Perhaps I need to live in Silicon Valley, then, to gain an understanding of why your idea is not completely batty (or perhaps why the region itself is not as barking mad as it appears to an outsider).

While I have no scientific evidence to back this up, you may also have noticed that certain places have their own collective consciousness, where the local social conformity creates standing waves of recurring behavior. People in Chicago go to Portillo's, even though it's pretty much the same food as all the Vienna Beef independents in the city, only with higher prices and longer lines. I can't explain it, other than to say that people go there because people go there.

And just like you can't smell the peculiar odor of your own house until you've been away from it for a while, maybe you just don't notice the oddities of a town until you live elsewhere.

Your suggestion might work. I think the real reason I don't like it is the idea that someone might invest. The very idea that someone might possibly throw a few million into it makes me angry. It's not your fault. It's just sour grapes.