Silicon Valley Billionaires Reveal First Renderings for Planned City in California (sfchronicle.com) 132
"Silicon Valley billionaires behind a secretive $800 million land-buying spree in Northern California have finally released some details about their plans for a new green city," reports the Associated Press, "but they still must win over skeptical voters and local leaders."
After years of ducking scrutiny, Jan Sramek, the former Goldman Sachs trader spearheading the effort, launched a website Thursday about "California Forever." The site billed the project as "a chance for a new community, good paying local jobs, solar farms, and open space" in Solano, a rural county between San Francisco and Sacramento that is now home to 450,000 people. He also began meeting with key politicians representing the area who have been trying unsuccessfully for years to find out who was behind the mysterious Flannery Associates LLC as it bought up huge swaths of land, making it the largest single landholder in the county...
[T]o build anything resembling a city on what is now farmland, the group must first convince Solano County voters to approve a ballot initiative to allow for urban uses on that land, a protection that has been in place since 1984. Local and federal officials still have questions about the group's intentions... California is in dire need of more housing, especially affordable homes for teachers, firefighters, service and hospitality workers. But cities and counties can't figure out where to build as established neighborhoods argue against new homes that they say would congest their roads and spoil their quiet way of life.
In many ways, Solano County is ideal for development. It is 60 miles northeast of San Francisco and 35 miles southwest of California's capital city of Sacramento. Solano County homes are among the most affordable in the San Francisco Bay Area, with a median sales price of $600,000 last month. But Princess Washington, mayor pro tempore of Suisun City, said residents deliberately decided to protect open space and keep the area around Travis Air Force Base free of encroachment given its significance. She's suspicious that the group's real purpose is "to create a city for the elite" under the guise of more housing.
The web site for "California Forever" acknowledges they've purchased 50,000 acres — about 78 squares miles — "strategically located" in Northern California's Solano County with access to water and low fire risk.
Speculative illustrations on the site "evoke a cityscape with a dreamy white stucco and red rooftop Mediterranean vibe that might be found in a Greek or Italian village," writes the San Francisco Chronicle. There are hillside neighborhoods stepping down to what must be the banks of the Sacramento River, kayakers tooling through lily pads and anglers fishing from the riverbank at sunrise... The website also names an investor who has not been named previously — venture capitalist John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins, an early investor in Google, Slack and other companies...
While California Forever may have billions to invest in the project, it will face staunch opposition from some ranchers who argue that the city would disrupt the economy of a county that is 62% farmland.
The San Francisco Chronicle's urban design critic writes "OK, this is something new — an elevator pitch for a whole new city..." But the website launched Thursday by California Forever offers no real details, such as the projected population or precise location. Instead, there are renderings of cuddly townscapes and soothing talk of building "a remarkable place for Solano residents." Oh, and an earnest promise to "begin the phase of our work that matters most: our conversation with you." Let the eye-rolling commence. It's impossible to critique the vision of the investors, because what was unfurled is so innocuous as to be an insult...
The website also refers to how this will be a center of "economic opportunity" and "new employers." Great! But only two of the 12 renderings show people at work, including one where three men install solar panels while the sun sets in the west. Let's hope they're being paid overtime... The Bay Area needs housing and jobs. It also needs honest approaches to making this happen. Let's hope when California Forever 2.0 launches, there is less fluff and more facts.
[T]o build anything resembling a city on what is now farmland, the group must first convince Solano County voters to approve a ballot initiative to allow for urban uses on that land, a protection that has been in place since 1984. Local and federal officials still have questions about the group's intentions... California is in dire need of more housing, especially affordable homes for teachers, firefighters, service and hospitality workers. But cities and counties can't figure out where to build as established neighborhoods argue against new homes that they say would congest their roads and spoil their quiet way of life.
