Group Flannery Associates, backed by prominent investors, quietly buy 55,000 acres of farmland in northern California
After weeks of local speculation, the purchasers of 55,000 acres of northern California land have been revealed. The group Flannery Associates – backed by a cohort of Silicon Valley investors – has quietly purchased $800m worth of agricultural and empty land, the New York Times has reported. Their goal is to build a utopian new town that will offer its thousands of residents reliable public transportation and urban living, all of which would operate using clean energy.
That's not even limited by taxes, it's limited by 4 fucking companies owning most of the tracks, and them being given free reign to run freight as shittily as possible, not maintain the tracks unless actively forced to, and giving precisely 0 fucks about passenger service.
The US likely cannot fix its rail issue without nationalizing the rail system. As a country, it has yet to admit that there are some many problems capitalism a) does not fix and b) actively makes worse.
I fucking hate that they used the term "empty" land. The poll question posed to residents asked them if they would be more in favor if they knew it was "bad soil" that only contributed to 5% of CA agriculture, as though making money is all that land is good for.
Yes, Fairfield, CA is kind of a shit hole. But NorCal open land is absolutely beautiful, like all of California. Every single fucking time I go there, which is pretty frequently, there are new mcmansion housing developments and business parks and data centers that are starting to be built or have just finished. There are protected wetlands between Sacramento and the east bay (far east) where migratory birds come back every year. Just because they don't build on the fucking wetlands doesn't mean this constant building isn't going to affect what little nature is left. I'm so fucking sick of seeing my home paved over for profit and I feel so powerless to do anything. Because I am powerless.
As if that weren't enough, we all know this is going to be some walled-off rich-people city where they can escape from us proles, right? Sick shit.
Yep, it's a return to feudalism and vassalage. A fortress for themselves and their servants (billionaires don't do their own cooking and cleaning, they are important people afterall).
They know they need reasons for people to pledge fealty and they think public transport, apartments and clean energy is enough of a drawcard for their workers. The sad part is that they have eroded workers rights so far that they may well be right. Many other places in the world, these perks are much more normal.
If the distinguishing features are public transportation and clean energy, they’re probably not building it to live in themselves. And while there’s a big demand for more housing in the Bay Area generally, Solono County is a bit of a commute for current workers.
It feels like they’re building this as a company town for some yet-to-be-announced new business project that they want to be isolated from existing urban areas.
(edit) I guess I don’t mean "urban areas" so much as areas where employees would have contact with other Silicon Valley firms and culture.
Solano isn't any further than any other place in the bay. Generally speaking. I work in SF and live in Vallejo. Almost all of my coworkers commute just as far.
That's really not a decent excuse for making a 2+ hour commute. The insanity of the number of people living in places like Vallejo just to commute to San Francisco is staggering to me. Remote work for anyone that can do it should be the norm. The traffic in the Bay Area is back to being just downright awful. When most people were staying home it was actually nice to drive around to different places.
it's going to end up soulless and miserable, no doubt
just a series of mansions connected by roads, completely forgetting any sort of amenities or ability to produce things locally, because rich people think "mom and pop store" is when get your parents to bring things along on their private jet.
Both are correct, because there is no universal spelling standard in English.
Even if there was, it would be run by nerds and you can beat them up.
In seriousness, both are correct, but dys is more correct. Dis is the Latin prefix, dys the Greek (from the Latin, language is fun), but utopia is Greek as well.
Dis was nonetheless a common enough spelling before dys became the generally preferred.
You joke, but the towns of Portola Valley and Woodside (south of SF) are so wealthy and powerful they literally rerouted some plane routes by pulling strings of the FAA because they didn’t like the noise.
This is end game capitalism. They have their own cities with their own laws. You are essentially forced to live and work at the same place and buy your groceries and other essentials from your employees. You’re basically an indentured servant at that moment.
Actually, this is early stage capitalism. Company towns were a thing in the late 19th and early 20th century. Government eventually stepped in, broke up the trusts and made that kind of thing a relic of a worse time.
People have forgotten their past and they're now repeating it. We've been in the second Gilded age for what - 30 years now?
Child labor was just legalized in Kansas I think and it looks like some other Republican states are trying to do the same.
This is what happens when you let the foxes run the hen house.
Exactly why Amazon been taking about building such towns for its workers. I swear if the conservatives get their way and the way things are going I see them trying to find a way legalize slavery again.
Student loans, impossible mortgages, impossible rent, healthcare tied to jobs.... I get that it's not "slavery" but still... It's a little bit slavery.
Oof I didn't know about this having happened before. I was just looking at Disney building housing and I was a little annoyed they couldn't just pay their associates enough to live on, rather than this method. I hadn't considered how bad this could get.
Even if these companies don't make their own cities and impose stupid regulations against competition within their fake city, I'm really not looking forward to relying on my job for both healthcare AND housing.
Just learned about faculty housing going in at one of the CSU campuses. Of course the marketing has all been positive because housing is such a commodity near universities, and because colleges often pay their teachers shit, even with unions and decent benefits.
This is the benefit of an uneducated population. So that we all forget what things looked like before the labor organizing of the early 20th century.
Maybe it's a utopia that also has clean energy and public transportation.
Either way, I don't trust the agenda. If they're legitimately trying to help, something good might come of it, but it won't be a utopia as humans will human.
Hopefully some valuable lessons will be learned without too much suffering.
It’s like advertising running water. Utopias are supposed to be IDEAL cities. We’re talking no hunger, no disease, etc. Not just a few bus stations, something present in any major city.
Yeah I really don't understand the location. Anywhere in California is a dumb idea. They will still have to deal with wildfires, drought, earthquakes, high tax rates. Why not Idaho? It's probably even cheaper.