The Silicon Valley elite who want to build a city from scratch
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
"'Mystery company' buys land worth $800M near Travis AFB, raising concerns" - 114 points - 35 days ago - 170 comments
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36816387
There were all sorts of rumours, and concerns due its proximity to an important military base. I can't imagine the government and military not knowing that this prominent group were behind it.
> Flannery has purchased land from farmers for several times more than the market value and become the biggest landowners in Solano county.
> The firm has been sued by farmers who sold their land to the group over what the land owners describe as an “illegal price-fixing conspiracy”.
If a group is buying land at multiples of the market value, you'd think the "price-fixing conspiracy" narrative would come from would-be buyers who were priced out, not from sellers.
> A mystery company that has been buying up farmland around Travis Air Force Base in California in recent years is now suing the farmers it bought the land from, accusing them of conspiring to inflate the value of their properties.
> Lots of questions and speculation are floating around about the buyer, Flannery Associates, which has invested close to $1 billion to buy more than 50,000 acres farmland in the Jepson Prairie and Montezuma Hills area of Solano County. According to numerous reports, the company is filing suit for at least $510 million against the farmers.
https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/some-california-lan...
> A lawsuit accusing a group of California landowners of conspiring to inflate the price of their land by hundreds of millions of dollars will "drastically expand" the reach of federal antitrust law if it is not dismissed, attorneys for the property holders told a U.S. judge.
> In a filing in Sacramento federal court, lawyers for the landowners in northern California on Friday urged U.S. District Judge Troy Nunley to reject "speculative" and "vague" allegations from agricultural land buyer Flannery Associates.
> Flannery, seeking more than $510 million in damages for alleged price-fixing, in May sued various family land trusts and estates over the sale of properties in the Jepson Prairie and Montezuma Hills area of Solano County between San Francisco and Sacramento.
If you hear on the grapevine that a bunch of billionaires are keenly interested in buying a certain thing that you own, and willing to pay over current market prices, well...
It's not like ALL of this land was simultaneously listed on a public market before the rich guys came up with their plan, right?
What's more, the billionaires are clearly offering a clearly profitable deal for everyone, specifically so that nobody has an excuse to refuse and cause the coordination problems mentioned. And because they bought at well above market price, they're stuck with dead weight if they don't go through with the affair.
In other words: the existing landowners are 1) demanding money well above the inherent value of the land, and 2) this mechanism/behavior of the existing landowners isn't useful to society/the economy as it makes it harder to do things that require lots of land. This is a textbook example of where government intervention is useful, if done competently and not corruptly.
"What's more, the billionaires are clearly offering a clearly profitable deal for everyone, specifically so that nobody has an excuse to refuse "
When I like my land and I don't want to sell, than this is simply my right, no matter how much you think I have no excuse.
Building important infrastructure or mining critical ressources are rare exceptions for forced landsell, but not because someone wants to build a city for the rich on my land.
So sure, it is a tricky problem to buy from many owners, but getting the government to help you with your private project to force a contract on other people is kind of the definition of corruption.
I guess in this case they do want to sell it, they just know that the ‘billionaires’ having already bought a bunch of land in the area don’t really have a choice and will have to pay significantly more than the market value was previously.
It’s not exactly a case of some mega corporation trying to rip off some poor farmer and “steal” his land…
> build a city for the rich on my land.
Not that I’m saying that the government should get involved but the only reason you own that land is because want to make as much money from it as possible.
- a major investor in this project
- who got her money from Apple
- which makes a killing gouging you on cables with proprietary charging ports and dongles because their laptops/phones didn't have ports, and thus were forced to buy at a ridiculous price
- and is now mad she was forced to pay a ridiculous price for something
This is a risk of doing a massive land purchase like this. The seller is absolutely in the right to hold out as long as they want, and to maximize their profit.
If they won't sell, build around them.
However this is one of the many reasons why there are housing shortages in many areas.
Yes, wealth inequality and land development practices are reasons why housing is in such short supply.
The inherent value of the land is what market is willing to pay for it in the moment. If you accept that land is to be traded freely, then the seller can set the price as they choose or refuse to sell. What you suggest is that the government sets the price and force sale for the grater good. Even if we collectively decided that this is how it should be, this instance is a really bad example, because they haven’t shared what they want to do there. Why do you automatically think that their plan will be for the public benefit? Eminent domain had a narrow scope, at least originally, for public use. In 2005 things changed [1]. Actually Kelo vs New London is a very good example. The paned out redevelopment never happened, Pfizer closed down the facility in New London. City never recovered its loses.