In many ways, Solano County is ideal for development. It is 60 miles northeast of San Francisco and 35 miles southwest of California's capital city of Sacramento. Solano County homes are among the most affordable in the San Francisco Bay Area, with a median sales price of $600,000 last month. But Princess Washington, mayor pro tempore of Suisun City, said residents deliberately decided to protect open space and keep the area around Travis Air Force Base free of encroachment given its significance. She's suspicious that the group's real purpose is "to create a city for the elite" under the guise of more housing.
The web site for "California Forever" acknowledges they've purchased 50,000 acres — about 78 squares miles — "strategically located" in Northern California's Solano County with access to water and low fire risk.
Speculative illustrations on the site "evoke a cityscape with a dreamy white stucco and red rooftop Mediterranean vibe that might be found in a Greek or Italian village," writes the San Francisco Chronicle. There are hillside neighborhoods stepping down to what must be the banks of the Sacramento River, kayakers tooling through lily pads and anglers fishing from the riverbank at sunrise... The website also names an investor who has not been named previously — venture capitalist John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins, an early investor in Google, Slack and other companies...
While California Forever may have billions to invest in the project, it will face staunch opposition from some ranchers who argue that the city would disrupt the economy of a county that is 62% farmland.
The San Francisco Chronicle's urban design critic writes "OK, this is something new — an elevator pitch for a whole new city..." But the website launched Thursday by California Forever offers no real details, such as the projected population or precise location. Instead, there are renderings of cuddly townscapes and soothing talk of building "a remarkable place for Solano residents." Oh, and an earnest promise to "begin the phase of our work that matters most: our conversation with you." Let the eye-rolling commence. It's impossible to critique the vision of the investors, because what was unfurled is so innocuous as to be an insult...
The website also refers to how this will be a center of "economic opportunity" and "new employers." Great! But only two of the 12 renderings show people at work, including one where three men install solar panels while the sun sets in the west. Let's hope they're being paid overtime... The Bay Area needs housing and jobs. It also needs honest approaches to making this happen. Let's hope when California Forever 2.0 launches, there is less fluff and more facts.
Ok Now I'm worried (Score:2)
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There must have been some interesting bribes involved, because our politicians got really wet for that one.
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There is indeed a whole book about it, and if you're a Google skeptic, you'll enjoy it (if you're a Google True Believer, you should read it): https://bookshop.org/p/books/s... [bookshop.org]
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They bailed and skipped town when the financial winds changed.
From what I've read it was not directly a financial thing - it was Canadians looking at this "Google controlled smart community" project and saying to each other "you know what? 24/7/365 IRL surveillance headed to Google's datacenters and being completely beholden to Google rather than an elected government isn't really how we want a Canadian community to run. Goodbye, please".
Billionaire dreams? (Score:4, Insightful)
What do billionaires dream of? Permanently enslaved employees that can't leave and can't remote work?
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In a similar spirit, I give you : Neom, especially "The Line"
Its a real project... https://www.neom.com/en-us/reg... [neom.com]
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Aahahahaha (Score:2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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I doubt that all the $$$ in SA would be enough to build Neom. Neom as a concept is basically a megacity wit
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Will it be stocked with an ample supply of attractive, available females?
Look who is designing it. It sounds like it will be stocked with attractive, available females.
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What billionaires dream of is a city where they can feel completely safe. Policed by them. No dirty plebs around. Their own place where they can be the law.
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So if I have a problem it's my problem (Score:2)
Ask any user of Twitter how that's working out. Excuse me, X.
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We will finally find out who will mow the lawns in Galt's Gulch.
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They dream of European style cities, apparently.
As picturesque as they are, they aren't ideal for modern living. Terrace houses suck, and they don't have enough mixed zoning. They need to be designed to be environmentally sustainable from the very start too.
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What do billionaires dream of? Permanently enslaved employees that can't leave and can't remote work?
Pretty much.
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What do billionaires dream of? Permanently enslaved employees that can't leave and can't remote work?
Have you played the game BioShock?
Re:Billionaire dreams? (Score:5, Insightful)
A hierarchical society with them on top. Billionaires are anti-democratic and are the enemy of the people.
