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.
Oh god… Its an epidemic!!!
Do you have a source? I looked it up just in case it was a regional or outdated spelling, but all I could find was “Dustopia”, the original spelling of “dystopia”, first appeared in Lewis Henry Younge’s Utopia: or Apollo’s Golden Days in 1747.
They could just pay their fucking taxes so we can have trains
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
somemany 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.
5% of California’s agriculture isn’t “bad soil.”
They’re building more data centres and California has a water shortage?
The American Dream was get married and have a job, buy a house, have a family, and retire.
Now it is to be so rich and wealthy that you don’t have to care about anyone else.
Now it is to be so rich and wealthy that you don’t have to care about anyone else.
That has always been part of the dream. It’s just you can only get there if you were born on third base now.
They misspelt distopian.
You also misspelt dystopian.
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.
In spanish we use “dis”
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.
- City built by tech bros
- Utopian
Pick one.
Encircles an air force base. Why would anyone want to live encircling an air force base?
I bet they’ll act like people who move next to a farm and complain about the smell.
“Hiiii, we’re your neighbors down the road. Do you think you could not fly your little airplanes around? They’re awfully loud. Thanks bunches!”
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.
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They will all serve and work for the military.
Military based economy.
More pro-war people, proxy wars for everyone.
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.
Well yes but you’re an indentured servant in a utopia.
Just a bunch of rich fucks trying to con other rich fucks and hope to leave whoever is holding their junk bonds in the lurch.
Night city didn’t work out so great in Cyberpunk 2077
Can’t wait to owe my soul to the company store
Might as well call it Night City from Cyberpunk 2077.
Every generation gets the Galt’s Gulch it deserves
There has to be more to this story…
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.
I mean there is this:
“ The land bought by the firm encircles Travis air force base in Fairfield, a city of about 120,000 residents and home to the Anheuser-Busch Co brewery and the Jelly Belly jelly bean factory.”
