Billionaire Backed ‘California Forever’ Wants to Build a Manufacturing Town
https://www.kqed.org/news/12048321/california-forever-wants-to-build-a-manufacturing-town
Billionaire Backed ‘California Forever’ Wants to Build a Manufacturing Town
https://www.kqed.org/news/12048321/california-forever-wants-to-build-a-manufacturing-town
29 Comments
> Last year, officials from California Forever pulled an initiative from the ballot box to build a city from scratch in Solano County. Now, it’s back with a plan to build something else there, too: the **largest site for advanced manufacturing in North America.**
> The proposed **2,100-acre site, called the “Solano Foundry,”** would be located within the mega-development the company is pursuing in southeast Solano County. It includes dedicated manufacturing space for companies focused on robotics, logistics, energy, aerospace and defense, among other fields.
> Andreas Lieber, the Foundry’s general manager, said the proposal solves several problems plaguing Silicon Valley — and the United States — right now: **a shrinking middle class and a dependence on other countries to build things, among other issues.**
> “You cannot really operate as a country if you’re only doing service jobs and basically outsource your middle class,” he said. “And then you’re not building anything anymore.”
> The Foundry would be located just seven miles away and includes space for companies working on advanced transportation systems and supply chain technology, which officials say could help support shipbuilding. The white paper projected **the Foundry could produce about 40,000 jobs** — and even more with shipbuilding — adding billions of dollars to the county’s economy.
> That’s a significant increase from the 15,000 jobs the company proposed last year, when it announced 12 start-ups would open in its proposed city. The Foundry would be built next to homes, in an area that has been designated for industrial space, according to previous maps the company released. California Forever will work with commercial real estate broker JLL to lease space on the site.
of course they do. When there’s a government handout, get in line!
Sounds about right, except they’re leaving out the part where the people who do the manufacturing live elsewhere.
Curtis Yarvins future for us all, ruled by tech ceo’s living in corporate cities. Fuck oligarchs
“Billionaire suggests idea for dystopian society. This time, it’s to Make America Company Towns Again.”
They really all do want their own cities.
If we don’t get serious regulations we really are going to be living in cyberpunk
With no unions
No regulations
No Osha
No protections at all
Sounds great
Begin by getting people to move there to get everything up and running. Then once the factories are fully automated, you jack up all the rents so the residents will have to move to another new city where they will find work in getting it up and running.
Perhaps we are still nomads, but over the course of generations.
Corporate branded modern facilities flanked by slums, sounds like a first world dystopian hellscape to me.
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Well that doesn’t scream USSR or Communist China or anything. /s
Wait, is this not what they do in Asian countries, and the workers live there and work untold crazy amount of hours with little pay?
Dude, many in this country cant even handle a 20 hour week, good luck staffing this. Of course it might not matter either work or starve as these types of people are connected to politicians so they would get their way.
Didn’t we already try this before in the Gilded Age and realized it was a bad idea?
Company towns, not a new thing. This network state shit though, propagated by Balaji Srinivasan and the like, is.
I’m confused why this would require building an entire town. This is not exactly in the middle of nowhere. Why not just locate your campus in such a way that you can have station(s) serviced by existing trains? And a road for people who prefer to drive? And campus circulator busses so people can get around campus without having to find a new parking spot all the time?
Surely that would be way less work.
edit: I don’t know if there are nearby regional bike trails, but that’s an option too
Can we stop making the future Octavia Butler warned us about?
Cyberpunk once again proven to be the most relevant genre of fiction in present times. And it won’t stay fiction for long if we continue down this path.
Company towns are the reason you can own your own “abandoned” town if you have the money to buy one. It’ll dry up when the reason it was built in the first place dries up.
I do like the idea of more American manufacturing jobs, though. Maybe part of it will be solved by addressing the reasons so many of them went overseas if that can be addressed in a smart way. And I mean “reasons,” plural, and not all of them are going to be solved with higher tariffs, just saying.
So story goes: Manufacturing town -> “We can pay you X% more if you take CompanyCoin!” -> Robotic automation decimates jobs -> “That’s definitely a tough spot! Luckily for you we offer loans!”
No fucking shit. You don’t say they want to make a company town you’re kidding whoever could have foresaw this
Haha…. This is so good. Thankfully a carpet bagging billionaire has cracked the feudal nut and brought to us the serfdom we’ve been yearning for.
Tell you what… you first.
So fucking slow thinking ( like a ca foxcon is some fucking epiphany)
lol hiring in cheap labor I’m sure. This is why America outsources everything manufacturing.
We already did company towns. Let’s no go backwards
A company town like the old coal mines.
What was wrong with a middle class? I really miss it.
We are bringing back the *company town* but pretending it’s a new idea?
Like Pullman, Illinois and Lowell, Massachusetts. But like, with new tech.
Yes. The billionaires want a little town for themselves.
No Epstein flight logs if the children just get sent to your office nearby.
What happens if you only teach the Henry Ford version of the American Dream.