Mark Lutter Hates Star Trek
January 28, 2025
Disclaimer: I have no idea how Mark Lutter truly feels about Star Trek.
Mark Lutter is the founder of the Charter Cities Initiative, and as amiable a futurist as one could find in Arlington, Virginia. In early December, he wrote about Trump’s proposal for Freedom Cities: de novo innovation hubs, built on planned lines, with high density, walkability, and idk flying cars. He and Nick Allen propose several locations, including Guantanamo Bay, but their primary proposal is the Presidio of San Francisco.
Though much smaller than Guantanamo Bay or Lowry Range, its location is ideal. San Francisco is the world’s tech capital, despite its many problems. The federal government can help San Francisco unleash its full potential by developing Presidio. With Paris-level density and six-story apartment buildings, a developed Presidio would add 120,000 residents, increasing San Francisco’s population by 15 percent. Further, given the city’s existing talent density, a Presidio featuring a liberalized biotechnology regime would quickly become a world innovation leader in this sector. America deserves a Bay Area that can compete; turning Presidio into a Freedom City could be an important step in that direction.
This was greeted with calm reason from some
And enthusiastic agreement from others
But no response grapples with the most important concern: such a development would despoil the future site of Starfleet Academy and Starfleet Command.
After the impending chaos of the Eugenics War and World War III, which will have a combined death toll approaching one billion, few world cities will remain untouched. Luckily, by the time of Zephram Cochrane’s first warp flight in 2063, San Francisco was largely intact.Major landmarks in Paris and India also survive. At that moment, nearing the close of WWIII, negotiators will be meeting in this city to discuss the founding of the New United Nations, just as they had done in 1945. It is to be the presence of Vulcan Ambassador Solkar and his offer of sentientarian aid, an interstellar Marshall plan, which will solidify the peace and begin Earth’s reconstruction.
I understand why, in 2025, San Francisco is a desirable place for an ambitious new urban development. The SFBA has a history of growth and expansion going back to the Gold Rush.Early growth was explosive: San Francisco had a population of 600 in early 1848, and 25,000 by the end of 1849. More than 200 square miles have been added to the region by landfill since statehood, and during World War Two the Bay held the largest shipyards in human history. But the spirit has declined since then. New landfill was effectively banned by the state in 1965, and the use of old federal land has stagnated. The western half of Alameda island, previously a naval air station, has sat empty since its closure thirty years ago despite numerous development attempts. The hurdles to a new city, or even an interstellar military headquarters, seem insurmountable.Although moving an existing Space Force military headquarters might be as simple as cancelling a rocket program with an inflated budget.
Perhaps World War Three resets San Francisco’s relationship to growth and building. The Treaty of Inter-Planetary Reciprocal Assistance & Friendship is central to this change. San Francisco is to be one of the original treaty ports, and will boom from the introduction of new technology, compounding an already strong knowledge economy and an influx of refugees from more damaged areas. While other parts of the globe — notably Great Britain’s Optimal Republic — are to resist integration and assistance from extraterrestrial neighbors, the much-battered remnants of America’s federal system will embrace the new neighbors. It helps that the Earth Trade Council and the T’Plana-Hath Commission for the Reconstruction of Earth will both be seated in San Francisco.Like 20% of this is canon. For the rest, I rely heavily on Dr. Nathan Goldwag’s Crisis of the 21st Century.
The early history of human’s relationships with our stellar neighbors is a tale centered on the city. Much of the crew of the Enterprise-A is from the Bay Area, and the space docks were headquartered downtown. More importantly, this crew, like the ones to follow, were trained at the Space Academy headquartered in the Presidio from 2140. And when the United Federation of Planets is founded in 2161, its council headquarters will be placed somewhere in the Bay, perhaps on Treasure Island, a manmade landform built for the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition. The most iconic symbol of interplanetary cooperation in San Francisco predates the Federation, however.
Starfleet will be founded in San Francisco around the 2130s, and transition to Federation control upon its founding in 2161. For the first millennium of its existence, Starfleet will straddle the Golden Gate. In every multiverse we have glimpsed, Starfleet Command, Headquarters, Academy, or all of the above sit in the Presidio. If Lutter’s dream comes to fruition, then the early 22nd century will not find a largely nature-held park built on a former military base, but a densely populated neighborhood. (It is ironic that Lutter hopes the Presidio to reach the density of Paris, a common charter cities talking point, as that city becomes the executive headquarters of the Federation.)
If a development in the Presidio is successful, we may next find YIMBYs advocating for the development of the Marin headlands at the north bridgehead of the Golden Gate. While the Presidio was the natural site for Spanish defense of San Francisco Bay, Marin was more important to the US Army during WWII and the Cold War. Today, visitors can see old barracks and air-defense missile sites in Marin. Much of the headlands are empty scrubland, however. Even the Marin town of Sausalito, the future site of the Vulcan Embassy, is now confined to a few blocks near the coast. Lutter’s plan could spell disaster for this future preserve.
He must ask himself: if this land is occupied by a walkable city center, then where will the administrative Starfleet buildings go?
If we develop the high-value coastline out to Point Bonita lighthouse, then we will be unable to build the Starfleet Court building, and where will we try Number One for hiding her Illyrian heritage and violating Starfleet’s anti–genetic modification laws?
While Lutter’s plan may be promising for the near-term competitiveness of the San Francisco Bay Area, it is certain doom for the region’s future home of interstellar governance. It makes little sense to build into a war, either — even if WWIII leaves California mostly un-touched, new developments will depreciate as conflict devastates capital markets and populations. Freedom Cities should instead be built in places which will soon be able to take advantage of both the short term devastation and long term interstellar trade. Such places will be relatively desolate today, but with appealing characteristics for rocket and missile launch. A good place to start might be just outside Bozeman, Montana.
The Presidio must be preserved. Not for its history; we have shown ourselves capable of building firm monuments to our past alongside our more ambitious projects. Nor for its present; there are more beautiful and more used parklands at Golden Gate Park and Land’s End, and the current residences and businesses could be provided for in a new development. But for its future: it’s future in training, supporting, and commanding our best and brightest as they explore the final frontier.