The cohort of Silicon Valley tech titans who hoovered up Bay Area farmland in hopes of converting it into a new city have been accused of deploying « strong-arm tactics » and a « divide and conquer » strategy to swallow up as many people as possible. as much surface area as possible. A number of local farmers say Flannery Associates, the parent company behind the quixotic California Forever project, has used underhanded tactics in its quest for regional real estate hegemony. The allegations were disclosed in a recent court filing linked to a lawsuit involving land disputes.
In August, the New York Times reported that Flannery, then a completely mysterious company, had managed to purchase $800 million worth of farmland in the Solano County area. The Times also revealed that Flannery was backed by a coterie of influential Silicon Valley billionaires, including the likes of Marc Andreessen, Reid Hoffman and various other big names in the tech industry. Flannery’s grand plan, it was revealed, was to use the land he had purchased to create a new utopian city, which Flannery’s cohort calls « California Forever. » This so-called city is purely hypothetical for now, but its supporters say it could one day become a beautiful and bustling city of the future.
Of course, the first step to building this new libertarian wonderland was to buy as much land as possible, and to do that, Flannery had to buy out the people already living there. For the most part, the people already living there were long-time family farm operators.
In some cases, negotiations between the company’s lawyers and potential sellers did not go as Flannery wanted, and in May the company sued a number of farmers, claiming they were engaging in anti-competitive practices and price fixing. Farmers, in turn, have accused the billionaire-backed company of trying to intimidate and manipulate them and their families into selling their land. In the recent court filing, the farmers rejected the lawsuit’s allegations, alleging that Flannery repeatedly engaged in « strong-arm tactics » in an attempt to vacate the land.
Such tactics allegedly included attempts to « play one family against another by misrepresenting the families’ intentions regarding Flannery’s offers, in the hope that families otherwise reluctant to sell would feel pressure not to disappoint their friend. » and neighbor,” the filing states. In one specific case, the farmers say Flannery approached a family member, acquired from them an eighth of a large plot of family land, then pursued the other seven family members in an attempt to acquire the entire the parcel.
On his websiteCalifornia Forever has denied the accusation that it acted in any untoward way, instead calling the farmers in question « a small group of individuals (who) have engaged in a targeted campaign to smear Flannery Associates » and who are engaged in nefarious activity” secret conspiracy.
Generally speaking, it seems very difficult to imagine that this project could ever come to fruition. Even if Flannery somehow manages to work things out with the locals, the project still needs to clarify a number of state controls and regional regulatory barriers. These obstacles seem dubious, as many local politicians expressed doubts on the viability of the project. If those the obstacles, in one way or another, are overcome, the project’s funders must then actually build the majestic metropolis that developers envision. After that, people must move there and the city must maintain a certain level of population density for the foreseeable future. Then the city’s creators have to actually run the city…you know, forever.
This raises a lot of questions. For example, will California Forever have a government? If so, what type of government will it be? Or will it just be some sort of series of company-owned planned communities, sort of like an expanded version of Disney’s Storyliving? This all sounds like a giant, expensive boondoggle that’s doomed to failure, but I guess we should never overlook the disruptive potential of a tech mogul’s unquenchable hubris.