California Forever, the company backed by tech billionaires that wants to build a city in the Bay Area's Solano County, unveiled a website explaining its plans

A former Goldman Sachs trader moved to the Bay Area to make it in tech. He ended up buying rural land with money from some of Silicon Valley's wealthiest people.

New York Times 2023-09-02

Context & Ripple Effects

The website launch turns a previously opaque land-buying effort into a public-facing proposal. It follows reporting that the backers had spent more than $800 million assembling acreage for a new Bay Area city, a scale detailed in earlier coverage of the land purchases.

The proposal also sits against a longer Bay Area affordability constraint: rising housing costs were already reshaping where startup workers could live and work. That makes a privately backed new-city plan relevant beyond its land deal, even though execution remains unproven.

First-order effects

California Forever can now present its intended city directly to Solano County residents and other stakeholders rather than being defined solely by reports of its land accumulation.
Its billionaire backers become more visibly associated with a concrete regional-development project, increasing scrutiny of the plan’s claims and local fit.

Second-order effects

Public disclosure shifts the contest from acquiring land to building support: local stakeholders and prospective partners can assess the proposal’s stated vision, while opponents have a clearer target for challenge.
The plan sharpens attention on whether concentrated private capital can address housing and development constraints that have pushed Bay Area workers toward established employers.

Third-order effects

If similar projects gain traction, tech wealth may play a more direct role in shaping California’s physical and civic infrastructure, not only funding companies.
The limiting factor would increasingly be public legitimacy and local governance rather than the ability to assemble capital and land; this proposal alone does not establish that model will succeed.

The trend: This is one data point in the expansion of concentrated tech capital from company financing into attempts to shape the communities and infrastructure around the industry.

