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Plan for 55,000-acre utopia dreamed by Silicon Valley elites unveiled
- bluescrn 3y agoWhat they don't show in the concept art is the massive wall/fence they'll build around it.
- darkclouds 3y agoMust be Windows investors after a new background view for an upcoming version of windows.
- chpatrick 3y agoIf they build an actual livable European-type town I'll be impressed.
- userbinator 3y agoIn practice, utopia usually becomes dystopia.
- adaml_623 3y agoReferences please
- stareatgoats 3y agoAgree, but why? It's an interesting theoretical question when you think about it. Is it because people who have the money and means have a skewed concept of the world making them incapable of constructing utopias/well functioning "synthetic societies", or is it more fundamentally impossible? And in the latter case, why then should we even try to improve society?
- throw_pm23 3y agoBecause every organically developing system has a great advantage that these projects lack: time. Cities evolve by gradual corrections/adjustments, you cannot anticipate every issue upfront.
- timeon 3y agoIdeas needs to adapt when meeting reality.
- ben_w 3y agoI don't even know if it's true, but if it is I'd guess the Typical Mind fallacy: most of us have blind spots where we don't think about how "good" people in a hurry would react, let alone the power-hungry actively trying to break it for their own gain.
- renewiltord 3y agoI actually can’t think of any good examples. Brasilia? Chandigarh? Irvine? All seem fine relative to their neighborhood.
- krisoft 3y agoIn practice or in fictional books? If in practice I’m sure you can share a handful of examples.
- pvitz 3y agoSealand
- flohofwoe 3y agoFordlandia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fordl%C3%A2ndia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fordl%C3%A2ndia And for a really dark example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonia_Dignidad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonia_Dignidad Also Disney's failed attempt: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPCOT_(concept) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPCOT_(concept) Finally an example that actually worked: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siemensstadt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siemensstadt ...the project reminds me much more of the Chinese 'fake European cities' though: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/non-fiction/duplitecture-does-china-keep-building-fake-european-cities/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/non-fiction/duplitecture-d...
- forth_fool 3y agoSome examples: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freetown_Christiania https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freetown_Christiania (ongoing experiment, I guess), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fordl%C3%A2ndia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fordl%C3%A2ndia, Soviet Union
- dd36 3y agohttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_City,_Arizona https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_City,_Arizona
- Legend2440 3y agoCalifornia could certainly use more housing. I'll wait and see how this turns out.
- waihtis 3y agoThe 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. 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.
- A_D_E_P_T 3y agoI don't think you can run a "utopian project" in the USA at all. You're subject to US laws, and that means you're easy prey for litigants (even sufficiently motivated pro se litigants) -- and the civil justice system is an ordeal where there's only one outcome: You lose. In most cases, you lose lots of money in legal fees that you won't be able to claw back; in virtually all cases, you're slapped with injunctions and other roadblocks to development, which can be fatal and can take years to resolve; in all cases, you lose tremendous amounts of time, which could otherwise have been spent productively. The utopian planners should have attempted their scheme somewhere on Nevis or a Bahaman island -- where the government would probably be cooperative rather than nakedly adversarial.
- dd36 3y agoLand is developed all the time in the US.
- Dan_Sylveste 3y ago> let SF devolve You have to ask yourself whether SF would have been 'let' to devolve if the type of people who support projects like this instead were active in the governance of their own city. You might also ask yourself whether the devolution of SF is entirely organic; to me, some of the decisions being made there seem rather like deliberate sabotage. I find the hubris of these people that just want to run off and do their own thing a bit disturbing; it's the 'you're standing on the shoulders of giants yet think you are seeing the answer with your own eyes alone' thing. By and large I find the type of people that support these projects to be alarmingly lacking in any sort of empathy.
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- boeingUH60 3y agoThis is a risky plan that would either fail woefully or see unprecedented success. 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.
- CaptainZapp 3y ago> but I wish to see a new successful city built from scratch… https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bras%C3%ADlia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bras%C3%ADlia There may be other examples.
- ivarv 3y agoI'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. https://www.neom.com/en-us https://www.neom.com/en-us
- krisoft 3y agoNeom is way more futuristic and pie in the sky than this project. If for no other reason the planed 170 kilometres long 200 meter wide linear city in Neom is straight up cyberpunk material while this one is… just a city? A liveable one, which makes it look special. Superficially it looks like a California version of Lake Nona to me.
- cjs_ac 3y agoHaving worked on Neom, I can tell you that Neom is fractally insane. The approval process for headline projects at Neom is: have idea; produce cyberpunk-themed renders; show to Crown Prince; receive approval. (MBS loves cyberpunk.) There was one day where the target population for the city just doubled with no real feasibility analysis. California Forever (awful name) seems to just be fairly normal planned city so far.
- matzowalls 3y ago[dead]
- mcjiggerlog 3y agoGoing off the renders it looks like they want to build your average smamll Spanish city. Which honestly is pretty understandable.
- oulipo 3y agoLol, their dream is Europe, basically. Could be a good tagline: Europe, the utopia of Silicon Valley elites
- steeve 3y agoBut I thought Europe was only producing “vapidity” ? /s EDIT: look it up on Twitter
- WeylandYutani 3y agoNo. Europe without the taxes. There aren't crackhead zombies shuffling through Dutch cities and the roads are immaculately paved. And that takes a ton of taxation. Utopia- or trying to get to it- takes money. And I question American elites willingness to pay for it or they would have voted for Sanders.
- timeon 3y agoInstead of taxes there will be subscription.
