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.
Where do you get the impression this is built “for the ultra-rich”? Why would they be taking public transport over their personal jets and private cars? Why would they live in an urban area with tens of thousands of other residents instead of their personal mansions on acreage? This is definitely an investment for upper-middle to upper class residents.
As for farmland, article itself says “bad soil that only contributes 5% of the county’s agricultural production”. When you need housing, housing needs to go somewhere.
Your government isn’t going to build the cities the climate needs, if tech investors want to with their own cash I say go for it.
While I don’t fully disagree with you, these towns being funded by the ultra-rich, usually by people who already have shady business practices, are looking awfully like company towns. Amazon’s already trying to build company-provided housing near a lot of their hubs, which is bad in that now your healthcare AND your shelter are directly tied to your employment. Imagine if they get their way with building a whole micro-city that runs on that idea - where every last bit of wealth an employee might spend goes STRAIGHT back to your company. Their utilities get dealt with by Amazon-built power and water plants. Their food is provided by Amazon grocery stores or deliveries. Your healthcare is provided by Amazon, and your housing is at the whim of your employer. All of this is provided at jacked-up prices, of course, so you’re effectively just a debt slave until you die or the company decides to kick you to the curb.
I get that impression from this little thing called the title of the post
Right, why think critically and make an intelligent argument when you can just hand-wave “history” lol
Said the guy who hears “wealthy consortium of capitalists” and thinks “wow save me daddies,” lul.