Saying something like "sell to us or we'll force you to via eminent domain", buying the land, and THEN complaining about the price tag is ... brutal.
I am confused by this statement, they are farmers. Farms are beneficial to the economy and society.
If moneybags comes, keep in mind: you don't have to sell.
Moneybags, keep in mind: the price I'm willing to sell at is not price fixing. I just may not want to sell to you.
It’s one group of very rich people (possibly) trying to screw over other rich people, though.
> I just may not want to sell to you.
You almost definitely do though. You just want more money because you know that the buyer doesn’t really have a choice.
That said, wow, this seems like a blatantly horrible hardball tactic or probably a result of sour grapes for someone who was a fool with their money.
I hope this gets dismissed with extreme prejudice and flannery has to pay legal fees.
Maybe the unnamed investor was Softbank’s Masayoshi Son and after repeatedly being shafted by Neumann he said “No more!” and urged the lawsuit.
This is from the article linked.
So the residential zoning starts out as 8000 square foot lots but each lot is enabled in the future for high density 3 story residential in 30 years. Commercial zoning is enabled for high density residential towers in 30 years as well.
Additionally, while it's still farmland, demarcate the right of way for future train lines, bike paths mass transit and freeways/underpasses.
I think what chafes NIMBY home owners is that the developers are able to change the residential single family zoning to high density residential post facto - and pocket the spoils. Basically changing the rules of the game via lobbying city council members. Meanwhile the rule following NIMBY home owner's zoning remains unchanged and they just have to deal with more traffic and less sunlight.
And then make all home/property buyers sign documents attesting that this is the city charter and cannot be changed.
The general idea is instead of assuming this new city will always be a sleepy suburban residential until eternity - assume from the get go that it will have the same "where are we going to stick all the 5 story towers" hot potato problem that San Jose/Santa Clara are having right now.
By laying out the future high density area zones on a 30 year zoning map, buyers can know a priori that if they buy the single family house on this street, their grandkids can potentially either expect to stubbornly live there in the shadows of a 5 story condo complex with low income components or cash out for tens of millions to a RE developer.
I think why this hasn't happened before is because it always seems silly when you just look at 500 acres of farmland to throw down BART access right of ways.
But in reality given California's historical growth patterns, its probably realistic if looking at a 25-50 year time horizons.
The only way I see if the residents cannot own the property and the land. Something like max 15 years rent.
Why should it be friendly to cars at all, when neither Paris nor NYC are known to be car friendly?
Both are super car friendly. They’re just anti private car ownership.
"Almost every New Yorker and anyone who has ever visited will encourage you not to drive in New York City." - https://www.tripsavvy.com/tips-for-driving-in-new-york-city-...
"Driving in NYC requires some serious skills and patience to conquer. Between the impatient and angry drivers, impossible street parking, inability to turn right on red, and the nightmare of getting stuck in the middle of an intersection, it’s definitely not the place you want to leisurely cruise between destinations. But if you should build the bravery to dive into the sea of yellow taxis in the Big Apple, you’ll want to be prepared with these safety survival tips." - https://shebuystravel.com/driving-in-nyc/
"We gave New York [State] a “Good” rating for Traffic and Road Quality, despite the New York metropolitan area being one of the most traffic-congested regions in America." _ https://www.hagerty.com/media/archived/how-classic-car-frien...
Compare it to Salt Lake City - that's a super car-friendly city.
I would do the same if I had a billion dollars or two to spare. The future is city states and networked small towns of 10k mixed population ..use the same seed idea as the Dunbar Number. Fwiw, I have already designed such cities for my own amusement with high density housing in 10% of the total land and the remaining as forests and food producing acres..underground tunnels for intra city transport and above ground, self driving cars and efficient public transport(maglev)…
it will be a three tiered city with skyscrapers, underground city and ground infrastructure. Etc etc.
What’s the point of being a billionaire if you can’t even build your own city?
Are you even hearing yourself? Cities existed before billionares did. Society existed before pricks with god complexes started thinking that order and society organized the other way around.
Get off from Rand. Learn some actual history.
Starting a small settlement / community is not a small feat. It requires lots of organizing top-level-down. And then fast forwards million of years later we have religions and government and we start paying taxes without asking lots of questions while also taking everything for granted.
Religions and governments were considered a progressive thing 2000 years ago. But then gradually in the past 100 years we started to see disentanglement between these two. And now we are here.
And now we are starting enter the aeon of AI. Now it is good time to fix many real-world problems.
