Network Cities / Why towns
A campus brings jobs.
It does not bring a town.
Why I am building towns next to Louisiana’s new campuses, what I do today, and where it goes. By Uwe Jens Cerron. 7-minute read
3,000
direct jobs coming to Starbase Louisiana in Vermilion Parish. State of Louisiana
1,000+
construction workers at peak on Delta Forge in Boyce. State of Louisiana
280
building permits issued in the whole Alexandria metro in 2025. Redfin
70%
of Americans would oppose an AI data center near home. Gallup
Housing is where a new campus wins or loses its neighbors
01 / EvidencePeople say no first
Seven in ten Americans told Gallup this spring that they would oppose an AI data center near their home. Half of those opponents named the strain on local resources. One in five named the cost of living.
Richland Parish shows why
Fortune reported in March that about 3,700 workers were tied to Meta’s Hyperion site, with 5,000 expected at peak, living in hotels, short-term rentals and new RV parks. A mobile-home resident in nearby Monroe told the magazine her rent had gone up several times in six months.
The largest operators now pay to get ahead of it
In April a top-five hyperscaler signed a contract worth more than $550 million with Target Hospitality for a workforce community of about 4,000 people beside a North Texas data center campus.
Both companies have said they want to be good neighbors
Applied Digital’s chief executive, Wes Cummins, pledged at the Delta Forge announcement to be an engaged, long-term partner to Central Louisiana. On November 12, SpaceX said it is committed to making sure the communities where it builds share in the benefits.
Three markets in Louisiana
02 / WhereRapides Parish
Applied Digital, Delta Forge, Boyce
1,000+
construction workers at peak and 200 permanent jobs. Coca-Cola UNITED, Plastipak and two plants at England Airpark are expanding nearby. The whole Alexandria metro issued 280 building permits in 2025.
Where I own and operate today
Richland Parish
Meta, Hyperion data center
5,000
workers expected at peak, in a parish of about 20,000 people. Crews are living in hotels, short-term rentals and new RV parks, and local rents have climbed.
Where the shortage is already here
Vermilion Parish
SpaceX, Starbase Louisiana, Pecan Island area
3,000
direct jobs and about 8,100 indirect, with a first launch planned for 2029. Employee housing is expected only at full buildout, years after the crews arrive.
Where it is about to start
Louisiana Economic Development on Delta Forge and Starbase Louisiana; Fortune on Richland Parish; permits from Redfin.
Community first. Then the housing.
03 / What I doA path to the new jobs
My tenants are working people. I connect them to the employers arriving here: who is hiring, what training it takes, and where to apply.
Help with the community side
Resident meetings and short updates on who was hired, what was paid in local taxes and which local firms won contracts. People believe a neighbor sooner than a press release.
Money residents can see
If you fund rent credits, power bill credits or hiring preference for residents, I deliver them through the lease, with your name on them.
Homes ready before the crews
I buy and repair existing parks and rentals 15 to 20 minutes from the site first, because they can house people this year. New homes follow on land nearby.
What a network city is
04 / The ideaStart where the jobs are
New campuses bring thousands of jobs to small towns that have nowhere to put the people. I start by owning and running homes 15 to 20 minutes from the gate.
Residents first
The people who live there get a path to the new jobs and a say in what gets built next.
A place that belongs to them
Over time a community like this can become a town in its own right, if its residents choose that. Louisiana is where it starts.
Each town stands for something
A campus brings jobs. It does not bring a town. Somebody has to decide what kind of place grows up around it. One town built around space, one around compute, one around energy. Each with its own character, its own schools and trades, and its own reason to stay after the construction crews leave.
Each a noosphere
Teilhard de Chardin and Vladimir Vernadsky used the word noosphere for the layer of shared thought that people build on top of a place. That is the aim here: towns with a shared idea, linked to each other, where the people who live there are part of what is being built.
Where the network state left off
Balaji Srinivasan’s The Network State argued that communities formed online would one day need land. This is the next step: real towns, chartered here, under American law. No country protects property rights better, and Louisiana is the first state.
Like-minded people find each other
Alys Beach was built around a way of building. Ave Maria was built around a faith and a university. Both show that people will move to a town built on a shared idea. The same can be done around space, compute and energy.
A cure for loneliness
The U.S. Surgeon General called loneliness an epidemic in 2023. A town where neighbors share work and purpose is the oldest answer to it.
The mission
We will reindustrialize America, and the people doing it need towns worth living in.
We are building utopias, one town at a time: places people are proud to be from, next to the work that is shaping the century. Milton Hershey built one around a chocolate factory. Starbase, Texas became a city in 2025. The next ones start in Louisiana.
About
Uwe Jens Cerron
Founder, Liquid Build
Author, Liquid Labor
Computer science, Stanford
Finance and economics, FIU
- Builder. I ran Selenis Construction until 2021. We built schools, roads and whole residential developments, along with Starbucks and Chick-fil-A restaurants and university food courts.
- Owner and operator in Rapides Parish. I own a 10-unit park in Ball and a recovery home in Alexandria leased to Oxford House, both bought with my own money.
- Doing good and doing well. The Alexandria house is leased to Oxford House, the national network of self-run recovery homes founded in 1975. The residents run the house and pay their own way, and the lease is steady. It taught me how I want to invest: find the housing a town needs most and is not getting, and serve it well.
- Company builder. I co-founded Friktion, which raised $5.5 million from investors including Jump Crypto, and Convergence RFQ, which raised $2.5 million from investors including C² Ventures.
- Community. I founded the Traders Guild community and wrote Liquid Labor, my research on robotics, data centers and energy, and on how towns can share in the gains from new industry. Liquid Build is my development and construction company.
- Research. I publish on the compute buildout behind these campuses: When Software Extends GPU Life and Following the Compute Money, both on SSRN. Earlier, at Florida International University’s Discovery Lab, I worked on robotics and RFID systems and co-authored papers on telemedicine and sensor networks.
Questions people ask
05 / In briefWho is Uwe Jens Cerron?
Uwe Jens Cerron is the founder of Liquid Build and an owner and operator of rental housing in Rapides Parish, Louisiana. He ran Selenis Construction until 2021, co-founded the financial technology companies Friktion and Convergence RFQ, wrote Liquid Labor, and studied computer science at Stanford.
What housing does he own in Louisiana?
A 10-unit park in Ball and a recovery home in Alexandria leased to Oxford House, both in Rapides Parish and about 20 minutes from Applied Digital’s Delta Forge campus in Boyce.
What does he offer companies building in Louisiana?
Four things: a path for local residents into the new jobs, help with the community side of a project, delivery of employer-funded benefits such as rent credits through the lease, and housing for workers 15 to 20 minutes from the site.
Which Louisiana markets does this cover?
Three. Central Louisiana, where Applied Digital’s Delta Forge in Boyce brings 1,000+ construction workers and 200 permanent jobs. Richland Parish in northeast Louisiana, where Meta’s Hyperion data center expects about 5,000 workers at peak. And Vermilion Parish, where SpaceX’s Starbase Louisiana near Pecan Island brings 3,000 direct jobs.
How do I get in touch?
Email uwe@liquid-build.com or connect on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/uwecerron.
Twenty minutes of your time
06 / ContactTell me how many people you expect to hire and house, and when. I will come back with how my residents can help fill those jobs and what homes I can have ready.
I am an independent developer and am not affiliated with or endorsed by Applied Digital, SpaceX, Hut 8 or the State of Louisiana.