Local Resistance Derails Plans For Silicon Valley–Ruled Utopian City

Photo: Josh Edelson / AFP (Getty Images)

California Forever, a Silicon Valley-funded venture, shelved its plans on Monday to transform over 60,000 acres of rural Northern California into a utopian municipality. This wouldn’t have been possible without resistance from local farmers and environmentalists, who formed Solano Together to fend off billionaire ambitions. Residents realized their roads and services couldn’t handle a brand new city appearing from thin air and didn’t want to pay higher taxes to support building that infrastructure.

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Since 2017, a secretive company called Flannery Associates committed $800 million to acquiring farmland roughly 60 miles northeast of San Francisco. Landowners were being offered several times the market rate, according to the New York Times. The plan was to transform the cheap land into walkable residential neighborhoods powered by clean energy. This blank slate approach would also allow this venture to implement new construction methods and new forms of governance.

Zoning is the only obstacle that couldn’t cleared outright with money. If this rural land can be rezoned for residential purposes, it has to be approved through a ballot measure. Monday’s announcement means the necessary measure won’t be appearing on county ballots this November. However, local opposition knows this isn’t a conclusion to the saga. The Daily Beast spoke with Aiden Mayhood, a 23-year-old active in resisting the development:

“I’m very concerned about what they had planned for the next two and a half years,” Mayhood added. “I’m just curious to see what California Forever has up their sleeve, because I’m sure they’re thinking of all kinds of things right now.”

California Forever hoped the ballot measure would be passed this year and conduct an environmental review over the next two years. The project ostensibly decided to delay the measure until the review is completed, but the delay will also allow more time to garner public support. California Forever is promising affordable housing, nearby jobs, down-payment assistance, training funds and small business grants.

Tech giants can make ambitious promises of reshaping society with their executives at the helm, like with self-driving cars, but the public is starting to see through the sales pitch.