Ummmmm… like how do you think cities got started?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Zähringen
Some got started by Roman Emperors:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augsburg
Some got started by a country wanting a new capital:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brasília
And some grew organically, but were at some point or other subject to a massive master plan:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haussmann%27s_renovation_of_Pa...
I already laid down my arguments from an anthropological perspective. There was something very special about the past 2000~4000 years (since the beginning of stone age 3 million year ago, and anatomically modern humans 300,000 years ago) and that is why at the year 2024AD, things have progressed into the current state. (Or why have we not progressed faster as a civilization/species?)
It's about cost and the sustaining of people's attention and work. Even for communities that started so to speak "organically", they would have dependency on some form of leadership at some points, if not throughout, or it would not be self-sustainable and grow to scale up e.g. into a village/city.
Hell, we don’t even know if all the early ones were inhabitated year round. Nor do we know if many of the early cities required “leadership” in any real way.
Also, there may be more ways to measure “progress” than you’re aware of. Depending on the metric you choose… we may not be doing as well as you’d think.
Is this Steven Pinker’s nephews HN account?
This actually is a technical discussion.
You’re asserting things about the formation of cities that aren’t just unknown or mysterious, you’re asserting things that are patently untrue, then upset when someone calls you out for it lol. How Reddit is that?
You’re saying, “cities require strong leadership, planning, cost, and sustaining people’s attention, and work.” (To roughly paraphrase). I’m saying, “that’s not necessarily true, we don’t know enough about this to assert this. You should read some more about it or take an anthropology class.”
This is a highly technical subject, it’s just not one about computers or math or physics. Like, for some early cities we are unsure if they were even inhabited year round, for some cities it appears that there was absolutely no leadership. Maybe megalopolises requires strong central authority but I’m not so sure.
Even if you spend $8b and start your own version of Fordlandia you still may not succeed at building utopia because how do you maintain things how “you want them” when people like me exist who will try to flaunt your rules? Violence?
If you are not a chatbot, here is my advice after reading this incoherent thing you wrote: go work on something to make the change you want to see in your life.
It saddens me that discussions on HN are now turning into dumpster fire like this.
I disagree with you, but sure “I’m a chat bot.” This conversation saddens you? Lol, ok. That clearly elevates the discourse.
I live in California. We need private citizens with god complex who can do better than a govt with a god complex.
Usually a metaphor for physical separation of classes. The rabble have to deal with the environmental consequences of the elite's abuse of the planet, the elite shut themselves in.
Of course that's not what's happening here, it is the shining elite leading us to a better model of civilization! Right?
On one hand I don’t like the idea that a lot of land end up in hands of a small group of people, but on the other hand the accusation that they are tearing apart the community is a little weird, given than they have not started building anything yet. And most of land around Travis AFB is prairie, so used for grazing.
On top of that the lawsuit they filed against farmers is weird. Did they try to intimidate them into selling or got screwed by an alleged price fixing?
Only a couple of them on the entire earth could pull it off probably. One of them has already done 3 similarly grandiose things and is now dabbling with social media. One of them is in his party on a yacht fase. One of them is starting to get a bit geriatric but also has always cared more about the people on the planet than the planet itself. And one of them seems to be on an internal journey discovering his masculinity.
There's a couple more for sure, but I guess they're not in the media enough for me to know what their excuses are.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/flannery-associa...
There's a sizeable overlap with the Montezuma Hills wind farm. It'll be interesting to see how a bunch of pre-existing wind turbines fit into their plans.
These are the properties (source regrid.com): https://ibb.co/9GvCr3x
And this is satellite imagery of roughly the same area (source arcgis.com; esri world imagery): https://ibb.co/0j3Hmth
EDIT: looks like a really large portion of their land is exactly where the wind farms are at. Are they going to destroy the wind farm, because how it looks on satellite imagery, there is no real space to build without destroying most of the wind turbines.
Exactly this.
Any person who wants to live a self-determined life, and have a self-determined govt must be (individually or collectively) better armed and better prepared than everyone form the wannabe local lunch bully, regional warlord, or national authoritarian. IF not, they will take your lunch and your government every time.
The GP's plan is great, but (s)he will need to start with a significant well-managed armed force. Otherwise, the local drug lord, warlord, mafia don, or authoritarian will ignore you until you create value, then decide they want it for themselves. If you cannot defend it, it will be theirs until they destroy it.
You may think those punishments are unreasonably harsh, but then again you’re probably not a drug trafficker. And it’s not like the American punishments (decades in dangerous prisons) are much better.
