Available soon, for sale or rent: brand new island with sea views from the terrace, fresh fish daily and swimming pool in the resort hotel. An ideal base for 225 pioneers with £100m-plus to spare and a yearning for a new political and social system.
And if you don’t like it, no problem. Hitch the house to the back of a tug boat and try somewhere else.
For the right-wing American libertarian with deep-seated problems with Big Government, the 19th century challenge to “Go West, young man” retains a powerful appeal. But for the current target audience – the free-wheeling capitalist dotcom millionaire in Silicon Valley – going west means getting wet.
Not an issue, according to a new design report investigating the feasibility of “seasteads”, communities of like-minded, self-governing individuals established on the high seas, free from what its proponents see as the restrictions of nations, welfare systems and punitive taxes.
The seasteading movement has emerged as a political movement – with nods to climate change and land shortages – to create new water-borne city states. Over 85 pages, a Dutch engineering and urban development company has outlined the feasibility of a floating “village” for 225 permanent residents and 50 hotel guests – a blueprint that the pioneering seasteaders hope will become hundreds of floating petri dishes of social and political experiments.
The design consultants envisage a series of interlocking “hollow box” square and pentagonal platforms, allowing each city to grow organically – or be dismantled and towed away in the event of political dispute or interference. Individual seasteaders would decide on how they would rule or be ruled.
According to the feasibility study by DeltaSync, a specialists in floating structures in the low-lying Netherlands, early residents would live in flats of 70 square metres, with terraces open to the sea. Solar energy would power general daily living, including electric-only cookers, while water for showers and drinking would be supplied by the rain.
