Amid the Bay Area’s dire need for more housing, California Forever has set out a bold vision for a new city in east Solano County on 17,500 acres of mostly farmland. But the company, backed by various Silicon Valley billionaires, has so far struggled to garner enough local support. In July, California Forever scrapped plans to ask for voter approval for the project on this November’s ballot, but said it plans to try again in 2026. Many county officials and nearby residents oppose the project, while others want more information about how it would impact their communities. We’ll talk about the state of California Forever’s plans and what could happen next.

Guests:

Adhiti Bandlamud, housing reporter, KQED

J.K. Dineen, Bay Area housing reporter, San Francisco Chronicle

Jan Sramek, founder and CEO, California Forever

Marc Weiss, chairman and CEO, Global Urban Development - a nonprofit organization focused on sustainable economic growth and urban development strategies. He is also a visiting professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of California, Berkeley

Check out our last LinkedIn Live with B H Bronson Johnson, our Head of Infrastructure, and Uri Eliahu, GE, President of ENGEO, an engineering and environmental consultancy firm with offices across California.

Uri is a registered Geotechnical Engineer and Civil Engineer in California with many decades of experience working on a wide range of projects. We look forward to discussing what we’re hoping to achieve and explore how we can collectively ignite positive change across California.

If you’d like to learn more about what we’re building, listen to this podcast between Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn, and Jan Sramek, our Founder & CEO, where they discuss creating economic opportunity, the importance of local jobs, common misconceptions, what we learned from past projects, and more.