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b"During the roaring twenties, two of the most revered and influential men in American business proposed to transform one of the country\\u2019s poorest regions into a dream technological metropolis, a shining paradise of small farms, giant factories, and sparkling laboratories. Henry Ford and Thomas Edison\\u2019s \\u201cDetroit of the South\\u201d would be ten times the size of Manhattan, powered by renewable energy, and free of air pollution. And it would reshape American society, introducing mass commuting by car, use a new kind of currency called \\u201cenergy dollars,\\u201d and have the added benefit (from Ford and Edison's view) of crippling the growth of socialism.
New cities \\u2013 St. Petersburg; Ankara; Nev-Sehir; Canc\\xfan; Acapulco; Huatulco; Norilsk; Vladivostok; Fritz Lang\\u2019s Metropolis

The whole audacious scheme almost came off, with Southerners rallying to support what became known as the Ford Plan. But while some saw it as a way to conjure the future and reinvent the South, others saw it as one of the biggest land swindles of all time. They were all true.

To tell the story of this audacious plan is Thomas Hager, author of the new book \\u201cElectric City: The Lost History of Ford and Edison\\u2019s American Utopia. He offers a fresh look at the lives of the two men who almost saw the project to fruition, the forces that came to oppose them, and what rose in its stead: a new kind of public corporation called the Tennessee Valley Authority, one of the greatest achievements of the New Deal."