What they don't show in the concept art is the massive wall/fence they'll build around it.
Plan for 55,000-acre utopia dreamed by Silicon Valley elites unveiled
41–50 of 79 posts
Re: Plan for 55,000-acre utopia dreamed by Silicon Valley elites unveiled
#42Lol, their dream is Europe, basically. Could be a good tagline: Europe, the utopia of Silicon Valley elites
No. Europe without the taxes.
There aren't crackhead zombies shuffling through Dutch cities and the roads are immaculately paved. And that takes a ton of taxation. Utopia- or trying to get to it- takes money. And I question American elites willingness to pay for it or they would have voted for Sanders.
Re: Plan for 55,000-acre utopia dreamed by Silicon Valley elites unveiled
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
Building a city makes the land more valuable. If you tell people that you plan to invest a ton of money into the area they will include that information in their calculations when you are trying to buy their land. Some will then only sell their land for skyhigh prices, and some won’t sell at all in the hopes that they can sell it for even more once the city has been built around them. This can strangle the project in…
Yes indeed, they are being deceptive to the local community to try to rip them off.
I’m not sure that straightforward, the value of the land will only really increase if the project is somewhat successful and the landowners (not necessarily part of the “local community”) expect to be paid the already inflated price without having to take on any risk.
Both sides are just trying to maximize/minimize their gain/cost, introducing some moral angle just seems weird to me.
Especially when any attempt to significantly expand the housing supply (considering the current situation) should surely be viewed as a net positive for the society as a whole?
Re: Plan for 55,000-acre utopia dreamed by Silicon Valley elites unveiled
#44The real challenge with this is keeping the type of people out who let SF devolve into the feverish nightmare politics it's currently running on. Any progressive quality-focused community will, over time, be infiltrated by people who's only contribution is subvertering and sabotaging what has been built, usually in the name of egalitarianism or some other veil.
A 'gated community' on a much larger scale. Not open to the public. Few entrances/exits. Big walls/fences. Private security force. Residents booted out when they lose their big tech jobs.
Suddenly the utopian vision looks pretty bleak.
Re: Plan for 55,000-acre utopia dreamed by Silicon Valley elites unveiled
#45Reading the comments here and elsewhere about this project is so vindicating for me.
In cities, NIMBYs will say "why should we build anything here, just move away and build your dream city somewhere else". I knew that there was no way that "somewhere else" would welcome construction of a new city, because there's people living out in the boonies everywhere. Those people moved to the middle of nowhere because they want to be far away from others - they're the last people who'd support new construction nearby.
So here's a new city proposal, paid for by private money, that won't take away anything from anyone, and even people who live far from the area seem to oppose it, just because it changes things.
Where are people supposed to live? There are not enough homes in cities, not enough homes in suburbs, and rural areas don't want new construction either. So where are the new homes for a growing population supposed to go? Or do y'all just want to keep increasing the homeless population indefinitely?
Re: Plan for 55,000-acre utopia dreamed by Silicon Valley elites unveiled
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Building a city makes the land more valuable. If you tell people that you plan to invest a ton of money into the area they will include that information in their calculations when you are trying to buy their land. Some will then only sell their land for skyhigh prices, and some won’t sell at all in the hopes that they can sell it for even more once the city has been built around them. This can strangle the project in…
Gentrification for me but not for thee.
Well supposedly after all the rich people move into this “utopian” willing there will be more housing left for everyone else?
Re: Plan for 55,000-acre utopia dreamed by Silicon Valley elites unveiled
#47The renderings did not help me visualise the real possibility. For perspective on how big 55,000 acres is, 640 per square mile, is 86 square miles, enough land to hold the city limits of Choose 2 of 3: Paris, Barcelona, and San Francisco. Paris city limits, 2.1 million residents, 41 square miles Barcelona city limits, 1.6 million residents, 39 square miles San Francisco city, 800k residents, 47 square miles
Paris “city” is just the most heavily urbanized central core of a massive metropolitan area. The urban part of which is 1,101.7 sq mi.
I’m not sure about Barcelona but San Francisco is pretty much like Paris in that way (just way leas dense).
It’s really not a fair comparison.
Re: Plan for 55,000-acre utopia dreamed by Silicon Valley elites unveiled
#48Reading the comments here and elsewhere about this project is so vindicating for me. In cities, NIMBYs will say "why should we build anything here, just move away and build your dream city somewhere else". I knew that there was no way that "somewhere else" would welcome construction of a new city, because there's people living out in the boonies everywhere. Those people moved to the middle of nowhere because they wan…
What I don't quite get is how government of this city is being planned. Right now, it's basically Disney world, a huge privately owned development project. Will this eventually become a municipality of its own or are they planning to build a completely privately-owned city?
(Not from the US though, so I might be missing some details on how local government works in California)
Also yes, social housing, walkable neighborhoods and all that sound nice, but promises (and renderings) are cheap. It's not clear if this has any resemblance to what will actually be built.
Re: Plan for 55,000-acre utopia dreamed by Silicon Valley elites unveiled
#49The renderings did not help me visualise the real possibility. For perspective on how big 55,000 acres is, 640 per square mile, is 86 square miles, enough land to hold the city limits of Choose 2 of 3: Paris, Barcelona, and San Francisco. Paris city limits, 2.1 million residents, 41 square miles Barcelona city limits, 1.6 million residents, 39 square miles San Francisco city, 800k residents, 47 square miles
There is the old saying "for Europeans, 100 years is nothing; for Americans, 100 miles is nothing".
So I'm not sure you can compare areas with radically different density. If I got all the debates about US zoning and building sensibilities right, then it's very unlikely they'll try to build high-density apartment blocks there like in Barcelona or Paris.
Re: Plan for 55,000-acre utopia dreamed by Silicon Valley elites unveiled
#50The real challenge with this is keeping the type of people out who let SF devolve into the feverish nightmare politics it's currently running on. Any progressive quality-focused community will, over time, be infiltrated by people who's only contribution is subvertering and sabotaging what has been built, usually in the name of egalitarianism or some other veil.
A 'gated community' on a much larger scale. Not open to the public. Few entrances/exits. Big walls/fences. Private security force. Residents booted out when they lose their big tech jobs. Suddenly the utopian vision looks pretty bleak.
This is fully what I expect it to be. Peaceable by keeping out unwanted people (poor people). I don't think we have it in us as Americans to truly build a proper egalitarian society. We don't really know what that looks like. As a substitute we use whitewashing and just shuffle around the unfortunates out of sight and pretend it's been fixed. If this "city" doesn't have low income housing and community social services you'll know it for what it is.