"Price is what you pay. Value is what you get." -Warren Buffet

According to the Wall Street Journal, there is a real estate trend underway in Los Angeles: Celebrity plastic surgeons are piling into the business of building over-the-top spec homes. (Spec means that they are built speculatively, without a buyer in place, and sold -- hopefully -- upon completion.)

What is clear from this phenomenon is that there appears to be a bit of money to be made in the world of LA plastic surgery. What is also clear is that the market value for a 21,000 square foot mega-mansion in Los Angeles is basically who-the-hell-knows:

The rush of new contemporary spec homes built in the Los Angeles area has put downward pressure on prices. While Dr. Nassif says he’s had significant interest in his home since listing it earlier this year, Dr. Kanodia recently slashed the asking price of his home to $99 million from $180 million. Developers like Nile Niami, known widely as the king of Los Angeles spec homes, handed the keys over to his lenders on at least one project and is facing default on others, The Wall Street Journal has reported.

Is the market price $180 million? Is it $99 million? Or is it much less? Probably depends on which way the winds are blowing that day. At this snack bracket, you're looking to harpoon a whale and there are only so many of those. But ultimately, the market price is whatever someone is willing to pay.

One thing that is interesting to see in some of these homes -- besides hidden DJ platforms on hydraulic lifts -- is that NFT art displays are now starting to get incorporated into these new builds. Assuming that digital NFT art does continue to take off, which is still TBD, there is going to be an explosion of different display/gallery solutions.

Perhaps these mega-mansions are a leading indicator for that trend.

The web in its current state is like a city without public spaces. People can only interact in places owned by someone else, and a small group of landlords captures an oversized share of all economic activity. - Dror Poleg

I would encourage you all to read Dror Poleg's recent article called, "The Token Society: Cryptocurrencies will change the way we work, live, and love." It's an interesting read, particularly for us urbanists. Poleg starts with urban history. He first talks about how the emergence of industrial cities allowed for new divisions of labor. The example he gives is that of the quatorzième, which is a job that emerged in Parisian society sometime in the late 19th century. The job of a quatorzième was literally to be the 14th person at dinners and functions. Since a headcount of 13 was thought to be bad luck, it was important to be able to call on someone at a moment's notice to fill this critically important role. While this probably seems silly in today's context -- I mean, who goes out anymore? -- it was a real thing and it was a thing that the modern city was suddenly able to provide. Poleg goes on to thread this idea all the way through to today. Web 2.0 enabled a new sharing economy and much larger digital communities (though note the quote at the top of this post). However, we're nowhere near done yet. Web 3.0 is going to, in his words, enable "the finalization [or tokenization] of all human activity." Welcome to the new token society.

P.S. I'm by no means an expert on cryptocurrencies. I have just been watching from afar for the past several years. But over the last few months, it has been hard not to pay attention to what is happening with NFTs and the Ethereum network. And I'm not just talking about the price of ETH (which is up ~56% over the last month alone). I am now of the opinion that we are seeing one of the first mainstream use cases emerge on top of a blockchain network. And yes, I believe it will also change our cities.

Here is an interesting interview discussion about NFTs (non-fungible tokens) and the world of luxury brands. It's a conversation between Benoit Pagotto, cofounder of the NFT brand RTFKT Studios, and Ian Rogers, who is Chief Experience Officer at the blockchain startup Ledger (he was previously the Chief Digital Officer at LVMH). Below is an excerpt that stood out to me. It starts to speak to the potential of NFTs for fashion/luxury brands. Rogers also makes an interesting comparison to the music industry in that things are playing out very differently today compared to what happened back in the late 90s.

Benoit is proving that he can basically sell a $4,900 digital good alongside a $100 physical good. Now imagine when the lightbulb goes off in Adidas’s head, that the item on adidas.com comes with a digital collectible and the item at “retailer dot com” does not. It fits with their focus way more than the internet did. The internet didn’t fit in any incumbent’s focus. It was the opposite. It was like, “Oh my God, this threatens our monopoly in some way,” right? For the music business, it was, “Wait a minute, we want to sell a $17 compact disc, not a $1 digital file.” They got dragged into that world. 

On a related note, it was recently announced that model Emily Ratajkowski has made an NFT containing a photograph of herself standing in front of a Richard Prince print that had previously appropriated one of her photos. (Richard Prince's artwork is known for appropriation.) So this is an exceptionally neat idea. Here she is using an NFT to try and take back some control. Basically: You took my photo and then profited from it. So now I'm going to stand in front of that image, take a new photo, and then reclaim some ownership using the blockchain. Is this the future?