Cost estimate of building a floating city, from the Seasteading Institute ¹. The cost is comparable, on a square foot basis, to the cost of real estate in the most expensive markets in the world: Manhattan and San Francisco ², and Hong Kong, Singapore, Shanghai, London, and Paris ³. The cost of floating cities is based on a hypothetical cost study, not real world construction projects.

Floating platforms may be useful for creating new land in expensive, land-constrained coastal cities, such as Singapore, as an alternative to environmentally costly land reclamation ⁴.

Reclaimed Land

Per square foot, the cost of land reclamation varies widely but is generally cheaper than the assessed cost of seasteading.

Data: Hulhumalé (Maldives) ⁵, East Lantau Metropolis (Hong Kong) ⁶, Durrat Al Bahrain ⁷, Manila Bay ⁸.

Reasons for reclaimed land developments include the need for more access to real estate in space-constrained cities and the desire to place certain facilities, such as airports, far from a city center. Military bases at the artificial islands among the 9 Islands offer China a strategic advantage in the event of conflict ⁹.