"California Forever" is a pet project of some Silicon Valley billionaires to build "a new walkable city of 50,000 people" on a traunch of agricultural land in Solano County, located in the northeastern region of the San Francisco Bay. While there is no shortage of billionaires in California, water rights (amongst other things) are essential, and these guys seem to have none.
California Forever is starting a PR campaign and opening up offices to sell the idea to people who already live in the region's established cities of allowing them to go forward. I am entertained by the idea that "walkability" is what these Solanao residents are looking for, rather than access to the former cattle and grazing land the company has taken away from them. Disrupting the economy rarely ingratiates one with the locals. CF will be dead without locals voting to allow this farmland to be used to build another city.
"I know that there's been a sense of mystery about it going back a number of years and a lot of people still have questions," said Sramek. "And so that's what it's for, to come in and get your questions answered. Hear more about the project here, about why we believe that this would be a really good thing for all of Solano County."
Inside the offices are posters of renderings of what the city could look like – people fishing, riding bikes, and lots of walking. Sramek told the I-Team in September, the city's affordability and walkability will make it stand out.
"Many cities in California are not walkable and there's a lot of people that really like that lifestyle," Sramek told ABC7's Stephanie Sierra.
There is no power, water, or waste infrastructure. No public transit. No schools. No fire or police. This is a major undertaking to build a new city where there are plenty of existing ones. I would not want to move to a community where the developers forgot to secure water rights before buying the land, that kind of attention to detail signals disasters to come.
