Episode Summary
Executive Summary: The episode examines California Forever’s proposed new city in Solano County, focusing on why the project is located there, why it is being built as a brand-new city instead of infill or a smaller edge expansion, and why its backers believe large-scale master planning is necessary to create a genuinely walkable, job-rich community. The conversation also addresses controversy over billionaire ownership, land assembly, water, fire risk, and the project’s unusually dense urban design.
Main Topics: Why build a new city instead of infill (Priority: 5/5): Stromek argues that infill is essential but insufficient to solve California’s housing shortage at the required scale, citing persistent shortages, slow production, and the fact that most U.S. housing growth is still greenfield development. Why Solano County and this specific site (Priority: 5/5): He explains that the site sits in a historically planned growth corridor between the Bay Area and Sacramento, has favorable geography, lower fire risk, and is suitable for large-scale development according to decades-old regional planning studies. Master planning and scale as the business model (Priority: 5/5): The project’s huge scale is framed as the only way to front-load amenities, subsidize early retail/transit/schools, and internalize long-term benefits that smaller developments cannot capture. Response to controversy and billionaire ownership (Priority: 4/5): The discussion tackles suspicion about stealth land purchases, fears of land speculation, and concerns that billionaire investors or developers would abandon the project after extracting value. Urban design vision and density (Priority: 5/5): Stromek outlines a highly structured urban form: a dense grid, superblocks, woonerfs, movement streets, neighborhood schools, and retail-centered districts designed to be walkable and child-friendly. Water, fire, climate, and infrastructure resilience (Priority: 4/5): He claims the project has secured water supplies, sits outside the highest wildfire-risk zones, and can be designed for resilience to sea-level rise and seismic constraints.
Key Arguments: Infill alone cannot solve California’s housing crisis at the scale needed; even recent housing reforms have not reversed rising prices or the multi-million-unit shortage. Greenfield development is already happening, so the question is not whether to build on undeveloped land, but whether to make such development denser, walkable, and more efficient. Large scale is necessary to subsidize early-stage amenities and avoid the chicken-and-egg problem where housing, jobs, retail, transit, and schools each depend on the others. A master developer that owns much of the project can capture the upside of parks, transit, and public realm investments, reducing underinvestment in shared goods. A jobs guarantee and minimum-density commitments are intended to prevent the project from becoming another suburban subdivision and to align homebuilding with job creation. The chosen site is defended as the best available location based on historic regional planning, low ecological value farmland, relative safety from wildfire, and access to both Bay Area and Sacramento networks. The project’s financing by long-horizon wealthy investors is presented as preferable to short-term capital, because it allows patient investment and lowers pressure to cut corners or flip the land. The urban design aims to create a top-tier walkable city by combining a tight grid, superblocks, slow streets, frequent transit corridors, and neighborhood-scale schools and retail.
Data Points: Planned population: 400,000 residents - Full build-out of the proposed city over 40 years Project land area: 70,000 acres - Land owned by California Forever subject to labor agreements Land acquisition scale: about 174,000 homes - Entitlement target mentioned for the next 40 years California housing shortage: 3 million units - Estimated statewide missing housing supply Current California production rate: 50,000 homes/year - Rate after deducting ADUs County commuting rate: 68% - Solano County residents commuting out for work Land developed in Solano County over 40 years: 20,000 acres - Historical development figure cited in county Prime farmland converted in Solano County: 11,000 acres - Portion of historical development on productive farmland Average land sale premium: 4x market value - Claim about compensation to land sellers Projected density ranking: Between Boston and San Francisco overall - Full-city density claim Minimum density: 20 units/acre in most of the project; 30 units/acre downtown - Minimum-density zoning standard, framed as affordable by design Grid dimensions: About 7 miles east-west and 4 miles north-south - Approximate city footprint Neighborhood unit size: 16 blocks per superblock; 32 blocks per half-mile by half-mile area - Nested urban structure described in the design Transit access: At most 5–10 minutes to a transit stop - Claim based on half-mile corridor spacing Water recycling rate: About 70% - Infrastructure sustainability estimate Elevations: About 20 to 160 feet above sea level - Topographic range of the site Sea-level rise scenario: Through 2150 - Flood-risk analysis cited by Stromek Wildfire history: No master-planned community in California built in the last 20 years has burned - Claim used to argue fire resilience Historical planning date: 1958 - Federal/regional plans identified the area for new cities
Pivotal Quotes: "Can we make it better? Can we make it walkable?" — Jan Stromek: Explaining why greenfield development should be redesigned rather than avoided "The laying down of the street grid is the most profound decision that you make in the city." — Jan Stromek: Describing the foundational importance of urban form over architecture "We are the only project I'm aware of in America on a greenfield that has agreed not to a maximum density, but to a minimum density." — Jan Stromek: Discussing the project’s anti-suburban safeguard
Implications: If built as described, the project could become a high-profile test case for dense greenfield urbanism, patient-capital development, and integrated housing-job planning. If it fails, it may deepen skepticism toward billionaire-led place-making and large master-planned cities.