all their slaves are stuck with whatever they wish to foist on everyone. That is so grossly objectionable coming from someone like Casey who always characterizes himself in the opposite light that we practically fell out of our chairs when reading the agreement (which we could not sign, of course). Note that getting 75% of everyone to vote at all would be near impossible, and getting 75% of everyone to vote against a group of famous world-class wordsmiths... well... you can just forget that. So "sign up for the Casey community and you are slaves".

Now, you might think, "Nah, they can't be the kind of people who would lie, cheat, steal, misrepresent and change things in unexpected ways", right? Well, given the years of wordsmithing from DougCasey in particular, one would hope so. However, guess what also happened on the day we were supposed to sign on the dotted line? We had been told the $250 per month "association fees" (don't remember the name they gave them, but that's the idea) would be continuously LOWERED as more and more of the vineyards started producing wine. Yeah, well good thing we waited one extra day (in shock at the agreements), because they RAISED the monthly fees from $250 to $325 per month... exactly the OPPOSITE of what they represented. Yeah, that was plenty of evidence for us. Over the endless future they can collect literally infinite sums of money from people on a monthly basis... even though they paid in full on day one!

Now what we believe is happening is this. We believe Casey is acting like any greedy developer who buys a huge tract of land cheap, then subdivides the holy crap out of it, and sells the tiny lots for 10x, 25x, 100x the price originally paid. This is clearly legal, and most people would say this is ethical, but we do NOT forgive Casey and his fellow wordsmiths for BLATANTLY LYING about the nature of the community. We can assure you, any real self-respecting individualist, much less "John Galt" would want nothing to do with his self-serving, nanny-state or totalitarian nightmare. The blatant misrepresentation by Casey and his fellow liars for pure profit motive is revolting in the extreme.

I'm sure this bothered us more than most people, because few people "say the right things" more than Doug Casey does. Unfortunately, he clearly does not practice what he preaches. And that's a fact."

http://www.goldismoney2.com/showthread.p......