SOME years back, a whiz kid from the Czech Republic who wowed Wall Street as a trader for Goldman Sachs moved to Silicon Valley, then vanished entirely from the finance and technology scene, raising questions on his sudden disappearance from the rarified worlds he inhabited and on his whereabouts at present. It turned out that Jan Sramek, now 36, had grander plans. He convinced a bunch of ultra-wealthy people from the technology and investing world to build an entirely new city in a farming and grazing area off San Francisco, the ultra-wealthy's vision of a new 'utopia.'

Flannery Associates was the corporate entity born to acquire the land for that dream city, envisioned as a master-planned, post-21st century community not too far from the Bay Area. But supposedly without the social and economic problems like unaffordable housing, Nimby — which simply means 'no building and construction in my backyard' — homelessness, political polarization, drug addiction, mental health, and the many attendant problems that are often associated with the Bay Area and its liberal politics built around tolerance.