From the moment I heard about the tech billionaire, A bizarre plan to create a bustling new city In the heart of Solano County, California, I was preoccupied with one basic question. Who will actually run this business?
The libertarian dream of building a new community from scratch is all well and good, but at the end of the day, running a municipality of any real size without a team of boring and dysfunctional bureaucrats deciding local zoning laws is all well and good. I can not do it. and how tax money is used. Sure, bulldozers and construction workers could hypothetically build lots of new buildings, but who is actually in charge once a city is built?
In its early days, California Forever made it known that it had some pretty radical ideas about how cities should be run.The developer accidentally revealed what he wanted to do. Funding the community entirely through the private sector And that the entire urban project was more or less seen as a business opportunity. From these statements, it didn't seem out of the realm of possibility that the city could become a horrifying dystopian version. disney story livingThere, the company has virtually all the decision-making power, and the residents are just passive prisoners inside its overly high walls. The question of how to run the city remained unresolved, and there were many unappealing answers.
But now this all-important question appears to have been answered. California Forever's new city has no local government at all. Instead, the developers plan to keep the new urban hub as an unincorporated area, leaving governance to the existing county government that already manages the area.in recent interviews In collaboration with YIMBY (“Yes In My Backyard”), an online outlet that promotes development in the Bay Area, Gabriel Metcalfe, director of planning for California Forever, announced that local governments regulating activities within city limits The local government has made it clear that it does not exist.
Inbee: Does that mean that there is no local government other than the county government that runs this city?
Gabriel Metcalfe: Yes, our intention is to remain in the unincorporated part of Solano County. Therefore, the political entity with jurisdiction is the county board of supervisors. We work very closely with the county, providing police, fire, all kinds of services, and working with them on economic development projects. We look forward to becoming a very close partner.
This is interesting, but not unprecedented.There are many unincorporated territories throughout the United States, many of which are small and poor communityalthough there are many that are large and thriving; metropolitan area They are unincorporated and, like California Forever's virtual cities, rely on county government regulation.
But if there is any precedent for a proposed new city government structure, there will be many questions about how the project will work in practice. How would the existing bureaucracy fare if the Solano County government was suddenly given enormous new responsibilities and had to help regulate every part of the blossoming (and likely chaotic) city-building process? Will we address that? And as cities grow and their populations increase, won't county resources become scarcer, especially those related to essential services like police and firefighters?
In an interview with YIMBY, Metcalf revealed another interesting aspect of the project. That means residents of the new city (and Solano County as a whole) won't have much say in their new community. He was asked about how county voters can maintain some kind of “checks and balances” on new development, which is expected to take 40 years to reach substantial maturity. Mr Metcalf responded:
There are two main ways Solano County voters can maintain democratic oversight. One is the terms of the voter initiative itself, which are legally binding. These were developed through intense consultation with people and elected leaders across the county. This includes funding commitments, zoning envelopes, and development footprints. In other words, everything is fixed by the vote of the people.
In other words, whatever is in it, ballot initiative (Which way will voters vote in November?) That will happen. But Metcalf went on to say:
The second main way in which the voters being counted exercise their control is through the terms of development agreements. After our process and voter initiative, we will prepare a complete EIR (Environmental Impact Report) and negotiate a development agreement with the County Board of Supervisors. A development agreement is a voluntary agreement in which both parties can agree to what they choose.
In other words, the mechanisms for resident input are limited. If county residents vote for the development, they get everything on the ballot initiative. Meanwhile, a development agreement is expected to be quickly concluded between the county board of supervisors and the company.
This article was originally published on Gizmodo.
