Rich people have become obsessed with building new cities lately—an affliction that extends even to hip-hop and R&B singer Akon. Back in 2020, Akon announced that he would build a futuristic new city in his “hometown” of Senegal. “Akon City” would be powered by green energy and solar power, feature condominiums, a seaside resort, and a university, and would use Akoin, his cryptocurrency, as its primary source of exchange. Akon promised that, soon, the African country would have “a futuristic city” on its hands, a “real-life Wakanda” that could act as a paragon for “how African society should become in the future.”
Well, fast forward to 2024, and it would appear that almost no work has been done to make this dream a reality. The government of Senegal, which provided Akon large tracts of land on which to build his futuristic new metropolis, is now running out of patience. Bloomberg reports that Sapco-Senegal, the government-owned entity responsible for the nation’s tourism and development, has “given Akon formal notice” to begin work on the project. If he doesn’t make any progress soon, the government will take back a majority of the land that it previously granted him. The government issued the notice to the singer after Sapco missed a number of scheduled payments from him.
Gizmodo reached out to Akon for comment and will update this story if he responds.
Akon previously promoted the project extensively but has been less vocal lately. Akoncity.com, which used to feature details about the singer’s plans for his development, now just redirects to Akon’s personal website.
#akoncity pic.twitter.com/IYbIjsd7HY
— AKON (@Akon) August 26, 2020
Akon isn’t the only rich guy who is bad at building cities. In the Bay Area, a slew of tech billionaires have been trying to manifest their own urban project on thousands of acres of cow-poke farmland but recently suffered a demoralizing defeat. Then there’s Neom, the Saudi Arabian government’s project to build an 105-mile-long city along the coast of the Red Sea. This, too, is flailing. Despite a constant flurry of promises to the press and investors, the Saudi government recently had to scale back its ambitions. Other billionaire-backed urban projects are scattered across the U.S., and even Kanye West has planned his own “Yecosystem.” Despite billions of dollars in investment and lots of talk, none of these projects have come to fruition, proving that the 1 percent’s urban planning expertise may be greatly exaggerated.
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