I think you're restating what I said. Narco traffickers are able to subvert the rule of law via corruption. Their ability to perform corruption is a function of their profitability, which in turn is a function of the demand (and their ability to supply it), in rich countries. The demand is unmet domestically because of our prohibitions and draconian federal enforcement.
So the rule of law breaks down there due to strong rule of law here. We are essentially exporting the market making there, and that sort of market making, while risky, is profitable in the extreme.
As for the commodity sanctions while most maybe are well intentioned, they only serve to again allow those willing to take the risk of market making to rack up obscene profits. This is regardless of what circumstances lead to them, they empower actors who aren't particularly altruistic and certainly aren't democratic, to subvert the rule of law.
I’m not. Let me restate what I said, with emphasis:
If there isn’t a strong rule of law, any economic activity is going to come under the control of protection rackets and other armed factions.
Any. Economic. Activity. Not just drug trafficking. I’m very familiar with the argument that drug prohibition creates organized crime, but it’s not a fully general explanation for global instability or the resource curse.
> As for the commodity sanctions while most maybe are well intentioned, they only serve to again allow those willing to take the risk of market making to rack up obscene profits.
You still aren’t explaining how Western sanctions on conflict diamonds are capable of traveling back through time and creating the problem of conflict diamonds in the first place.
But, the part about narco states still stands...I don't see a way to fix the rule of law problem by just "having strong rule of law". Those countries already have laws e.g. against corruption. Especially in South and Central America, narco-organizations and drug related violence predominates the causes of instability.
El Salvador did it.
At some point, which Mexico already reached a long time ago, cartels metastasize beyond narcotics and can sustain themselves on protection rackets. It’s very tempting to treat drug prohibition as some sort of monocausal explanation for organized crime, but even if that were true at some point, that doesn’t mean legalization would solve the problem. And I think the existence of conflict diamonds and the like already demonstrate that drug prohibition isn’t even necessary for this kind of problem to emerge in the first place.
But the UK High Court nixed it, because Rwanda is "not a safe country".
> build stable countries
If you know how to do that, please tell the world. Stable countries need a half-century or more to create, and that's with existing institutions and culture, and still the outcome is very uncertain.
dont forget that singapore was under colonial rule before that. noone can deny the success of singapore, the city state with all the regional challenges. it took them about two decades.
i would give 5-10 years for our nation states to become functionally successful if they split and became city states.
its time for a change.
On a happier note, El Salvador seems to have sorted itself out in recent years.
A functioning country for a few white people; hell for everyone else.
It wasn't functional before the end of apartheid. 'Functional for a small minority' != 'functional country'.
Just like the Gnostics, Marxists, communists, Obama, Trump ...
What else can you do with the Eschaton?
build stable countries
None of those are in South America or Africa. Maybe it would be good to first understand the problem, including the geography, before proposing ideas.
This example always jumps to mind: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_City,_California
"List of purpose-built national capitals" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_purpose-built_national...
if you really like circles, kangaroos, bush fires, public servants, politicians, and occassional access to ski fields.
But yeah, it's a decent example of a planned city.
some other "tech elite" of his time actually already did this[0]
Sounds like it’s already a utopia.
Yes, that's the vibe I'm getting too.
Maybe put space for some offices from the big companies as well
If local government acted up against the wishes of residents, it would be a simple matter to repeal taxes and do the road maintainenace ourselves. The town had a calm neighborly feel and people were respectful of each other. It worked great, and local government always knew the people had the power.
Ideally that would work like with the countries: different cities have dramatically different sets of rules and compete for citizens. Private ownership allows for much more flexibility here.
PS: HN is such a strange community. In one thread people complain about US cities and SF in particular crumbling due to government mismanagement. In another they think that a new city built by some of our own members will devolve into a dystopia and give it no praise. This is an amazing idea and they already have land! I wish them only the best and if they need any help, my email is in my bio :)
Because, as members of this community, we're typically up to speed with the history, thought processes, beliefs, actions, etc. of the people involved in these purchases, and it sounds like, based on that understanding, many people in here don't trust the goals, vision, and/or intentions of the people behind this. Just because one might think that "SF in particular [is] crumbling due to government mismanagement" doesn't mean they should blindly go, "Oh yay, an alternative!".
Edit: I'd love to entertain ideas around how we can get cities to function differently but, I'm sorry, I don't want to hear what Marc Andreesen has to say on the subject.
'Sorry we don't like your new song, you have been designated a trespasser and fined $10,000, this decision is not subject to appeal or further inquiry.'
A city run by SV elites will be just as well run as tech companies terms of service are famous for fair dealing and customer cooperation, ie not at all.
