A sidenote: the brothers who made Stripe are involved. One of them (John I think?) was complaining on Twitter recently about all the unnecessary "environmental red tape" in Ireland.
this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2023
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Classic Californian ideology. Get frustrated that an existing system isn't perfect, and decide that the only solution is to build an entirely new system separated from the old one. Promise lots of nice stuff (walkable cities yay!) but you can be sure it's only going to be available to the wealthy.
How are you going to make low-density med-style homes in CALIFORNIA cheap? 0% chance that the people doing this are in favour of rent controls. Once all the houses in the walkable areas get bought by the super rich, who's going to work in the shops? Workers will get bussed in and you'll be left with another rich person enclave that happens to have a street mall that you can walk to.
Also all of their promo-images were AI generated which bodes really well.
Also all of their promo-images were AI generated which bodes really well.
God, I didn't even notice that. A pack of millionaires but they're too cheap to pay a concept artist.
"Those Who Build Omelas"
I particularly love the billionaires talking about space/Mars and colonizing it. Like that's somehow easier than lobbying for change and saving our already habitable planet.
no irritating residents groups on Mars. And no need for an environmental impact report. It really is quite close to early colonialism
I don't think they imagine themselves to be the ones living on Mars.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The Silicon Valley elites who have been quietly buying up northern California farmland for several years have gone public with their vision for the utopian city they hope to build from scratch on 55,000 acres in Solano county.
This week the group behind the effort, Flannery Associates, launched a website for the initiative and released a series of sunny renderings showing Mediterranean-style homes and walkable and bikeable neighborhoods.
Last week, the New York Times revealed that Flannery Associates was backed by a group of prominent Silicon Valley investors and aimed to build a new city, operated using clean energy, that would create thousands of jobs while offering residents reliable public transportation and urban living.
The group of backers includes Reid Hoffman, the LinkedIn co-founder; venture capitalist Michael Moritz; Laurene Powell Jobs, the founder of the philanthropic group Emerson Collective and wife of the late Steve Jobs; Marc Andreessen, the investor and software developer; Patrick and John Collison, the sibling co-founders of the payment processor Stripe; and the entrepreneurs Daniel Gross and Nat Friedman, the Times reported.
“People in my district are understandably alarmed at a shadowy investment group buying up large tracts of farmland, purportedly to build a new city,” Bill Dodd, a state senator, said in a statement.
“We are grateful to our elected officials for allowing us the chance to discuss our vision to deliver good-paying jobs, affordable housing, walkable communities, clean energy, sustainable infrastructure, open space, and a healthy environment,” said Brian Brokaw on behalf of California Forever.
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please don't.
wtf