As I write the following letter, or rather the bulk of them moving forward, I am living in a techno-community in Forest City, Malaysia. My purpose in going to Forest City is not to live cheaply, but to transact some private business with the fewest obstacles. I also want to be in solitude so that I can write. Thoreau had Walden, Didion had California, Baldwin had Saint-Paul de Vence, and I have Forest City.

Forest City is the aftermath of a sales pitch so confident it mistook assembly for demand. The island was constructed in advance of desire, which tells us the story of every startup failing to find product market fit. Built on reclaimed land in southern Malaysia, just across from Singapore, it was meant as luxury development for the middle-class in China. It offered a city of towers, hotels, beaches, and panoramic views rising from nearly fourteen square kilometres of artificial island. Yet political backlash, capital controls, border closures, and developer distress left most of the land between luxury and abandonment. This resulted in empty roads and shuttered storefronts, earning it the reputation of a ghost city. The unfinished quality is part of what makes it such an appealing setting for Network School, which has moved into the emptiness because of it.

The Network School campus is hosted inside Marina Hotel, a large full-service building with floor-to-ceiling windows, cloud-like ceiling motifs, and polished amenities. The hotel suggests a luxury development still trying to remember its original sales pitch. While it offers pools, beaches, gyms, cafes, conference rooms, and roof-top views of the water, Network School has made the hotel feel like a home for digital nomads. The staff greet arrivals through the automatic glass doors with the practiced warmth of a place designed to feel effortless. Upon entering, you may pass by whiteboards and poster stands informing newcomers about products and services on campus. At the heart of the hotel lobby is NS Cafe, where coffee and random encounters will bid your time. This is where most of my writing gets done, while seated in the middle of the cafe next to several artificial trees that light gold at the tips. They stand beneath hanging glass sculptures giving the ceiling the look of waves caught mid-motion. This effect is oddly kaleidoscopic.

Writing this while sitting here, in NS Cafe, I realize that Forest City is a fitting home for Network School. Both were built in anticipation of demand that did not fully exist. One was designed as a luxury city for buyers failing to arrive in the projected numbers. The other is assembling a society of internet natives to make an online community politically real. In that sense, each begins with the bet that if the infrastructure is built first, the people will follow. In my last letter, I suggested that Network School is not a place, it’s a people. While that may be true in the future tense, right now, Network School is conceivably a place in Forest City, which is organized around the hope that concentrated ambition can be converted into capital, then into a state.

I initially lived on the Network School campus in September and October of 2025. After those two months in Marina Hotel, I had some sense of what it meant to live on a once-abandoned, man-made island. The apartment towers were barely twenty percent occupied, and the shops and convenience stores in the mall next door often seemed staffed more reliably than were visited. At the time, roughly 250 people were circulating around the hotel. About a 100 people committed to staying for a year in hopes that Network School would thrive. When I left at the end of October, I realized I had grown fascinated by the place and soon returned in March of 2026 as a long-term stayer myself. There was something compelling about living in a place among people willing to uproot their lives for a society originally built on the cloud.

After a month of observing, what became clear was that Network School is sorting people by what they want from the place, and how long they are willing or able to stay. New arrivals often seem drawn by novelty and the promise of instant affiliation. I've witnessed them introduce themselves eagerly, attend events daily, and move through campus as if trying to become visible to the room as quickly as possible. Long-term stayers, on the other hand, are on a different wavelength. Many have figured out their routines, friendships, and priorities, while treating social gatherings more selectively, maybe even preferring solitude. This difference gives the place a subtle hierarchy. The monthly cohort brings energy, openness, and churn, while long-term residents give institutional continuity. The same introductions that create friendship can also create optionality, and the population that makes this place exciting can also make every interaction faintly overwhelming.

What I am noticing so far is that the ghost city is no longer empty. The new context is not only social, but spatial. Network School's growth places quiet pressure on the same apartments, buildings, and offices that owners and locals are already circling. Forest City is slowly growing in population, alongside the presence of Network School, which may cause competing intentions. The lights are on, the lobbies are polished, the locals are gathering, but the final form of the place remains unsettled. The same is true for Network School inside of Marina Hotel. A society like this does not become real all at once. It happens gradually, through the people willing to live inside the unfinished version of it. I shall continue writing these letters from the inside as the shape unfolds. If you want to see Forest City for yourself, you can start here.

pura vida,
-overskyman