- postingawayonhn 3y agoAnd what's wrong with that? If European urban design/structure is working well why not replicate it?
- cmrdporcupine 3y agoAnd yet even if successful it'll be more Disneyland than an actual real living European city. Sleeping Beauty's Castle instead of Schloss Neuschwanstein. North American elites have always wanted the status and style of their former colonial superiors. Just with their own detached libertarian spin on it, without all the annoying social obligations and community and tiresome history and 'authenticity'. Here you won't need a year of compulsory community service or high taxes to get access; just need a degree from Stanford and the ability to make some really compelling PowerPoint presentations. Every time we'd go down to the Googleplex for work, my friend and I would make jokes about the movie Elyssium. But this is taking it to the next level.
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- carabiner 3y ago[flagged]
- neilv 3y agoSo 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.
- bee_rider 3y ago> 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”. > “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. > 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”. > 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. > 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. 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? 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. Nice renders though, look almost vaguely solarpunk inspired.
- krisoft 3y agoBuilding a city makes the land more valuable. If you tell people that you plan to invest a ton of money into the area they will include that information in their calculations when you are trying to buy their land. Some will then only sell their land for skyhigh prices, and some won’t sell at all in the hopes that they can sell it for even more once the city has been built around them. This can strangle the project in its infancy. > If you want to join a community, you can just, like, go join it. Yeah and that works perfectly well if you want to buy a single farm. You negotiate with the seller, you do the contract stuff, you pay, you move in. All good. But that is not what they plan. It is almost as if you haven’t thought about why they do what they do at all.
- chopsuey5540 3y agoYes indeed, they are being deceptive to the local community to try to rip them off.
- gizmo 3y agoIt 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.
- stuaxo 3y agoWell, this is going to be the source of grim jokes for some time, as they gradually re-discover things that society does already.
- bretpiatt 3y agoThe renderings did not help me visualise the real possibility. 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. Paris city limits, 2.1 million residents, 41 square miles Barcelona city limits, 1.6 million residents, 39 square miles San Francisco city, 800k residents, 47 square miles
- ffhhttt 3y agoParis “city” is just the most heavily urbanized central core of a massive metropolitan area. The urban part of which is 1,101.7 sq mi. I’m not sure about Barcelona but San Francisco is pretty much like Paris in that way (just way leas dense). It’s really not a fair comparison.
- bretpiatt 3y agoParis the city is the city, if you're building a new city you build the city and the unincorporated areas around you grow on their own. If they're going to just build another The Woodlands (x2, they have twice this much land too) this isn't a very ambitious and transformative project, it's just a big fancy housing development with a Mayor and City Council instead of an HOA. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Woodlands,_Texas https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Woodlands,_Texas
- ffhhttt 3y agoYou can’t expect the urban core of an entirely town to be even remotely as dense as that or a 10+ million city.
- xg15 3y agoThere is the old saying "for Europeans, 100 years is nothing; for Americans, 100 miles is nothing". So I'm not sure you can compare areas with radically different density. If I got all the debates about US zoning and building sensibilities right, then it's very unlikely they'll try to build high-density apartment blocks there like in Barcelona or Paris.
- eddtests 3y agoHonestly the description of this place sounds like what I’ve found Sweden to be, since moving here from Palo Alto last month. 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.
- sveme 3y agoThe renders look like any Italian, French or Spanish small town. The concept as well. Funny enough, there is a similar city in John Brunner‘s Sheep looking up, I believe. Established in the Bay Area as a utopian place after California became a postapocalyptic nightmare following a giant earthquake.
- bee_rider 3y agoThere are also walkable town in the US, visit college towns in New England for example. (To be clear, it is definitely a small subset, but it serves to show that it is at least possible for this sort of thing to grow organically here).
- numbasys 3y agoSo, you're saying you want to live in Europe.
- gmerc 3y agoProjects sure to end up like Bioshock for 20, Alex
- xg15 3y ago> "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. Or, in other words, now that we already own the land and can have the conversation on the terms we dictate.
- someonehere 3y agoOne 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. 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. 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.
- dimva 3y agoReading the comments here and elsewhere about this project is so vindicating for me. 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. 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. 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?
- xg15 3y agoWhat I don't quite get is how government of this city is being planned. Right now, it's basically Disney world, a huge privately owned development project. Will this eventually become a municipality of its own or are they planning to build a completely privately-owned city? (Not from the US though, so I might be missing some details on how local government works in California) Also yes, social housing, walkable neighborhoods and all that sound nice, but promises (and renderings) are cheap. It's not clear if this has any resemblance to what will actually be built.
- dimva 3y agoHonestly, if you want a truly progressive city government in California, you probably need it to be 100% private. If it's public, the regressive California constitution comes into effect, and now you can't make property taxes be high enough to pay for city services, you can't increase the property taxes on long-term landowners, and those low tax rates get inherited by the property owners' heirs. You have to pay for city services with income/sales taxes. It's basically feudalism. With a 100% private development, you can have a land value tax - it's legal if you just call it rent, and you can increase it however much you want (at most it's capped to 5% + inflation, a lot higher than the 2% (not inflation adjusted) cap for property tax increases). And no, this won't be social housing. NIMBYs will say they want social housing, but they won't vote in taxes to pay for it (in CA, every tax increase must pass in a ballot referendum), nor do they actually want it built anywhere, either. Because only private money is being used for this development, it will mostly be market-rate housing, and that's fine. Or most likely, it will be nothing, since rural NIMBYs will block it.
- poisonborz 3y agoI 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?
- jaybrendansmith 3y agoI 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.
- ramesh31 3y ago[flagged]