‘California Forever’ website touts the city tech billionaires are trying to build

Flannery Associates, the company behind the land grab near San Francisco that turned out to be a secret plot to build a city with hundreds of millions in funding from wealthy tech leaders, has revealed a website for the planned city. California Forever is the name of Flannery’s parent company, and their site is filled with sunny photographs of a walkable, green city by the bay.

The text lays out what polls say residents want (good local jobs, walkability, safety, etc.) and then makes vague promises not to ruin nearby agriculture and create solar farms. At the bottom, the site promises walkable neighborhoods and “help solve” infrastructure problems and “protect and support” nearby Travis Air Force Base.

Former Goldman Sachs trader Jan Sramek, who founded Flannery Associates, first Patrick Collison, CEO of Stripe, convinced to invest, then others, including LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, writes The New York Times. Little by little, they secretly acquired more than 50,000 acres around an Air Force base in Solano County, which the Times Notes is the poorest in the region.

Solano County Administrator Bill Emlen he said the company told him they were investing in family farms and planned to “continue herding and farming,” according to He San Francisco Chronicle. “Our policies have been that large-scale residential development takes place in cities,” he said.

He Times writes that California State Senator Bill Dodd, who was approached by Sramek and a political consultant to apologize, said he thought the group had “got off to a bad start” if it wanted to build a new city, the report reported. Times.

On the website, images of the theoretical city, which are almost certainly AI-generated (look at the sunset against a mountain), show a sunny, green city nestled among hills, farms, and windmills. The text describes a walkable city with solar farms, open land, and “well-paying local jobs.” The company even says it is “also interested” in finding ways to support homeownership through down payment assistance.

Otherwise, the website is pretty light on details about the city itself, with no details about the population, its size, or how it will be supported. The included FAQs address potential concerns by vaguely noting things like the need to improve the North Bay Aqueduct. There is also a significant portion of the site dedicated to California Forever’s plans to convince locals to join polls and a local advisory council.