Notes from the Hamptons

Reflecting on Elites, Civic Ambition, and the Problem of Place

Forgive me, for it is late. I have just flown from New York to Texas, and it is 2:04 am.

The Hamptons is where big money goes to LARP as small-town charm. Last weekend, I once again found myself in East Hampton, with its idyllic hedges and Loro Piana loafers on every sidewalk. Alex Soros was getting married up the road to some Democrat I couldn’t name; No Kings protests were ongoing.

Not an uncommon experience for me; I spend a good amount of time in East Hampton (they’re named, directionally, you see. East Hampton is the one furthest east. Except for Amagansett. And Montauk.) because my wife's family has a house there. On Main Street, hypercars and $30,000 watches are so common they feel like uniforms.

As artificially pleasant as it is, I have always disliked the place, or at least what it represents. Every time I return I wonder why the town feels so foreign. The answer, I think, is that this old hamlet has become a fishbowl for a mobile elite who love amenities but not Place. It’s a symptom of a larger civic hollowing. It is a monument to shameless decadence, with no shame for its wealth.

My unease isn’t from petty disdain, I am an avowed capitalist. No—wealth here feels entirely unmoored from obligation. Not in a socialist sense, but in the older, more modest sense that prosperity demands some quiet duty to society. Historically, great wealth came with a kind of constructive unease, a need to justify one's success by giving back with libraries, parks, and museums as quiet apologies for good fortune. The Hamptons are unsettling precisely because they celebrate a prosperity stripped of this shame, proudly disconnected from any sense of responsibility beyond the indulgence of wealth.

I was raised to leave things better than I found them. Moving outward from family to neighborhood to town, the pursuit of improvement moves in concentric circles. Critically, though, it does move outward. You have an obligation to others: to your family and community.

Today, wealth and whatever obligation it confers feels increasingly abstract and disconnected. The professional elite have replaced genuine civic connection with artificial consumer experiences. Cities like Aspen, Miami, or Austin become attractive precisely because they cater to the elite, not because they embody any deeper local attachment. As a result, elites move effortlessly between these interchangeable places, loyal only to their preferred amenities.

This is a dilemma for cities trying to compete. In the past, civic boosterism thrived precisely because elites were invested locally. Civic pride was a competitive strategy. Now, cities have become transient containers, dependent on a class whose allegiance shifts with trends.

A wealthy family member has been living in Anchorage for the summer and quickly wound up bored and frustrated simply because the amenities expected (luxury gyms, museums, designer stores) weren’t available. The dissatisfaction wasn’t ideological or intangible, it was straightforwardly practical. There was a need for perceived conveniences found easily in cities like New York City. For people like this, mostly the cosmopolitan elite, Place has become primarily a consumer experience. A city is attractive not because it holds personal or historical meaning, but because it offers certain desirable amenities.

Historically, the elites who invested heavily in their communities also did so for selfish reasons. Civic pride was often tied directly to prestige and competition between cities. Philanthropy wasn’t all charity; it was strategic business, advertising local superiority and attracting new talent and investment. Elites built visible institutions because those institutions reflected their own success back to them, simultaneously securing their social status and contributing to their city’s competitive position.

In the modern context, however, elites seem less attached not just because they're morally different, but because the incentives have changed. The nature of contemporary wealth generation, especially in tech or finance, creates distance from local impact. Unlike factory owners or industrialists of the past, today’s wealthiest rarely interact directly with the communities their wealth affects. They're separated by layers of abstraction. Screens, algorithms, distant corporate structures… Buffers from the tangible implications of their economic power.

The quiet shame and associated sense of duty that historically compelled elites toward local philanthropy seems utterly gone. The Medici family, for example, undertook massive civic projects partly because they worried about how God viewed the source of their wealth. Today’s elites seem unburdened by that anxiety, partly because the impact of their success is distant and less visible. Instead, their philanthropic efforts take the form of abstract social engineering or political projects.

Cities still compete to attract these elites. Urban development has shifted toward creating luxury neighborhoods and consumer amenities precisely because these are the raw inputs cosmopolitan elites demand. Austin certainly could not have sustained its massive growth in tech without the requisite fishbowls–gentrified neighborhoods with all of the necessary amenities. Places like the Hamptons, Miami, and Aspen succeed because they provide precisely the kinds of consumer goods like luxury shopping and great restaurants that draw the cosmopolitan class. But crucially, these elites aren't attached to, say, Aspen itself; they're attached to what it offers. Should Aspen decline, they’ll readily shift their allegiance to Vail, or Beaver Creek, or Jackson. Civic identity, history, and local culture become secondary to consumer convenience.

What’s needed is a reconsideration of incentives that might tie contemporary elites back to Place. The abstract roots elites now have, like digital communities and global social circles, aren’t necessarily bad, but they don’t provide cities with the stable civic engagement needed to compete long-term. Historically, the richest citizens invested locally because doing so secured their own prestige and legacy. Could cities today find new ways to align elite self-interest with local stewardship? Perhaps career incentives, tax structures, or status symbols be recalibrated to reward civic ambition–something that should be its own reward.

America, historically, seemed to thrive most when cities competed fiercely against each other, each driven by their elite’s local pride and ambition. Civic boosterism was about ensuring ongoing competitiveness. Talent, capital, industry. The most vibrant cities understood this implicitly.

Perhaps America’s best future lies in an elite compelled to build rather than merely consume.