Tech Billionaires' Quest to Build a New City in California Is Already Mired in Trouble
(gizmodo.com)
from L4s@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world on 02 Nov 2023 20:00
https://lemmy.world/post/7700049
from L4s@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world on 02 Nov 2023 20:00
https://lemmy.world/post/7700049
Tech Billionaires’ Quest to Build a New City in California Is Already Mired in Trouble::A legal battle is already brewing over a quixotic attempt to build a new city on Bay Area farmland.
threaded - newest
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The cohort of Silicon Valley tech titans who have been hoovering up Bay Area farmland in the hopes of converting it into a new city have been accused of deploying “strong-arm tactics” and a “divide-and-conquer” strategy to gobble up as much acreage as possible.
A number of local farmers say Flannery Associates, the parent company behind the quixotic California Forever project, has used underhanded tactics in its pursuit of a regional real estate hegemony.
In August, the New York Times reported that Flannery, which was then a totally mysterious company, had managed to buy up $800 million of farmland in the Solano County region.
The Times also revealed that Flannery was backed by a coterie of influential Silicon Valley billionaires, including folks like Marc Andreessen, Reid Hoffman, and a variety of other big names in the tech industry.
In the recent court filing, the farmers dismissed the lawsuit’s claims, alleging that Flannery had repeatedly engaged in “strong-arm tactics” in an effort to pry loose the land.
The whole thing seems like a giant expensive mess that is doomed to fail but I guess you should never count out the disruptive potential of a tech mogul’s unquenchable hubris.
The original article contains 685 words, the summary contains 197 words. Saved 71%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
I say let them do it. But only them, nobody that isn’t a tech billionaire is allowed in at any time for any reason.
That would be so interesting. They’d have to automate almost everything.
Can they not be allowed to leave as well? I’d enjoy watching that petri dish. A billion dollars doesn’t mean much without disparity.
Oh yeah, make them stay forever in there.
They’d be screwed the first time they needed a sink unclogged or a tire changed. Assuming they even got as far as building structures that didn’t collapse immediately.
It would go bad way before that. These people wouldn’t clean up after themselves.
They’d certainly think it’s possible. Like a game of Factorio. But what they wouldn’t consider is that the protagonist in that game is fully capable of doing all the work by hand.
I recall county officials raised concerns as to whether they had the ability to support a new city’s needs for water, electricity, and sewage.
They don’t.
Already a high-population water stressed state with rolling brownouts. Don’t need some high-tech pseudo paradise with huge homes needing extra energy and water.