Privilege is anathema to democracy, but it has always been part of it from the very beginning, and probably will be for the foreseeable future.
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Sure, now. (Score:3)
Speculative illustrations on the site "evoke a cityscape with a dreamy white stucco and red rooftop Mediterranean vibe that might be found in a Greek or Italian village," writes the San Francisco Chronicle.
There are hillside neighborhoods stepping down to what must be the banks of the Sacramento River, kayakers tooling through lily pads and anglers fishing from the riverbank at sunrise...
I understand Raccoon City was once very nice too. :-)
A: Who cares? (Score:2)
B: Fuck em.
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I'm from the UK, I have never voted for any of your twats!
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Then Califucknia is of no concern, is it?
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Yeah, because voting for the other side of The Party would have changed as much as it always did.
Seriously, the dog-and-pony show you call elections are mostly entertainment for the masses, they don't have any real impact on your life.
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Nobody said shit about voting for a party. We used to have Federalists and Whigs. Republicunts and Demofucks can go away also. We are still a self armed country for a reason.
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You're gonna bring assault rifles to a drone fight?
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Huh? I would use a radio signal jammer. Assault rifles are for use on the pilots.
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You have a rifle with a mighty long range, I have to admit, if it can reach the pilot of a drone that can fly (and fly autonomously, so jam it all you like) for a couple 100 miles.
Please don't mistake what you see in the Ukraine war as the drone that the US government would use to squelch you being uppity.
I've no doubt the plan looks spiffy (Score:3)
But, having had a couple decades now of observing how these ultra-rich techies think - I have no doubt that actually living in this proposed city would quickly get annoying and miserable. And you'll be stuck (or have to walk away, taking a huge loss) because everyone will be aware of what a crapfest the city has quickly devolved into.
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We need people who are thinking seven generations ahead. Tech executives struggle to think seven fiscal quarters ahead.
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Quite, and they're rich purely by being in the right place at the right time, IPO wise. Not by being particularly clever.
Imagine a whole generation of people rich beyond the dreams of avarice, PURELY BY ACCIDENT OR LUCK.
From the can't make stuff up pile I reckon.
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Got a cite for that?
Gross. Awful. (Score:3, Interesting)
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They're not imposing this on anybody.
People have different preferences - wild, eh?
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A billion is a (Score:5, Insightful)
And it requires REAL money. Not inflated paper equity in some overvalued Silicon Valley company. Builders won’t take crypto. Real honest-to-god hard dollars. And if theyre even slightly wrong on their judgement of societal need, geography or timing, it’s a ticket on the fast train to a trillion dollar loss. And, again, a REAL loss, not a paper loss.
There’s a reason why most cities grow organically. The risks of deliberately building a large city from scratch make a typical Silicon Valley start up look conservative. IMO it’s better to leave that sort of utopian dreaming to the sheiks in the Middle East. Or in China where they can build entire cities from building materials that you can poke your finger through.
I got a better idea. There are plenty of spots where infrastructure is needed and there is obvious demand. That would be in the areas close to where the commerce and companies are in Silicon Valley. Oh, right, the NIMBYs don’t want any high-density housing cluttering up the views or lowering their obscenely inflated property. Meh, as long as they spend their OWN money on this, I’m totally for it. But I’m sure they want tax dollars for most of it and, excuse me, but f&*k them, no taxpayer should foot this bill.
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Drop in the bucket when it comes to city-level construction.
Yep, pretty much. The whole thing is either fundamentally naive or some get-richer-quick scheme.
Billionaire toy ant farm (Score:2)
I can see it as a legitimate pet project of billionaires in that it is a bit pie-in-sky, but they want to play real-life Sims. It is probably a bad investment, but it's really a toy to them.
Housing is generally in big demand in CA such that they will find buyers/renters, but it could still take a long time to pay for the project. If it breaks roughly even in a few decades, they'll probably be satisfied.
