When was the last time we built a new city?

As a self-identified pro-housing (ie, YIMBY) advocate, I am not opposed to the California Forever plan. However, I very much doubt that it will end up being the type of community they are claiming it will be. I expect it will end up being another exurban car-centric community as it's still very far from the major job markets of the core SF Bay Area.

Given the location, I expect most potential residents would prefer to live in a community more like Mountain House, CA (with relatively larger private living space with a few schools and a single strip mall shopping center) than to live in a community with homes built like Noe Valley in SF but without all the benefits of urban amenities that come with living in SF because those benefits are endogenous to the urban economics of a place like SF.

edit to everyone talking about how the backers have the influence to attract tech jobs to their new city. Great, but even if that's the case ... a community like this can't be maintained by people who work in tech alone. It's going to require service workers who will need to live somewhere and while it's nice that the houses in this new city will cost less ($400k to $600k), the more affordable housing stock for service workers will mostly be found in the nearby (yet still to far for public transit so they will need cars) communities of vallejo, fairfield, antioch, stockton, etc. I have yet to read anything about how they plan to fund any subsidized housing in the community (this article only mentions subsidizing businesses). As a Georgist, I know they _could_ do it by establishing something like a community facilities district with much higher taxes on land, but as this project is fundamentally a speculative land investment for its backers I doubt they'd be interested in that.

> And then imagine that you can buy — hopefully you can buy — an apartment in the $400,000 range, or a nice house for $600,000. Those figures are a little bit up in the air, but it will definitely be more affordable.

These... are still relatively unaffordable housing prices.

Have they talked about how local laws and elections will work? The backers are putting up a ton of capital and boot strapping it with $1B+ in community benefits and housing subsidies.

When it starts being populated, is it going to be run like a company town[0] where they control the stores and restaurants? How much control will they have over local elections?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town

USA should continue its manifest destiny, build a new artificial island off the coast of California or in the Gulf of Mexico, found an entire new state with a city designed for the modern era for the ground up.

cf Jane Jacobs on cities.

Just like you don't build a company and then look for a product, but instead start with a product and then build a company, she says you start with an economy and then grow a city, not grow a city and then look for an economy.

(looks like Solano is in the Bay Area's CSA, but still, after a bad experience I now have a firm rule: never live or work in a city that's younger than you are)

Think most of the smaller cities in the burbs either get collected into the county with the big cities. So they hardly ever grow into a bigger city. My small town is 1 block, its now 3, and even got a dollar general. TV/Internet and Cell service is provided by 1 tower for everyone. It wont ever be a city. Rural areas have a limited population to grow.

I seen a few people on yt buy remote land and try to make a small town, but you need enough people to incorporate and build a town before it could ever be built into a city. Unless some new resource is needed and a town/city pops up for workers.

The town of Paradise, CA is being rebuilt, after 90% of buildings were destroyed in the fire. There is infrastructure (roads, power, water), but all residential, commerical, and things like doctors are all being recreated and reassessed. It's interesting seeing how things shape up, but it's still a chicken-and-egg problem. A couple new grocery stores are going in, some other services.

Worthless softball interview. Some actual questions that people should ask if they can get this organization in the room: why do they keep saying they are building a city for 400k when an outcome equally compatible with their proposed zoning and design rules is 8 miles of strip malls between Rio Vista and Fairfield? There isn't anything in here that even hints at residential capacity of 400k. The zoned density that covers most of the site is 20 dwellings per gross acre, which is basically zero, and their circulation plan envisions some ludicrous stroads as much as 325 feet wide, which are clearly intended to accommodate car-based travel to the large-format retail and distribution centers that are permitted in all of their zones.

the problem with new cities is that it's nearly impossible to build new airports anymore

Many things backed by Silicon Valley cofounders seem to be fairly neoliberal (not a criticism, an observation.) But a new city built on the concepts of Barcelona-style streets, neighbourhoods, etc and providing affordable housing seems very public-interest. I love it.

Building a city seems very... central planned. Normally these things should grow organically. Unless maybe you're in China or North Korea.

They talk about building “a new city” like it’s going to be Dubai but really it’s going to be more like Celebration, Florida.

This is really big thinking. Good for them. I'm excited to see them make it happen!