Discussion

@BenRossTransit@mastodon.social Benjamin Ross on mastodon
Turns out that Gabriel Metcalf, long-time head of Bay Area urbanist think-tank SPUR, is in charge of designing the city-built-from-scratch near San Francisco. — [gift link] https://www.nytimes.com/...
@burritojustice.bsky.social @burritojustice.bsky.social on bluesky
“California Forever” = Marincello 2.0 — www.foundsf.org/index.php? ti... www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/ arti... [images]
@dinvesting Elliot Silver on x
Using @DomainTools, it looks like the https://californiaforever.com/ domain name was acquired sometime between July and August of this year.
@aliwunderman Ali Wunderman on x
Anyone else getting Squidville vibes from those renderings of California Forever, the planned techie utopia city for billionaires? [image]
@sammy_roth Sammy Roth on x
Wild story in Northern California, where a bunch of rich Silicon Valley types have bought up thousands of acres of farmland — some of them dotted with wind turbines — in hopes of building a whole new city, with lots of solar and public parks: https://www.latimes.com/...
@gbeltalliance @gbeltalliance on x
“It's so sad and disappointing,” is how the California Forever mindset was described Friday by @brownstevens, executive director of Greenbelt Alliance. What do you think of the #CaliforniaForever Solano County city proposal? https://www.sfchronicle.com/ ...
@conordougherty Conor Dougherty on x
How did a former Goldman Trader convince Silicon Valley's biggest investors to give him $900 million to buy farms in Solano County in hopes of building a new city? The great @eringriffith had details and I helped a bit too. https://www.nytimes.com/...
@lynnbecker Lynn Becker on x
You can tell a lot from the sales images how a developer sees themselves. In the case of California Forever, the private paradise tech billionaires want to build next to Travis Air Force Base, it's Thomas Hart Benton meets Chuck Jones Road Runner terrain. https://www.sfchronicle.…
@markets @markets on x
A controversial, billionaire-backed plan to build a utopian city in California now has a splashy website in hopes of winning over wary locals https://www.bloomberg.com/...
@sfchronicle @sfchronicle on x
The first renderings from California Forever evoke a cityscape with a dreamy white stucco and red rooftop Mediterranean vibe you might find in a Greek or Italian village. https://www.sfchronicle.com/ ...
@sfjkdineen J.K. Dineen on x
Cote d'Sac Tres jolie First renderings show new California city that tech billionaires want to build https://www.sfchronicle.com/ ...
@sfchronicle @sfchronicle on x
The Silicon Valley billionaire-backed scheme to build a 21st century utopian city on agricultural land on the edge of the Bay Area has a name and a website featuring the first renderings of what the dreamland might look like. https://www.sfchronicle.com/ ...
@freecondo Michael on x
This is a chobani advertisement https://californiaforever.com/
@teddyschleifer Teddy Schleifer on x
New — The tech investor group that is behind the plan to build a new city in the San Francisco Bay Area has formally revealed itself. They are calling the effort “California Forever.” Here are its billionaire backers. https://californiaforever.com/ [image]
@sfchronicle @sfchronicle on x
The initiative's name — California Forever — was unveiled after a two-week period in which the group's acquisition of 55,000 acres in Southeast Solano County has come under fire. Read more: https://www.sfchronicle.com/ ... [image]
@eshugerman Emily Shugerman on x
California Forever, a Delaware company [image]
@bawdofcacophony @bawdofcacophony on x
This secret city development in CA is wild. Not a single car in any of the marketing renderings, but, in the entire description, the only regional transportation solution they mention is... highway expansion. https://www.californiaforever.com/
@thedailybeast @thedailybeast on x
Jan Sramek was the next big thing in high finance before he faded from the spotlight, only to re-emerge as the mastermind behind a mysterious plan to build a new city in California. https://www.thedailybeast.com/ ...
@johnkingsfchron John King on x
My quick take on that tech-fueled vision of a new city in Solano — a vision that literally has no details at all, just renderings that would make a teletubbies fan wince https://www.sfchronicle.com/ ...
@holz_bau Mike Eliason on x
probably the saddest part about this is how utterly visionless it is. a walkable city with homes for tens of thousands of residents, and jobs. like. seestadt aspern exists! *IN* vienna! homes for 25k. jobs for 20k. schools. cafes. parks. open space. it's ~600 acres [image]
@abc7newsbayarea @abc7newsbayarea on x
The firm that's purchased nearly $1 billion of Solano County land launched a website Thursday, giving a glimpse at their vision for a utopian city. The website, California Forever, says the project would include a variety of land uses. https://abc7news.com/... [video]
@mayorcabaldon Christopher Cabaldon on x
On Tuesday, I testified before the Senate Agriculture Committee about Flannery Associates' land purchases in Solano County & how we can craft policies to prevent these types of land grabs, ensure transparency, & protect the public interest. Full comments @ https://www.senate.ca.g…
@_jeremyflores Jeremy Flores on x
1/ Flannery Associates just posted their public initiative to Hacker News. The poster? None other than fellow MIT alum, Michael Grinich, whom I know quite well. Short 🧵: https://news.ycombinator.com/ ...
@newsynick Nick Turner on x
The billionaire-backed secret city in Solano County now has a website with illustrations. It's like if you plopped Mayberry down in Tuscany https://www.californiaforever.com/ [image]
@myles_younger Myles Younger on x
It's like if you asked Midjourney to “design a city using only old fruit crate labels.” https://californiaforever.com/
@technology @technology on x
A controversial, billionaire-backed plan to build a utopian city in California now has a splashy website in hopes of winning over wary locals https://www.bloomberg.com/...
@danbrekke Dan Brekke on x
What “renderings”? These are fantasy graphics in service of a sales pitch. The only thing missing is people picking $100 bills off the trees. https://www.sfchronicle.com/ ... via @sfchronicle
@eringriffith Erin Griffith on x
New from @ConorDougherty @ShawnHubler and me: More details about CALIFORNIA FOREVER, the company building a city from the ground up. How it got started and where its going ⤵️ https://www.nytimes.com/...
@rachaelmyrow @rachaelmyrow on x
The story of how some of the richest people in the 🌎 decided to buy $900 mil in farms/land to build a new city blends Silicon Valley style idealism with hubris. “I'm surprised people that intelligent would waste their ⏳ and 💸 on this.” https://www.nytimes.com/... via @technology
r/Sacramento r on reddit
The mystery group buying up land in Solano County finally published their plan for it all.

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