> The group only recently started interacting with local officials and residents, according to media reports, and had sued landowners who sold their land over what it deemed an “illegal price-fixing conspiracy”.<p>> “To date, our company has been quiet about our activities. This has, understandably, created interest, concern, and speculation. Now that we’re no longer limited by confidentiality, we are eager to begin a conversation about the future of Solano county,” the group writes.<p>> The group pledges a decades-long conversation with residents and officials for “a chance for a new community, good paying local jobs, solar farms, and open space”.<p>> The group has already sent out opinion polls to local residents to gauge their feelings on an initiative that could appear before county voters, according to SF Gate.<p>> California Forever said in a statement that the group had met with the county’s congressional and state legislative delegation this week and would soon meet with county officials and mayors.<p>So they secretively bought up a bunch of land and sued some folks, but want to “engage with the local community” (via polling and through the interface of elected officials) and want to start a conversation about how the locals can work for them?<p>If you want to join a community, you can just, like, go join it. This seems more like an invasion of aliens from Planet Rich. Look out, soon enough they’ll work out how to fully emulate human behavior.<p>Nice renders though, look almost vaguely solarpunk inspired.
The renderings did not help me visualise the real possibility.<p>For perspective on how big 55,000 acres is, 640 per square mile, is 86 square miles, enough land to hold the city limits of Choose 2 of 3: Paris, Barcelona, and San Francisco.<p>Paris city limits, 2.1 million residents, 41 square miles<p>Barcelona city limits, 1.6 million residents, 39 square miles<p>San Francisco city, 800k residents, 47 square miles
Reading the comments here and elsewhere about this project is so vindicating for me.<p>In cities, NIMBYs will say "why should we build anything here, just move away and build your dream city somewhere else". I knew that there was no way that "somewhere else" would welcome construction of a new city, because there's people living out in the boonies everywhere. Those people moved to the middle of nowhere because they want to be far away from others - they're the last people who'd support new construction nearby.<p>So here's a new city proposal, paid for by private money, that won't take away anything from anyone, and even people who live far from the area seem to oppose it, just because it changes things.<p>Where are people supposed to live? There are not enough homes in cities, not enough homes in suburbs, and rural areas don't want new construction either. So where are the new homes for a growing population supposed to go? Or do y'all just want to keep increasing the homeless population indefinitely?
The real challenge with this is keeping the type of people out who let SF devolve into the feverish nightmare politics it's currently running on.<p>Any progressive quality-focused community will, over time, be infiltrated by people who's only contribution is subvertering and sabotaging what has been built, usually in the name of egalitarianism or some other veil.
Honestly the description of this place sounds like what I’ve found Sweden to be, since moving here from Palo Alto last month.<p>I am walking distance from everything I need, I am 10 minutes from a huge park with a large body of water, I walk to work, and if I need to detach I can take a boat to a summer house that’s off the grid.
So far, stories about this are getting posted to HN on weekends, like news dumps. This time (for US people) it's posted in the wee hours of the morning at the start of a 3-day weekend.
I'm surprised at the investment in an area that's likely to undergo major environmental challenges but it will be fascinating to see how this turns out.
Superficially it looks like an American version of Neom.<p><a href="https://www.neom.com/en-us" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.neom.com/en-us</a>
I personally think this project is awesome. Everyone visits Europe, and asks why can’t we have beautiful walkable cities here, and the reason we can’t is because of regressive, land-use laws, poor car-centric legislation, and many shyster developers. This place is going to be so desirable that it will likely be more expensive to live there than San Francisco. What would really impress me is if they can work with public officials to create a rail line connecting this place to San Francisco. They would almost have to to keep trucks out of the city.
> <i>"To date, our company has been quiet about our activities. This has, understandably, created interest, concern, and speculation. Now that we’re no longer limited by confidentiality, we are eager to begin a conversation about the future of Solano county,” the group writes.</i><p>Or, in other words, now that we already own the land and can have the conversation on the terms we dictate.
One has to wonder if this is a plan for these “investors” to find a better way to keep affordable housing people on the other side of town vs their backyard. ie the current NIMBY fighting going on in Atherton with the forced affordable housing projects residents are griping about.<p>Most of the investors in the article are the ones pushing back against the affordable housing project in Atherton. Atherton is roughly five square miles so affordable housing in the middle of that has residents “worried” about what affordable housing brings to their oasis.<p>With this new town they’re proposing I can envision investors on one side, state mandated affordable housing on the opposite side, and city services, retail, etc., separating the two residential zones.
It takes 200 years for a city to organically grow into an interesting and vibrant place. Can this process be sped up? Perhaps. But then the city itself would be in constant development. Construction everywhere, loud trucks hauling materials. Vacant buildings getting torn down without apology. This is what building a new city at speed looks like. Total chaos. Not bad, but chaos. It doesn't look anything like the concept art of idyllic European streets with cafes and kids biking by themselves.
I see this, NEOM/Palm Islands, Eko Atlantic, Sidewalk Toronto and compare it to large urban projects from decades ago, like Brasília... is it even possible to design a city from the grounds up? To just straight up select some plot of land and build infrastructure and create a community that otherwise needed hundreds of years of organic development with existing cities?
This is a risky plan that would either fail woefully or see unprecedented success.<p>I’m not American, so my opinion hardly matters here, but I wish to see a new successful city built from scratch…I’ve always pondered about the extreme difficulty of building and keeping cities in shape, and I’ll be amazed if someone actually pulls it off.