In theory I think you are right, but I can't recall the last time I saw a busker in a private space like a mall or airport. Maybe the incentive to encourage this is just never strong enough for the owners?
While not buskers per se, a lot of private spaces hire musicians to play in their spaces to provide entertainment or background music. Many airports I've been to have someone on a piano playing in a corner
I've also seen places like trainstations where they have a licensing system. IE you audition, apply for a license and then get given a spot and a time slot when you can busk.
In fact, you can democratize it and let everybody who shows up have a vote about what they can do on your property.
Not saying they are right, just saying pleas in that manner are already falling on ears deafened to them.
https://oregonbusiness.com/rei-announces-closure-of-portland...
Jokes aside, I live near Seattle and homelessness is a problem, and tents everywhere is not a solution.
Buying 50,000 acres of land and covering it with manhattan-style skyscrapers full of condos and apartments solves that problem quite nicely.
Its even self-funding, because no matter how high a salary you pay them, they'll pay over half of it back to you. While you are making a huge profit from the sale. Its a brilliant plan, even for high-tech investors.
Source: I live here.
Wikipedia notes: "Travis Air Force Base handles more cargo and passenger traffic through its airport than any other military air terminal in the United States." So don't expect any "quiet / remote / idyllic" vibes. And a couple quick searches reveal some major soil & groundwater contamination issues at the AFB.
Well...it'll likely be interesting. The article says ~zilch about the ideals of the "SV elites" involved. And notes that they'll probably face a very long, tough slog - through skeptical locals, NIMBYs, regulations, and red tape - before they can actually build much anything.
One of my main ideas is to construct buildings as public or semi-public facilities. Another idea is to have multiple levels of infrastructure such as roadways.
I imagine something like a series of egg-shaped buildings connected by multiple levels of roads for autonomous (mostly single passenger) cars. Inside are several floors of large platforms with modular buildings stacked on them. The superstructure would not need to always provide a perfect climate inside but would aim for making things more tolerable and giving the heating or cooling of the interior modules a headstart.
The buildings could have lush internal landscaping or even some type of agriculture.
I feel like this is the model for future cities (which in my opinion, is a great thing — as long as the city pays rent to the state).
or back to the past...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3I15_KUsOzs (Merle Travis - Sixteen Tons (original version) from 1947)
Solano County is way the f&ck out. And land comes with carrying costs, i.e. property taxes. No one who wants a big, quick return on investment (looking at you, VC's) is going to buy it.
Solano County is heavily connected economically and transit wise with Contra Costa County, San Francisco County, Marin County, and Alameda County.
Most police officers, city workers, low wage service workers, construction workers, etc live in the various cities and suburbs in Solano County and commute into the East Bay, other parts of the North Bay, and San Francisco.
It's part of the Capital Corridor so it's commutable to both the Bay Area and Sacramento, the schools are decent, and the houses are nice and new.
But it will probably end up being far more like the city in Demolition Man. Bland, no surprises, no swearing, etc.
* Also Silicon valley elites - let's try our darndest to ruin the pre-existing transit friendly urbanist utopia by putting the worst politicians in power.
* Also Silicon valley elites - How dare you try to build a transit friendly urbanist utopia anywhere near where I live.
I'm jaded. Californians have done everything in their power to ruin every genuine attempt at dense-urbanism and transit friendly development.
Marc Andreessen (associated [1] with this project) had a great mask off moment [2] last year.
> Subject line: IMMENSELY AGAINST multifamily development!
> I am writing this letter to communicate our IMMENSE objection to the creation of multifamily overlay zones in Atherton … Please IMMEDIATELY REMOVE all multifamily overlay zoning projects from the Housing Element which will be submitted to the state in July. They will MASSIVELY decrease our home values, the quality of life of ourselves and our neighbors and IMMENSELY increase the noise pollution and traffic.
Thanks for supporting dense urbanism 100s of miles away from you Marc.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/25/business/land-purchases-s...
[2] https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/08/marc-andre...
SF-proper's public transit & walkability is still utopian (by US standards). If only it wasn't destroyed by the most incompetent politics on crime and drug enforcement in the entire country (and maybe world?).
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Diego_Electric_Railway
[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/LosAngeles/comments/9b0x1j/i_made_a...
There are many similar places in North America and Europe. The main differences are that they don't want to be "cities with thousands of new homes" and they usually are not owned by investors.
But... you do you, tech elite. Enjoy your utopia where gardners, housekeepers, carpenters, electricians, teachers and shopkeepers are exiled outside the city walls.
You may not owe "tech elite" better but you owe this community better if you're participating in it.