In California, a group of tech and finance people are working on a secretive project to build a city in Solano County, near San Francisco. They are facing local opposition and criticism for the usual reasons: disagreeable tactics, strong-arm behavior, and utopian thinking that opponents allege will do more harm than good. The group leading the charge is called California Forever — a fact that ought to invite its own criticisms, not least because it sounds like something out of a James Bond film that has a 64 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

In Honduras, a group known as Próspera Inc. is building a libertarian city, labeled by Reason as “a radical experiment in private governance.” As Zach Weissmueller reports for the magazine, the company’s cofounder and CEO, Erick Brimen, says the city, called Próspera Village, “is not a location” but rather “a platform that delivers governance as a service in partnership with host governments that create a legal framework that allows that public-private partnership to emerge.”

Taken together, these extravagant undertakings by the rich indeed resemble the plot of a James Bond movie. They’re a bit like Quantum of Solace, with the antagonists infused with a touch more Ayn Rand influence. But this comparison arises only because the projects seem cartoonish and quixotic. At their best, they’re evocative of Bond-villain chicanery. At their worst, however, they recall the dystopia of the Matt Damon vehicle, Elysium, in which elites have decamped for a luxurious space habitat, leaving the rest of humanity to toil and perish on a polluted and blighted Earth.