All plans to create a utopia by building always overlook the impact of the people who will actually live there. Urban renewal of a former slum only works by pricing out the previous dwellers.
There aren’t many people already living on this land, so it’s not exactly a former slum.
True, but I was using urban renewal as just one example of trying to create utopia by building it. My point which I should have been clearer about is that ultimately cities are as good or as bad as their inhabitants make them.
I’m going to stick with my opinion that is going to be tough land to develop. Abundant vernal pools will invoke wetland and endangered species regulations. Major highway upgrades needed on 12 all the way from Fairfield to Rio Vista, and probably 113 north to Davis.
It’s all clay soil with a shallow hardpan. Millions or orchard trees?? If the soil could support them, they’d already be there.
Water supply? Maybe pump from the Sacramento River, though I’d be surprised if the water rights were available.
It’s called California Forever and here are some plans:
First renderings show what tech billionaires are planning for their dream Bay Area city
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/flannery-renderings-solano-county-city-18341474.php
Fresh minted California start-up millionaires (and billionaires) can be pretty unrealistic when it comes to deciding where to invest their payout after their companies go public. They all grew up hearing about how people like Bob Hope got in on the real estate ground floor in formerly desolate places like Palm Springs or the San Fernando Valley. They are also hyper aware of the housing shortage in the Silicon Valley so when approached with a scheme like this, they are quick to open their checkbooks.
I don’t suppose there’s a map somewhere of the actual site? The news has mentioned Travis-adjacent, but the brochure seems to suggest more into the Montezuma Hills.
Map in this article. Note there are huge chunks the company doesn’t own:
Thanks! So there is some land adjacent to Travis, but it looks like the big picture is to make a major city out of Rio Vista, or maybe Birds Landing or Collinsville.
The have the energy supply, anyway, the own a few thousand wind turbines in the Montezuma Hills. And it does look like they’re avoiding the main vernal pool areas.
Did they actually buy the turbines or just the land they’re on?
As far as power goes, part of their plan is a large solar farm. I expect that will be the first thing they build, since it would provide a revenue stream as well as not requiring much other infrastructure such as water and sewer systems. It’s possible it’ll be the only part of this project ever built.
My guess would be that they don’t own the turbines, but they are certainly there as a potential energy source. On the other hand, I don’t think they’d be popular dispersed throughout a residential area.
The topo map shows that those hills average around 250’ high. I wonder if that’s enough to get a solar farm above the tule fog in winter.
Those renderings are sure diving into the aesthetics of a Lileks article, while also giving strong “You Can Live Forever In Paradise On Earth”-Watchtower magazine vibes.
I’m completely sure they’re not a cult and that stories of tech-bro sex dungeons are not about to break any day now…
Why do the worst people always turn back to the 50s?
Because if an American is one of those worst people, the 50s was probably the best era to be one of those.
Or at least the 1950s has been mythologized to be the best era for them / that. Much like the Old West is mythologized as the ideal era for the rugged individualist (read “psychopathic loner”).
Or perhaps Victorian England for a British person, perhaps? An American, so I don’t know.
Land next to a military base? I would have guessed pawn shops, strip clubs and car dealers charging 23% interest.
One hopes that the decision was made by tech wunderkinden idealistically to help unite mankind and womankind under a banner of solidarity and happiness, and not merely for reasons of crass profiteering. But in the very unlikely event the latter is true, those things might stay.
In SCal, land near March ARB Joint Base has sprouted warehouses. The area has turned into industrial park sprawl. My brain cells boggle that this part of SCal has so much “stuff” that all of these warehouses with loading docks truly need to be here.
Freeway traffic on I-215 is abominable. Warehouses mean more trucks, and the freeways are already beyond capcity. And the pavement surfaces are disintegrating. The infrastructure can barely accommodate today’s needs.
I used to dearly love California.
~VOW
Lots of stuff that gets off ships from China gets put on trucks bound for the rest of the USA. The best place for a warehouse to hold a nations’ worth of imported products is the one with cheap land near a freeway within a couple hours’ drive of the dock, and preferably even closer. The area around March certainly qualifies for that a lot better than many other areas of the greater LA / Orange / Riverside / SB county metroblob.
Me too. We’d need to turn back the clock about 50 years and prevent all subsequent migration from the rest of the USA and the rest of the world to fix it though. Just too many people for it to be anything but a degraded frustrating mess now.
A bit more information is released:
The development would start with nearly 20,000 homes for 50,000 residents. It could grow to 400,000 people — which is nearly the current population of Solano County — but only if the project creates at least 15,000 jobs that pay above average wages, the group’s backers say. Plans call for a medium-density downtown with rowhouses and apartment buildings, and jobs, schools, bars and restaurants and grocery stores all within walking distance.
[gets calculator. does math] One job for every 26+ residents?
Even if there’s a matching set of 15K jobs paying below average wages (and will that be enough to live in their new city?) that’s still only one per 13+ residents. I doubt the members of their glorious new tech city all intend to have that many children.