• • • Hell Isle 
Rick Perlstein, The Nation - Rick Perlstein Check out what the loopy Ayn Randroids are up to now. In long-suffering Detroit, a libertarian real estate developer wants to buy a civic crown jewel, Belle Isle, the 982 acre park designed by Frederick Law Olmstead—think the Motor City's Central Park—and turn it into an independent nation, selling citizenships at $300,000 per. Not, mind you, out of any mercenary motives, says would-be founder Rodney Lockwood—but just "to provide an economic and social laboratory for a society which effectively addresses some of the most important problems of American, and the western world." (Sic.) [....] An aspiring Ayn Rand himself, Lockwood has set out his vision in a “novel,” poetically titled Belle Isle: Detroit’s Game Changer. Although he’s actually done the master one better, by imagining he can get his utopia built.   Published: 2013-01-28