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Care to share your "math" on how you arrived at one trillion? How many homes are we talking about? I calculate $400k needed per home, and that's assuming each1 mile of road, with 200 single family homes each with 50ft frontage (and btw, we know there'll be many condos/townhomes not single family homes). $250k per home + $150k in infrastructure (road, sewer, electricity, and water lines costs no more than $20 million per mile even if you're being ripped off by the construction company). That includes the co
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https://www.capitalfrontiers.c... [capitalfrontiers.com]
Here’s a link, and honestly those numbers still seem starry-eyed to me. Yeah, you can get a house built for 250k nowadays - if the stars align properly, and you
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What do you think they didn't figure out the numbers? It doesn't look like they are relying on a small group of people making claims. It doesn't appear to be like Theranos style investor bamboozling, and it isn't a government,. They'll work out the logistics, this isn't some local government which has to fight their contractors to make them do stuff. I'm pretty sure their biggest barrier is local opposition, not implementation cost/issues. If you look at the list of their partners and employees you'll see c
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It's 250k for the developer building thousands of houses. You think they're paying the same as what it would cost an individual?
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I did see the $400k number on google too (actually $439k), which is why I said $250k .. if it costs $450k to build .. the actual build cost is probably $250k if you are building 100,000 of them.
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Yes, Home Depot will give a nice discount on 2x4s if you buy enough to build 100,000 houses.
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Drop in the bucket when it comes to city-level construction. It’s not just the buildings. You need roads, power, water and sewer, etc. etc.. And none of that stuff is cheap. Building an entire new city is probably around a cool trillion nowadays.
And it requires REAL money. Not inflated paper equity in some overvalued Silicon Valley company. Builders won’t take crypto. Real honest-to-god hard dollars. And if theyre even slightly wrong on their judgement of societal need, geography or timing, it’s a ticket on the fast train to a trillion dollar loss. And, again, a REAL loss, not a paper loss.
There’s a reason why most cities grow organically. The risks of deliberately building a large city from scratch make a typical Silicon Valley start up look conservative. IMO it’s better to leave that sort of utopian dreaming to the sheiks in the Middle East. Or in China where they can build entire cities from building materials that you can poke your finger through.
I got a better idea. There are plenty of spots where infrastructure is needed and there is obvious demand. That would be in the areas close to where the commerce and companies are in Silicon Valley. Oh, right, the NIMBYs don’t want any high-density housing cluttering up the views or lowering their obscenely inflated property. Meh, as long as they spend their OWN money on this, I’m totally for it. But I’m sure they want tax dollars for most of it and, excuse me, but f&*k them, no taxpayer should foot this bill.
This, Naypyidaw, the Burmese dictators vanity project cost an estimated $4-5 Billion to build with the incredibly low cost of labour in one of the worlds poorest countries.
A cool trillion would be cheap for a city built to western standards using western labour.
Hopefully it works (Score:3)
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Can you name one that actually worked out?
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They all were planned (more or less) by their settlers and a city committee that wanted a functional city.
I don't know a single town that a company or corporation planned to cater to its needs. The main reason why such a thing never succeeded is that nobody who actually should then live there has those goals, while the corporation doesn't give a fuck about the goals of the people living there. People are willing to put up with this (to a degree) as the necessary evil for earning money, but they will not put
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They all were planned (more or less) by their settlers and a city committee that wanted a functional city.
I don't know a single town that a company or corporation planned to cater to its needs. .
As stated above, Irvine.
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They all were planned (more or less) by their settlers and a city committee that wanted a functional city.
Are you saying this group doesn't want a functioning city or that they don't want to live there?
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Can you name one that actually worked out?
Brasilia.
Not that I think a billionaire-city is a good idea, mind you.
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What corporation designed that one?
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So it works when people who plan it are sane or people who have to suffer from it are insane, got it.
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"Hopefully it will reduce the cost of housing in the area." This is what could help people be able to buy their own flat or a house finally. Move out the billionaires - prices of housing drop. Still, what is worrisome is they will absolutely make a place for themselves that is highly controlled and safe for them; it sounds quite dystopian. On the other hand, it would be more fun to live in a city without them. ;)
Land "purchase"? (Score:2)
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If I read this correctly (Score:2)
They conspired to violate/evade existing law and MAYBE ask for forgiveness later? Or "just" get away with it....
