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Silicon Valley elites revealed as investors behind $800M Bay Area land grab
- onetokeoverthe 3y ago[dead]
- _8j50 3y agowoud this be like HN but a city? Can't say or do fun things that aren't "adding value" or engage in discourse with an unpopular view unless you get shadow-banned (they throttle so much, I can't have a discourse if more than 2-3 people reply to anything I post here lol). The goal is to add value, to protect value which means maintain appearances and orderliness and conformity so that the sensibilities of the elite are guarded and the majority of the desirables come and stay. Ugh, at least there will be a lot smart and kind people there? And a lot of niche cities like austin, portland, seattle and such are already very tribal like this? But too much like living in a billionaire's mansion for my taste. There could be a far worse group to start a city. I think this is a net benefit for CA, more housing and infra is always good and I am glad more people will find a place they belong at. My only problem with this would be if they plan on building a lot of short or single family housing. More tall multi family housing will improve the overlall situation.
- 1B05H1N 3y agoIsn't this the plot to a few dystopian novels? I feel for the families that were forced out.
- walterbell 3y agoEarlier discussion, 150+ comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37266398 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37266398
- danans 3y agoThey had better build some pretty fantastic water catchment systems.
- Qwertious 3y agoResidential water usage makes up ~10% of water use in California. The vast majority of water waste is commercial, e.g. flood irrigation. While I'd love to see efficient water usage residentially (e.g. fewer water-wasteful lawns), they're just not the bulk of the problem.
- TomK32 3y agoOP was mentioning water catchment, it's about preserving water from rainfall so it doesn't go straight into roads, gullies, rivers and oceans. It's not only about preserving water but also preventing problems downstream like flooding. SF already offers rebates on installing rainwater barrels and cisterns https://sfpuc.org/learning/how-you-can-help/rain-barrel-and-cistern-rebate https://sfpuc.org/learning/how-you-can-help/rain-barrel-and-... and there's a manual if you want to learn more https://sfpuc.org/sites/default/files/learning/RWH_Manual_Final-APR2018.pdf https://sfpuc.org/sites/default/files/learning/RWH_Manual_Fi... Those things can be scaled up https://franciscopark.org/francisco-parks-rainwater-catchment-system-in-the-news/ https://franciscopark.org/francisco-parks-rainwater-catchmen... But nothing beats Tokio's Underground Discharge Channel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Area_Outer_Underground_Discharge_Channel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Area_Outer_Underg...
- happytiger 3y agoIt’s been so hard to get rid of lawns in California because of HOAs. It’s often literally illegal to do anything else — even veggies.
- shanekandy 3y agohttps://archive.li/Rfop6 https://archive.li/Rfop6
- fiftyacorn 3y agoIt will be like that episode of the Simpsons "They Saved Lisa's Brain" - where the super-intelligent take over Springfield and its a disaster
- hyuuu 3y agoit's funny how the media immediately pointed fingers toward china when they didn't know who was the buyer
- yieldcrv 3y agomost people see “anonymous buyer” and think of their worst nightmare and they should seek therapy for why that is
- TomK32 3y agoScientology has done the same in Clearwater, FL. Show the same behaviour at the stock exchange and you will get fined by the SEC like Musk did.
- yieldcrv 3y agoWhat behavior are you talking about?
- TomK32 3y agoBuying up stocks through proxies without notifying the SEC soon enough.
- yieldcrv 3y agoah okay, yeah there are reporting requirements at certain % thresholds of ownership and $ values. in that industry to that regulator. ‘act according to the law’ and you’ll frequently find laws that benefit you, such as a lack of transparency in many other industries
- lostlogin 3y agoI don’t live in the US, but it seems to me that a group of billionaires trying to make their own city is actually worse than the China scenario. It’s somehow even more dystopian.
- idontwantthis 3y agoWhy build an entire city instead of improving an existing one? I imagine it’s because of pesky governments run by elected citizens who share common interests with their constituents. What unholy shenanigans will these billionaires force on their residents who will undoubtedly have no role in the government?
- yieldcrv 3y agoI like how you take the reason why every city exists ever and reappropriate that as controversial
- idontwantthis 3y agoI meant to be facetious. A government that a team of billionaires considers "pesky" is probably mostly doing its job to protect people from harm, even if it is inefficient.
- dijit 3y agoI can see both sides a lot here. It's maybe uncommon knowledge but maintaining a road (or rebuilding a road) costs more than building a new road. (which is part of why the US has so many roads in the first place incidentally). The same holds true of buildings, Europe (as an example) has a lot of legacy and replacing buildings takes a long time and is enormously expensive than if you just had some land. SF itself is extremely NIMBY, if you build a new city (which, incidentally is why most cities became a thing in the first place) for a specific purpose then people at least get to see your vision instead of fighting the establishment because you want high rises but the people who live there preferring the charm do not. That said: I don't know many purpose made cities that actually succeeded. I'm not even aware of any "Company Towns" surviving the decline of the company that founded it; Eindhoven suffered greatly with the decline of Phillips but it had existed for 500 years prior. I can't think of other examples of cities that so heavily depend on companies surviving their inevitable decline.
