Check out Rajneeshpuram [0], built by the Rajneeshees in Oregon. There's a Netflix documentary about it now, called "Wild, Wild Country". Definitely worth checking out.

Besides all the controversy surrounding it, it was actually a pretty interesting example of "buying land and building a city from scratch".

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajneeshpuram [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Wild_Country