The wealthy giants of Silicon Valley have invested more than 800 million dollars in buying land in California to build a new city, reveals the New York Times. For almost a decade, the technological elite have dreamed of building the cities of the future in the United States, but criticism of their location has already begun.
For five years, a mysterious company, Flannery Associates, has been acquiring land in Northern California. More than 222 square kilometers, more than twice the size of Paris, not far from San Francisco.
No one knew why or for whom. Now the veil has been lifted: this entity has been created by tech billionaires who dream of establishing a utopian city there, the New York Times discovered in an investigation published Saturday, August 26.
Silicon Valley tech moguls announced Thursday their intentions to build a new city in Northern California. Billionaire investors have spent more than $900 million to date to acquire more than 50,000 acres of land in Solano County. However, US and local authorities have expressed concern over what one congressman calls a “vision” rather than a “plan.”
Through a company called California Foreverwhich unveiled its official website on Thursday, tech billionaires are blueprinting for a dream city in Northern California.
On its website, California Forever claims to have acquired more than 80 square miles of land through its subsidiary Flannery Associates in Solano County, located between Sacramento, the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, San Francisco, and the Napa Valley. , in Northern California.
Located at the crossroads of major Northern California cities, Solano County is touted by the company as the perfect place to build your dream city from scratch.
Although the website did not disclose how much money has been invested in the project, the New York Times on Tuesday reported investments of more than $900 million in land purchases alone in the past five years.
Founded in 2017 by former Goldman Sachs trader Jan Sramek, California Forever is backed by Silicon Valley heavyweights Laurene Powell Jobs, Marc Andreessen, Michael Moritz and John Doerr, among others.
A project surrounded by secrecy
As of Thursday, very little was known about California Forever and Flannery Associates. The parent company and its subsidiary have maintained extreme discretion about their operations in Northern California.
Although Flannery managed to keep most of its activities secret, local authorities were alerted as the company began acquiring large tracts of land, and at prices often well above market, until it became the largest landowner in Solano County. .
The identity of the company and its billionaire investors only came to light following an investigation led by US federal authorities, who raised national security concerns after Flannery purchased parcels of land in the surrounding area. from the important Travis Air Force Base, located in Fairfield, seat of Solano County.
According to the Wall Street journalIn late 2022, the Air Force Office of Foreign Investment Risk Review launched an investigation into Flannery’s purchases of some 52,000 acres in Solano County, including around Travis.
Fears that Flannery was representing foreign, especially Chinese, interests were soon allayed by appearing as company sponsors to Silicon Valley tech titans, unveiling their project to build a dream city.
A dream city?
Citing European cities as inspiration, Flannery said his goal is to build livable communities and walkable neighborhoods, while providing “good-paying local jobs” for residents.
Flannery also revealed his plans to build tens of thousands of homes, a solar farm, parks and other open space in the eastern part of the county.
Despite the company’s ambitious plans, local authorities have raised concerns about the feasibility of the project.
Pointing to Solano County’s dry weather conditions, Fairfield Mayor Catherine Moy said in an interview with Abc7news that the plans proposed by Flannery are unrealistic.
“It’s an area known for its drought. It doesn’t make any sense. There’s no public transportation. It doesn’t have fresh water. There is some water, but not enough for tens of thousands of homes,” Moy said.
Moy also expressed concern about road infrastructure.
“The roads are already dangerous. Highway 12 is the road that runs through the area and runs all the way to Highway 99 and Highway 5. It’s called Blood Alley. It’s called Blood Alley for a reason,” Moy said. “There’s no way tens of thousands of homes can be sustained out there.”
Although Flannery noted the need to improve local infrastructure on his website, he did not provide details on how this could be achieved. Other elected officials have joined Moy in expressing her concern.
Following a meeting with representatives of Flannery on Tuesday, US Representative Mike Thompson declared: “They don’t have a plan, they have a vision, an idea,” the San Francisco reported. Chronicle.
“To say it’s going to be a very, very long road is probably an understatement,” he added.
For his part, Congressman John Garamendi described the method used by the company to acquire the land as “mafia tactics,” according to the Chronicle.
technological follies
But this won’t be the first time Silicon Valley moguls have dreamed of pioneering cities without realizing them.
In 2013, Google co-founder and former CEO Larry Page floated the idea of creating a high-tech utopia with minimal regulation.
California start-up incubator Y Combinator created a research lab in 2016 to study how to build better cities.
Paypal co-founder Peter Thiel launched a floating city pilot project in French Polynesia in 2018, and the New York Times reported that same year that Facebook was negotiating with the city of San Francisco for permits to build a city on the outskirts of Silicon Valley.
None of these proposals has come to fruition to date.
In the end, it doesn’t even matter that these cities are built,” says Elisabetta Ferrari, professor of sociology at the University of Glasgow, who specializes in digital media. For entrepreneurs and investors, rather, “the (most) important thing is that people talk of it.
“They want to show that they are not just rich, they are also people with vision and entrepreneurs who are doing something for the people,” he said.
housing workers
In an article published in April On Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s latest projects in Texas, including the construction of a city called Snailbrook to house employees, The Guardian compared cities built by corporations to 19th-century American industrial cities.
Offering only basic accommodation and few amenities, these cities “often looked more like prison camps than ideal cities,” noted The Guardian, noting that businesses “want to minimize overhead and get the most out of their citizens.” captives”.
Flannery aims to provide affordable housing near San Francisco, where many employers have been forced to raise wages to attract or retain workers faced with skyrocketing rents in the city.
The number of technology moguls proposing to build towns and cities in recent years “has a lot to do with the idea of ’techno-solutionism’. A concept that can be summed up as ‘there is an app for that'”, explains Ferrari, who adds that it is about “the idea that technology provides the best way to approach a problem”.
These entrepreneurs and investors “present themselves as the best to deal with [el problema]when, they say, political power cannot deal effectively with the challenges of modern urban development,” he said.
the original text
#Dream #city #tech #titans #Northern #California #raises #concerns