- aydyn 3y ago
- anovikov 3y agoThis the right path: entire city that is wholly owned by one company, with nothing for sale, only rentals. Gated. City council is same thing as company's board of directors. Police are private guards. You fail to pay the rent of violate rules, you are escorted off the premises: no homelessness, no unemployment, and minimum crime. Near-equality and almost flat social structure, no hate or envy. It will be expensive, but personally i'd love to pay twice to live in a place like that.
- lazide 3y agoHow do you expect it will be equal and have a flat social structure, instead of it likely mirroring the companies hierarchy?
- guerrilla 3y agoI wouldn't expect a valid answer from this person since they already contradicted themselves. "City council is same thing as company's board of directors" is incompatible with a "flat social structure" being that the former is a hierarchy and the latter is the absence of hierarchy.
- anovikov 3y agoSimply, because poor/unemployed will be kicked out, and owners/idle rich not living there at all because why would them. The place will be only as differentiated as salaries of employed persons are differentiated, which is, not much.
- dagw 3y agoYou cannot kick out the poor, because you need them to clean for you and make your food. At best you can price them out of living next to you.
- lazide 3y agoThat’s why you make them live next door (or far away) and commute. That’s the plan with this community right, since the folks there must work for the company? If the company doesn’t keep them employed, voila they must leave. And presumably the company is not going to hire (or allow to live there) ‘undesirables’.
- dkh 3y agoFinally, someone looking to challenge Neom.
- thaumasiotes 3y ago"Local land revealed to be owned by local rich people."
- happytiger 3y agoSuch an outmoded idea — when will the effort to build utopia stop? https://e360.yale.edu/features/why-the-luster-is-fading-on-once-vaunted-smart-cities https://e360.yale.edu/features/why-the-luster-is-fading-on-o... Health care. Living wage. Alternative transport. Small affordable homes. Please stop trying to build Disneyland and just focus on reducing regulation and corruption happen and letting innovation happen in existing cities.
- conradfr 3y agoRefactoring vs rewrite ;) But this time, we'll get it right!
- johnnyworker 3y agoThat just sums up the hubris of it all perfectly. Someone who didn't even write the first version and couldn't possibly, doesn't understand it and couldn't possibly, is going to go for the "rewrite".
- Maken 3y agoBecause that would not be Their Vision™.
- glimshe 3y agoI agree with you in principle, but these things cost way, way more than their Disneyland...
- HumblyTossed 3y agoUS is the richest nation in the world. Also, one of the last major nations in the world to NOT have any of those things.
- ghiculescu 3y agoThere isn’t much evidence that existing cities want innovation.
- ghiculescu 3y agoOther than generic finger wagging that happens anytime rich people do anything, can anyone cite an actual problem with this? Seems like it’s not harming anyone and more experiments and innovation in cities seems like a good thing.
- johnnyworker 3y agoQuote the "generic finger wagging" from the article.
- canjobear 3y agoFor example, use of “land grab” to describe a normal real estate transaction.
- flangola7 3y agoCommon and normal are two very different things.
- belter 3y agoAttitudes like these ones are why Billionaires always ask for a "equal level playing field" every time they go into a new business domain. Maybe they can call this one Elysium: Scan residents eyes for safety, commute an remaining human workers needed in the morning and evening via driverless taxis, and be done with it?
- canjobear 3y agoThe billionaires arguably got ripped off here. The farmers colluded to sell at artificially high prices.
- cristiancavalli 3y agoThere’s not a shred of evidence to support that except for the lawsuit brought by the investors. I would wager this was the fair market in action and these billionaires paid the price that was given by people who needed a large incentive to sell. Anything past that is the old rich person game of “free market rules for me but for thee” Nice try though
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 3y agoSillyCon Valley is a National Security Threat. It's destabilising. It has tons of cash but it has no clue how to spend it. The greatest misallocation of capital in the history of mankind. They are not going to build a city on this land. Only a fool would believe that.
- Adiqq 3y agoUnfortunately you're correct, but in general we can say that about most big companies and wealthy people. Everyone can solve their own problems with money, but they don't want to provide for us, they would rather own us and that's situation similar to the Great Depression in 1929. What's even worst, all these wealthy people in US can pay 20% or even less tax on their income and how much workers have to pay from their income? There's no way to compete, they have capital that can give them huge gains and they share almost none of it.
