Glad to hear you like the concept! I've gone through several thorough outlines of the story, and though the broad strokes have remained roughly the same, a lot of the specifics have only come together recently. Once I have a current draft of chapter 1 finished, I'll post it in here. Any feedback concerning the ramifications of building an empty city and then giving it away for free will be welcome. It's gonna be fun.
It's always good to read someone's thoughts on something that exists mostly in your own head and have it validated that all your brainstorming efforts weren't entirely the result of a psychotic episode. You touch on many of the main concerns and controversies that are going to be the subject of exactly what happens after the aforementioned ribbon-cutting.
As mentioned in the synopsis, the book looks at this event primarily through the eyes of two main characters, one of whom is an idealist who always thinks the best of humanity, the other of whom is a skeptic and much more realistic/pragmatic. There will also be small snippets peppered throughout the book of five different families from various backgrounds, each of whom eventually have some connection to the events in the city, so we see the people on the ground as well as the men behind the curtain to which attention ought not to be paid.
Structurally, the first half-to-two-thirds of the book will deal with the construction of the city and the anticipation to its doors opening, and the final third will be the fallout/aftermath/consequences of that opening. I'm hoping, by this structure, to have a chance to approach every side of this possibility that's possible without telling too many life stories at once. Hopefully that structure will permit the story to address all of the various predictions/naysaying that will inevitably result in the reader's mind once the concept of the book becomes clear.