Once, the model was simple: the state built infrastructure and waited for investors.
Pronomos Capital, a fund backed by Thiel and others, expresses the concept with striking simplicity: “the city is the product.”
The state owns the land but lacks the money, execution capacity or political incentive to transform it into an economic engine.
When a place must be rebuilt almost from scratch, governments and investors are no longer limited to reconstructing yesterday’s city.
The defining question of the coming urban era may be different: Who owns the operating system of the city in which we live?