- snapplebobapple 3y agoThe 20% thing is misleading because that's just the final ding via dividend taxes on a dollar that was earned and taxed in a corporation already. When you look at total taxes paid on that earned dollar it is very similar to total taxes paid on dollars earned and taxed at the individual level. This butt hurt about taxes thing needs to die in most cases because in most cases it is not true.
- jprete 3y agoPeople on low incomes often pay very little tax, maybe 10-12%? There are good reasons for saying that the poor have an unreasonably hard time, but I don’t think income taxes are specifically where they get hit. The people who I think pay the highest percentage are salaried professionals.
- pasttense01 3y agoYou get those low kinds of numbers for low income looking only at income taxes. You need to add Social Security/Medicare taxes (both employee and employer), sales taxes, property taxes, gasoline taxes, car registration fees, alcohol and cigarette taxes, etc.
- Sawamara 3y agoThe US already had to deal with the corporate cities problem, btw. Its nothing new. First, as a tragedy, now as a farce. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town
- HDThoreaun 3y agoObviously this idea is dumb, but I'm concerned that it's the only realistic way to expand housing in the bay. The bay is currently short a solid million housing units, as far as I can tell there currently is no solution to this problem. All the areas that have already been developed are politically captured by NIMBYs that refuse to allow housing to densify. A giant conglomerate coming in and just throwing up a ton of housing on currently uninhabited land is imo the only solution other than the state or feds just unilaterally ending SFH zoning which I don't see happening.
- kshacker 3y agoWould not SB9 (or some recent law whose name I forget) allow lot more housing to be built? Not tomorrow but surely over the next 10 years. And then there are so many condos coming up near BART etc. We may be a million short, but I think dynamics start changing with every 100K, so as long as enough people start moving towards ADUs, and 4 houses in place of 1, it will start moving the needle. A lot of time it is a question of cost, and a lot of times it is a question of cheap property taxes. Remove those blockers and it may make things move faster. In India, a lot of "builders", come in and offer to rebuild your house for free as long as they can get 1 floor for themselves. Same can happen here - rebuild a house to break it in 4 units, and the builder keeps one for themselves (to sell). Maybe with the higher cost, they keep half to see - I do not know, but you just need a few dozen people to show this initiative before it becomes a bandwagon. On the property tax, we already have some incentives for people to move elsewhere and keep the low tax rate. I wish we could also apply a floor to the property taxes - yes you have had 2% max raise this past 30 years, but if you are in the bottom 10% (decile?), sorry but we will raise 5% going forward until you are not in the bottom 10%. Slow and steady, but see the incentives change over a decade or 2.
- 57343544 3y ago[flagged]
- varelse 3y ago[dead]
- ChatGTP 3y ago"Thy new city shall be called, Utopia!"
- dr_dshiv 3y agoObviously we need more cities. Yes please!
- canjobear 3y agoWhat makes it a “land grab”? They bought the land in the usual way.
- chii 3y agoThe author does not like the people buying, and thus call it a land grab. All journalists have an agenda.
- keiferski 3y agoI wrote this in a recent article [1]: Today, if a wealthy benefactor wanted to emulate a Renaissance patron and fund an architect or artist to create a new town square or city park, it’s unclear how he or she would even go about doing so. There don’t appear to be any financial instruments specifically designed for rewarding investors that fund integrated artworks. The design of the public space would almost certainly be watered down and subject to various governmental councils and community groups. Hostile attitudes toward the wealthy would probably result in the park being vandalized, if it were actually built. The hostility toward ideas like this new city is a major reason why we don’t have Renaissance-quality architecture anymore. Some of the most beautiful cities in the world were funded by the past equivalent of billionaires. Today, there is too much resentment and tall poppy syndrome and any attempts to use private funds toward architectural projects is immediately criticized as being a bad thing. 1. https://onthearts.com/p/modern-culture-is-too-escapist-part https://onthearts.com/p/modern-culture-is-too-escapist-part
- masfuerte 3y agoEh? My city has many beautiful parks that were private estates. They were simply given to the city by their wealthy owners. Rich people can do this now if they want to.
- washadjeffmad 3y agohttps://faculty.mercer.edu/davis_da/fys102/baconsfield.html https://faculty.mercer.edu/davis_da/fys102/baconsfield.html Many properties are not "given", but managed in trust. As in the above example, while Baconsfield Park lasted for over half a century, control was reverted (wrongly) to the heirs, and the land was sold off.
- masfuerte 3y agoThat's the point. Rich people are free to make generous benefactions but they'd rather retain control and when that's impossible they whinge that society is limiting their generosity.
- 3y ago
- more_corn 3y ago“By land grab” they mean. Offering 4x market rate for land nobody else is much interested in. To build a dense urban environment because none of the other cities in the area seem to be able to get out of their own way. No idea if it will work out or be a net positive or not. History is littered with failed attempts. But that’s a pretty negative framing right out of the gate.