The once-secretive plan for a startup new community in Solano County, Northern California, is beginning to materialize as the company known as California Forever has begun publicizing details for their proposed development ahead of a potential November vote to determine its future.
Details made public with the start of a requisite petition drive showed a preliminary map, renderings, and area plan for the project, which would notably be the first large-scale demonstration of the "walkable city" concept designed entirely from scratch in North America.
Billed as a future "amazing success story" by the company’s founder Jan Sramek, the development intends to construct some 20,000 new affordable residences plus a solar farm and network of public parks before 2040. The plan reportedly allows for further growth to support a population of up to 400,000. As the announcement post notes, much of the preliminary proposal is focused on creating missing middle housing with ADUs to be included "wherever the owner wants." Initial phases of construction have been estimated to cost around $800 million.
The New York Times went behind the scenes of the scrutinized land grab that took place in the months leading up to its revelation this past fall, while local outlets focused on the combative neighbors still resisting the idea of transforming more than 16,000 acres of prime agricultural land into a new peri-urban community that resembles parts of nearby Sacramento or Alameda county.
The plan is being advanced by a group of international financiers apparently fed up with housing and zoning policies and so alarmed at the rates of homelessness and other forms of poverty in the state that they are indentured to create their own self-designed answer underpinned by the careful study of advanced theories about city planning and urban policy from Ebenezer Howard, Leon Krier, and others. Their vision has antecedents in contemporary China and evokes the same scope and social tenor of the BIG-designed Telosa desert city proposed by billionaire Marc Lore in September of 2021.
“It’s medium density,” Gabriel Metcalf, California Forever's Berkeley-trained head of planning, described to Politico. “It’s not traditional suburbia, it’s not Manhattan, it’s in the middle.”
The initial infrastructure could be in place by the end of 2026, according to their reporting. The urban design for the plan is being done by San Francisco-based studio SITELAB, while its landscape program is undertaken by CMG. Fehr & Peers will provide the transportation strategy.
Backers now have until early April to accumulate 13,000 signatures before county officials decide whether or not it will be put up for a vote this fall.
12 Comments
That last (map) image is the only one conveying any useful information.
Arrrrrrr.
California Forever has a smaller-scale precedent.
McUrbanist planners are returning to machine age city grid city planning. But it seems like a Disneyland version of 1920s city. Sans any lessons learned from their collapse.
Of course putting ADUs in a new development is absurd. What they should be doing is developing modern two story user-owned housing prototypes with shaded walkable corridors to a city square, school, church, etc. That could serve as a model for all of California.
After reading the NY times article and this announcement it is hard to say anything intelligent still. A lot is still left unsaid. Based on the renders it is very similar to a lot of recent planning built around walkable neighborhoods.
On the other hand the rhetoric suggests the plans will include regulations that allow for a fair amount of owner-driven decisions, more like Japan than say whatever Google was thinking of with their plans in San Jose (now cancelled). That approach could lead to the images in the renders, but I'm not sure how exactly. When libertarian parametric zoning (like in Japan) is used the outcome can be a cacophony. Pleasant, but not always chill.
It reminds me of other recent plans in Europe that feature a collection of best urban planning practices, like the Oberbillwerder masterplan in Hamburg by Adept, which has a lot of very awesome pieces in it. Top-down, but still cool. Also more radical than the Americans are probably willing to try...
Curious to know how this will end up...
Is the City of Hamburg the client? If so, I assume they'll have a significant role in oversight and financing. You'll also see a major difference between Germany (Europe) and the US.
I'm intrigued by their description of the architecture as "anti-iconic." I don't know what that means, but it makes me smile.
yes its an extension to hamburg. As far as I know it is the city running the show, or at least a main player. Its definitely a different model than the USA where government is captured by developers more. In this case the planning is built up around the mega-block typology of Barcelona, where cars are split out of the interior blocks with a Mobility Hub. Whether this ends up being like Freiburg, a self-selecting community of urban experimenters or not it up for grabs, but the scale is significant. The project in the USA is very banal by comparison and does not try to do very much beyond focusing on the missing middle. It's not particularly interesting except for the libertarian part of the equation (which I am pretty comfortably willing to bet will be lost in practice)
Doesn't suck as bad as I thought it would, but one would expect something a bit more cutting edge from SILICON VALLEY. Perhaps not, its all about square footage and money. On the other hand, why aren't there more public parks here, seems like the open space is all on the outside.
Sramek said he grew up in a walkable, blue-collar town in the Czech Republic and that it had always been his dream to recreate that in the US, according to Thompson.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12470601/California-Forever-utopian-city-solano-san-francisco.html
I don't know if the developers see this as a company town, but I don't see what else it could be, and the precedent isn't good. I also question how well international financiers—outsiders, who look first to shareholders and the bottom line—will consider the interests of the residents.
Over a third of the site is zoned for technology and industry. Presumably the billionaires can line up the industries, presumably they and their workers will be attracted by the town and presumably affordable housing. The town will be utterly dependent on those industries. But industry changes quickly now, firms come and go. Technology is especially iffy. Most start-ups fail. Will the town be able to withstand volatility, which has become a fact of economic life?
The town is a good 40-60 miles from anywhere, Silicon Valley, SF, Sacramento. Many are making that commute now. Will the town become a bedroom community, in fact will have to in order to survive? If so, what will that do to housing costs? Or will the industries decide who gets to live there and try to keep residents local? If so, on what terms? With what result?
The strength of Silicon Valley lies in its closeness to schools, its highly skilled and flexible workforce, the number and variety of its industries and technology, along with its rich varied culture to engage. One firm can take the place of another; workers can change jobs if one goes under. This town provides none of these and won't be able to create them.
Not broached, who will make the final design, who will run the town, how well it will represent the needs and wishes of the residents.
For your listening pleasure:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRh0QiXyZSk
The 18,600 acres proposed for development is a relatively small portion of the more than 50,000 acres assembled by California Forever. The land is not prime agricultural land. The California Department of Conservation identifies the land as "grazing land" ArcGIS Enterprise - CaliforniaImportantFarmland_mostrecent.
Think global-act local ??? using the finest farmland on the planet for a new low-rise city in Northern California is colossal idiocy. Over 1,000 square miles of nearby Silicon Valley is under 3 stories - Build there !
NY TIMES article points out this is NOT the best farmland. It is the cheapest and most marginal in the area. But you are not wrong about the reality of under-building in silicon valley. The reason is that it is very hard to build anything anywhere in California. Hence this proposal, to make construction faster, less burdened by bureaucracy, and more flexible. At least that is what I am taking from all the hoopla that is coming from the story so far. The correct answer is to change regulations in the state so intensification could happen everywhere. YIMBY is on the rise, and maybe this entire development will lose its reason for existence entirely before any of it is every built. THAT would be ironic.
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