Corruption in the legal halls begins in the halls of our moguls... And our moguls have been getting away with this for FAR too long. Why? Well, the "innocents" of course... Those hard working, industrious wage earners who "don't make the decisions" who would be thrown out of work by a corporate death sentence (I was only following orders) and prison time for the executives.
What WAS that phrase
I for one welcome Planned city (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't like the current way cities are developed. Everything is centered around roads and roads and roads.
I can't walk 20m from my house and not be in danger of being run over. I go for a walk and I have to watch for cars entering and exiting driving, always going unsafe speeds at every corner and blinding turning left and right. For every hour or so of walking, I expect at least 1-2 incidents where there I could have been injured had things played slightly differently.
All of a sudden in the last 3-4 years, a large number of the cars have just doubled in size. They make more noise, they block the view of roads more and of course, they will turn same speeds to deadly speeds.
And because of roads and parking lots, everything is at least twice the distance than it should be. And, my city is one of the cities from the 50s which has a "high" walkability score. Some of the newer cities have nowhere you can walk to and even more dangerous.
I never talk to my neighbors. All I see is them going to and from their car in the driveway. They drive off to whatever and that is the extent of living in the same block.
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Even a low-grade war between neighbours can make you miserable. I used to have a Type-A asshole living behind me and despite the fact we almost never interacted, he still managed to make life unpleasant right up until the day he moved.
I just want to have everyone leave me alone. I'll choose my friends, I'm fine being pleasant but distant with my neighbours with whom my only real escape is if one of us moves.
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There's a pretty hilarious story about a dispute between Peter Nygard and some other rich asshole on an island in the Bahamas. There are better more reputable sources but daily mail summarizes the fun parts without getting into the shady stuff Nygard was up to:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ne... [dailymail.co.uk]
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I completely agree with you, and the linked website shows some walkable streets and public spaces you'd want to see.
But I wouldn't be surprised when in reality this turns into a typical sprawling nightmare the moment people realize they wouldn't have space to park their 3 giant SUVs in front of those cute little houses.
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A lot of the problems need fixes that people just won't accept.
For example, in Tokyo you need to prove you have an off-road parking space before you can buy a car. In the UK we have endless rows of crappy terrace houses with no driveways or garages, or garages too small to park a modern car in, so everyone parks on the road.
Japan also has much lower speed limits. Residential areas are usually 30 kph or even 20 kph. That's about 20 mph or 15 mph. In the UK we have some places being made 20 mph zones, and the
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I don't know if you're doing this intentionally or just didn't occur to you.
But, why are you assuming car ownership? Most people would be happy not having mandatory car ownership thrust on them.
Driving is a major stressor for me. Just from the numbers, everyday 100 people in the roads and over 1000 are seriously injured in the US. More than that, even driving 10 miles, you'll come across a close call once and so you have to be at full attention all the time about someone might do or might not do. It is exh
It may not go ahead, though. (Score:2)
Reason: occasional rumors that money from one or more of the "Big Five" banks of China may be helping funding this project. The planned community is too close to Travis AFB, a strategically important air base for military cargo transport on the US West Coast.
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I saw The Island, this'll be fun. (Score:2)
Raise your family there (Score:2)
Where do we put the hookers and blow?
Will it have blow?
Review drug laws.
Open bar.
--"Private Club" but open bar to members.
Watch perks for non-clubbers
--High perceived value/low cost badges?
--Stickers popular now for grownups?
Blow?
Houses small enough to preclude office space.
--In circle around assigned office.
--Nice common area, must be common.
---Pool for the kids?
Soylent supermarket
--Possiblility for branding here.
--Greens too expensive.
--Allow oats and quinoa?
Youth cl
Mutant flowers, run! (Score:2)
In that sketch of canoeing, the flowers are bigger than the canoe. Fukushima radiation drift? Or, drunk AI again.
