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California Gov. Gavin Newsom isn’t happy about a somewhat secretive plan by uber-rich Californians to establish a new, futuristic city outside San Francisco. But he’s planning to chat with someone behind the idea, he said.
On Tuesday, at a forum sponsored by Politico, the Democratic governor said he hadn’t been aware of the California Forever project until minutes before an article about it dropped.
“I read about it,” Newsom said.
As Politico noted, the investors include Laurene Powell Jobs, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen. The project is the brainchild of Jan Sramek, a former Goldman Sachs trader who, according to The Daily Beast, has revered Peter Thiel, the tech billionaire and right-wing extremist.
“I’m as curious as everyone else,” Newsom said Tuesday, adding that “the project is obviously interesting in terms of its scale and its scope.”
But the secrecy is another aspect of the plan that has garnered interest. A website for the project acknowledges as much.
“California Forever is the parent company of Flannery Associates. Over the last few years, Flannery has purchased over 50,000 acres in Solano County,” the site says. “To date, our company has been quiet about our activities. This has, understandably, created interest, concern, and speculation.”
The website’s homepage also has a vague description of the vision for the project.
“Instead of watching our kids leave,” the site says, “we have the opportunity to build a new community that attracts new employers, creates good paying local jobs, builds homes in walkable neighborhoods, leads in environment stewardship, and fuels a growing tax base to serve the county at large.”
So, basically, it sounds like a city — but one more explicitly owned by rich investors than others.
So, basically, it sounds like a city — but one more explicitly owned by rich investors than others. Great. I’m imagining San Francisco, but with a few more bike lanes, a little more open space and many more haughty elites.
Newsom said the secrecy has harmed his faith in the project.
“I’ll be candid with you,” he said at Tuesday’s forum. “They started a little behind in my book because of the fact that they let so much intrigue and so many questions so there’s a lot more doubt now and a lot less trust.”
He said he’ll be meeting soon with a project representative to learn more.
In an op-ed last week, San Francisco Chronicle columnist Carl Nolte explained some of the biggest hurdles to the city becoming reality:
There are dozens of obstacles before the dream city can ever be built: The land is zoned for agriculture, not housing; the area has no reliable water supply; the area is full of wind power turbines, some of them 300 feet tall; there are slow-growth laws in Solano County; there is local opposition. The problems go on and on, a land-use nightmare.
Let’s keep watch of this development proposal as it … develops. It may ultimately be quashed, but that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily useless. I happen to think it’s rather helpful in distilling Silicon Valley elitism and hubris into one cute and colorful website.