A $100 billion “ghost town” became a home for tech entrepreneurs, but the experiment lasted less than two years after it began | World news
Forest City was intended to become a futuristic metropolis near Singapore, but its empty towers and quiet streets earned it a very different reputation. That unusual environment later attracted a group of tech entrepreneurs who saw the underutilized development as an opportunity to try a new way of living and working. In 2024, Network School arrived with a community built around technology, startups, and the ideas of Balaji Srinivasan’s The Network State. Participants lived, worked and learned together within the development. However, the experiment faced practical problems, including living conditions, licensing issues and scrutiny from Malaysian authorities. Less than two years after its inception, Network School was ordered to cease operations.
How Forest City’s Ghost Town Reputation Helped Attract a New Tech Community
Forest City was conceived as a huge mixed-use development in Johor, near the border with Singapore. The project included high-rise residential buildings, hotels, commercial areas and recreational facilities, with plans originally intended to house hundreds of thousands of people. According to the BBC, around $100 billion has been associated with development over the years.Much of the development remained vacant, giving Forest City its reputation as a ghost town. The Covid-19 pandemic complicated the situation, while wider issues affecting China’s real estate sector added to the difficulties faced by the project. There were streets and apartment blocks, but there were not enough people using them to create the usual bustle associated with a major urban centre.
Srinivasan’s Network State idea became a real-world experiment in Forest City
Srinivasan had been developing his thinking about alternative communities for years before coming to Forest City.His 2022 book, The Network State, proposed a model in which people could first gather digitally around shared interests and beliefs, build business and financial relationships, acquire physical territory, and eventually seek some form of political recognition.Srinivasan, a former chief technology officer at Coinbase who also worked in venture capital and co-founded genomics company Counsyl, had dedicated much of his career to technology and startups. The school was not conceived simply as a conventional educational program. It combined accommodation, workspace, classes, fitness and community activities, giving participants the opportunity to coexist while developing businesses and carrying out projects.According to Fortune, the first program began in Forest City in 2024. Participants reportedly paid around $1,500 a month, with room, board, classes, and access to facilities included.
Why Forest City attracted tech workers
Forest City itself was not the main attraction for everyone who arrived. The appeal was the possibility of spending months with other people working on technology businesses, investments, engineering or Internet-based projects. Instead of traveling between conferences and temporary coworking spaces, residents could live in one place with a ready-made professional network around them.The development featured modern buildings and leisure facilities, while its location in Johor put Singapore within relatively easy reach. The environment was very different from the crowded tech hubs normally associated with startups.For someone working remotely, a half-empty city could be useful. Residents described a routine based on shared meals, exercise, work and classes. The program also attracted people interested in Srinivasan’s broader ideas about technology, community and governance. Reports have described participants arriving from different countries, including digital nomads and young tech workers looking for a concentrated environment in which to build projects.
Life inside the Red School
Some residents complained about mold in the accommodation, something Srinivasan attributed in part to the local humid climate. Others found Forest City lacking the restaurants, nightlife, and variety of activities they might have expected from a major city. There were also complaints about the imbalance between men and women among the participants.A group can work well online while still being relatively flexible. Coexistence exposes different problems. People have to share physical spaces, deal with maintenance and rules, and decide what happens when the surrounding city doesn’t provide everything they want.The Network School could provide its own meals, activities and social environment. You couldn’t easily build an entire city around it.
What made Forest City such an unusual test?
Starting a new community typically requires expensive property, infrastructure, and a great deal of planning. Network School didn’t have to build a city from scratch. He arrived at a place where towers, roads, hotels and services had already been built.The problem Forest City faced was almost the opposite. This gave Srinivasan an unusually large experimental space. A community of tech workers could occupy part of an underutilized development without having to address the huge construction costs typically involved in establishing a new urban district.The deal also made the project’s ambitions easier to see. The Network School was not an abstract online community. In fact, people lived together, worked together, and tried to build relationships around a set of shared ideas.
Inside Forest City’s ephemeral tech community
Network School remained small compared to the scale of Forest City. The development had been conceived for a population of hundreds of thousands, while the school dealt with hundreds of participants at most. Therefore, their presence did not transform Forest City into a functional metropolis.For a time, an otherwise sparsely populated set of towers became a meeting point for people interested in startups, cryptocurrencies, artificial intelligence, digital communities and alternative forms of organization. It offered something that conventional tech campuses typically can’t: the opportunity to live with the professional network instead of commuting to it.A community can be very active internally and at the same time remain almost completely disconnected from the life around it. The Network School had its own routines and culture, but Forest City still had to operate in accordance with Malaysian regulations and the commercial realities of the wider development.
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