Time and time again, billionaires prove they want to have their cake and eat it too.
A report from Jacobin looked into towns popping up around the globe that some of the world's richest people are building and populating.
These towns are incorporated and receive tax revenues and county support. The uber-rich also put a lot of effort into making sure they stay as private and exclusive as possible.
One such example is Indian Creek Village, which is located on a man-made island near Miami. It's home to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Jared Kushner, and Ivanka Trump, and many other billionaires. The village's heavily funded police force aggressively patrols its shores, and a radar detection system scans the island's perimeter.
The only road accessing the island is a bridge. Non-residents can only cross if they have permission from a resident or a membership to its exclusive golf club. But when that bridge needs repairs, they are paid for using public funds.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk lives part-time in a similar private town called Starbase, which is near Brownsville, Texas. Home to many SpaceX employees, the city recently opted to install gates that can keep non-residents out.
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"The limited scholarship on new private cities seems to suggest that they fail on every justice front," researchers wrote about these exclusive communities in a 2023 study. "Democracy, participation, inclusion, social and environmental sustainability, and diversity are simply absent from their planning and execution."
This isn't necessarily new for billionaires like Bezos, who essentially shut down all of Venice, Italy, this summer for his lavish wedding. Although he touts Amazon's Climate Pledge, Bezos spends significant time on private jets and his megayacht. These activities pump massive amounts of heat-trapping pollution into our atmosphere.
A 2024 report from Oxfam International confirmed that this devastating impact on the environment isn't limited to Bezos. It stated that, on average, billionaires emit more carbon pollution in 90 minutes than the typical person does in a lifetime.
"The extreme emissions of the richest, from their luxury lifestyles and even more from their polluting investments, are fueling inequality, hunger, and — make no mistake — threatening lives," Oxfam Executive Director Amitabh Behar said in a release.
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