Elon Musk is building his own utopian city in Texas: the rental price is a dream

News Elon Musk is building his own utopian city in Texas: the rental price is a dream

What we know about Snailbrook, Elon Musk’s utopian city

On the outskirts of Austin, a major city in the southern United States, the quirky Elon Musk is preparing something big. Part of the fortune of one of the richest people in the world is now spent on the construction of a small utopian town. Utopia, according to Elon Musk, already has a name: Snailbrook. This name, which sounds like a slap in the face in Shakespeare’s language, takes a hit when it’s rendered in French. Snailbrook can be translated as “Ruisseau aux Escargots”.

You probably know it as well as we do, with Elon Musk, all ambitious projects are designed for a specific purpose. Here, the city of Snailbrook is to host the families of employees of The Boring Company and SpaceX, two companies owned by Elon Musk, in the best possible conditions. The name Ruisseau aux Escargots may also be a reference to the mascot of The Boring Company, which, as we recall, is engaged in the construction of tunnels.

For several months now, rumors have been circulating in social networks about the birth of Elon Musk’s utopia. Some posters purporting to be hung on earth poles where the new city would be built read: “Welcome to Snailbrook, Texas est. 2021.” Some images even show the first houses and other infrastructure already built.

All of this was just noise in the hallway to be taken with a pinch of salt…until last week and this article by our colleagues at the Wall Street Journal. A detailed report by a very serious American media confirms that Elon Musk plans to build his own utopia.

So far, very few details have been leaked about this crazy project. The only people who would know about the underside of this case would be Elon Musk himself and some of his relatives. We can still report two very specific figures:

• The city will be located about 55 meters from Austin, Texas.
• Elon Musk would buy 1400 hectares of land at the moment. At least that’s what the Wall Street Journal reports. Other sources, in principle less reliable, speak more about 2400 hectares.

Elon Musk is building his own city: a new idea?

How can Snailbrook be utopian? The Wall Street Journal, citing people close to the project, recalls “a kind of Texas utopia along the Colorado River.” The privileged few who stay there will have access to a range of facilities: park, gym, swimming pool, school… all at extremely affordable rents.

To live in one of the Ruisseau aux Escargots 5-room modular houses, you will have to pay approximately $800. To live in an equivalent house in Bastrop County, you need to pay approximately $ 2,200. Thus, the rent offered by Elon Musk will be about 2.5 times lower than market prices. As you understand, in the event of dismissal or leaving the companies, the tenant will have to leave the house. And for a maximum period of 30 days.

Here the goal would by no means be the unfolding of a philosophical or political dream; what the rich boss is really looking for is something much more practical: offering housing for the employees of his 2 companies near their place of work. The idea is not new: since the 19th century and at the beginning of industrialization, factory owners often offered workers housing near the workplace for little money.

In the mind of Elon Musk, the desire to continue this old tradition is not new either. Our favorite billionaire already announced on Twitter 2 years ago that he wants to create a Starbase city, back in Texas. At the time, the businessman was pushing for “an urgent need to build more housing in the Austin metropolitan area.” The Boring Company, Tesla, and SpaceX employ many people in the region. Eventually, the billionaire will find it economically.

You don’t even have to go back to 2021 to find information about Musk’s desire to build homes with his employees in mind! In late January, the Austin Business Journal reported that Elon Musk had hired one of the largest builders in the US for an ambitious project, then called “The Amazing Project.” Even then, it was indicated that this project would be located in Bastrop County, Austin, next to the facilities of The Boring Company.

The “Amazing Project” involved the construction of the first 110 houses in what is today Snailbrook. Last month, we already talked about the first street names of Elon Musk’s utopian city:

• boring boulevard
• Crossing Catterhead
• water jet method
• Place of the guinea pig

Whole program…