Welcome to the city of Starbase: Texas residents decide if SpaceX will found its own city

Over the next few days, SpaceX employees will decide whether the company that promises to colonize other planets will found its first city down here in Boca Chica, Texas. Where the map formerly showed Starbase, the space company's operations center and launch base, it will read "City of Starbase."

The space company founded by Elon Musk filed a petition in December to be allowed to organize its roughly 1.45 square miles (3.8 square kilometers) as an incorporated place: territories such as cities, towns and villages recognized by state law, with legally defined boundaries and a government of their own.

From the company they argue that they were already performing "several civil functions" due to the base's "remote location," including road maintenance, medical care and schooling. "Incorporation would move the management of some of these functions to a more appropriate public body," they asserted.

They also promised to make the area a "a world class place to live for the hundreds already calling it home," while keeping in mind SpaceX's core mission: "Making South Texas the Gateway to Mars."

Once the necessary signatures were collected, the courts set an election for May 3. On that date, registered voters residing within the area to be encompassed by Starbase City will approve or reject its creation and elect its authorities.

All candidates are SpaceX executives. For Mayor, Gunnar Milburn, director of safety; while Jenna Pertzelka, director of Operations Engineering, and Jordan Buss, senior director of Environmental Health and Safety, would run for commissioner.

Welcome to Starbase City!

Details of the project are unknown at this time. Being a Type C-Municipality (Type C-Municipality), it will have between 201 and 4,999 residents. Starbase currently has 3,400 permanent employees and contractors, although it is unknown whether all live in the area.

Under the current laws, the new government will be required to hold elections, meet at least once a month, elect officials if it deems necessary, provide services such as emergency assistance and respond to public requests for information, among others.

Documents from Cameron County reveal that most of the inhabitants of the area are employees and their families, including children. This was assured by a senior company official in an affidavit, who also said that the company owns most of the residential buildings in the area: 247 plots with homes, only 10 of which do not belong to the company or its employees. All in a territory of 1.45 square miles.

County records also reveal the tentative plan of the fledgling town:

Musk fulfills one more dream... his own and others

For Musk, it's a dream that's getting closer and closer -- and more comfortable. His "primary home" is nearby, according to himself. A $50,000 house he says he rents to SpaceX. Late last year he shared an image of himself voting in the county, "home of Starbase!"

According to British media outlet DailyMail, the humble billionaire's home includes rocket-shaped children's play sets, Tesla solar panels and security cameras hidden in palm trees. From the three-bedroom house, the rooftops of his space company can be glimpsed.

This is not the first time Musk has planned his own housing development. Also in Texas, but in Bastrop County, 35 miles (56 kilometers) from Austin. The goal would be, according to statements by executives to the press, to offer affordable rents to the workforce and integrate Musk's various companies, which the billionaire was moving from California, overwhelmed, he said, of its excessive regulations and taxes.

Nor is he the first tech entrepreneur to yearn to be seen as an architect. Google unveiled, among others, the North Bayshore Master Plan: 7,000 new homes, more than 3 miles of walking and biking trails, up to 26 acres of public spaces.... Facebook is building Willow Village, a village with more than 1,000 apartments, offices and warehouses near its California headquarters.

Initiatives like those are not new, according to Smithsoninan Magazine there were more than 2,000 in American history. Although the list is long, suffice it to name Hershey, Pennsylvania, built by the chocolate company of the same name, or Lowell, Massachusetts, the site of a 19th-century textile company.