It will be an interesting experiment (Score:2)
Actually creating a good planned city is hard, really hard
I'm hopeful that useful things will be learned but also very skeptical
Probably forgot to install fiber (Score:2)
Will it have a monorail? (Score:2)
Not the first time (Score:2)
HOAs (Score:2)
Guaranteed it will have an HOA, and the dues will be more than current rents.
It worked in Guatamala (Score:2)
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That is a very compelling video.
We really don't need more homes, towns, etc. (Score:2)
America has more unoccupied homes than it has homeless people. Not families, people.
Then you can add in the massive unoccupied office space, there was nearly a billion square feet available at the start of this year. It is difficult to repurpose that efficiently for living space, but a) not impossible and b) even inefficiently that's a shitload of square footage. Even if you only populate every other floor and use the others for infrastructure and storage, you're looking at enough room for over half a milli
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America has more unoccupied homes than it has homeless people. Not families, people.
Sadly geography matters and I would wager a hefty amount of money that most of those homes are not in California given the incredibly high property values here.
The office building issue is a whole other thing of course that will hopefully at some point yield homes after a significant investment of time and money
Anyone that won't tell you the details... (Score:2)
More housing for California = awesome (Score:2)
Obviously there's a lot more for us to know about this but I'm going to buck all the pointless billionaire hating here and say that so far I think this is great. California desperately needs a shit ton more housing to pull itself out of its homelessness problems and to make housing more in reach for the middle class and this should provide quite a bit of housing. I know the region they want to build in as well and it's not a bad location for this type of thing being right in-between two major population cen
Billionare's Already Designed Too Many CA Cities (Score:2)
Fort Ord? (Score:2)
Remember that place? Prime real estate (buildings, parade fields and all; never mind the duds on the artillery and mortar ranges) ... right outside Monterey and Seaside? I've seen people using the roads and houses for some TV shows; place is abandoned but not in bad shape apparently. No idea what others are actually doing with it, but it would probably be one hell of a good deal!
https://www.abc10.com/article/... [abc10.com]
How many things could go wrong? (Score:2)
Let's see, how much are the buyers prepared to spend for roads to connect to the Interstates? Have they begun to buy the property rights to build or enlarge existing roads?
And since it's farmland, that means more expensive food, since this won't be producing food.
Oh, and will there be low income housing for all the support people?
And power supplies....
everyone hates silicon valley (Score:2)
Everyone hates silicon valley. Everyone hates billionaires (um, unless you want funding). The only way this thing will ever get built is if the billionaires prevail in court.
The irony is that "environmentalist" Democrats will support the billionaires in their mass destruction of open space, no doubt by passing new cripplings of CEQA.
the real plan (Score:2)
Maybe this whole thing is just a philanthropic effort to provide housing and safe injection sites for the bay area unhoused.
They can call it NEOM... oh wait (Score:2)
Saudi Arabia will sue them for stupidity infringement
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Re:Earthquake Bait (Score:5, Interesting)
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Shhhh, how are they gonna learn if you keep prompting?
Besides, it's way more fun that way, too.
Re: Earthquake Bait (Score:2)
If they hire competent civil engineers and listen (Score:3)
Why worry about earthquakes when most of the land is in a FEMA flood zone, that's been underwaterbfor days at least once in the last two decades, and that's before any impacts from sea level rise, since most of the land is only a few feet above MSL...
As kids my friends and I go to see some literal swampland get developed. It all began with massive drainage infrastructure. 35 years later the buildings on that site are still dry.
If they hire competent civil engineers and listen to them there won't be a problem.
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Oh please, the anti-woke bullshit has lost all its appeal among Republicans according to recent polling. Please try to keep up.
Maybe you could go for a positive message, say: Preserve America For the White Folk.
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Why would they choose somewhere with water, comfortable year-round temperatures, close to the businesses they own and people they employ? Why not go live in a desert a thousand miles away because it's cheaper? Because they're billionaires.