SPECIAL | Can a new dream city solve California’s affordable housing problem?
The Excerpt
USA TODAY
4.1 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 25 April 2024
⏱️ 13 minutes
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Summary
For the past five years, a small group of Silicon Valley investors has spent nearly a billion dollars quietly buying up over 50,000 acres of farmland in northern California. The goal? To create an ambitious new California dream city, something that hasn’t been done in America for over a century. The California Forever project aims to create a livable, workable, walkable city that puts working families at the heart of its design, creating new housing for up to 400,000 people. Skeptics abound, but could this be the solution to one of California’s most intractable problems? The city’s designated architect, urban planner Gabriel Metcalf, joins The Excerpt to discuss the hurdles and possibilities of developing an entirely new city.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Wunderry Plus subscribers can listen to USA Today's The Excerpt, ad free right now. |
| 0:05.0 | Join Wunderry Plus in the Wundery app. |
| 0:08.0 | Hello and welcome to The Ex excerpt. I'm Dana Taylor. |
| 0:14.0 | Today is Thursday, April 25, 2024, and this is a small group of Silicon Valley investors spent nearly a billion |
| 0:29.6 | dollars quietly buying up over 50,000 acres of farmland in Northern California. |
| 0:35.0 | The goal? To create an ambitious new California Dream City, |
| 0:40.0 | something that hasn't been done in America for over a century. |
| 0:43.4 | The California Forever Project aims to create a livable, workable, walkable city |
| 0:48.4 | that puts working families at the heart of its design, |
| 0:51.6 | creating new housing for up to 400,000 people. |
| 0:55.7 | Skeptics abound, but could this be the solution to one of California's most intractable |
| 1:00.4 | problems, affordable housing? |
| 1:02.4 | Here to help me dig into it is Urban Planters. attractable problems, affordable housing. |
| 1:02.7 | Here to help me dig into it is Urban Planter Gabriel Metcalf, |
| 1:06.7 | the city's designated architect. |
| 1:08.8 | Gabe, thanks for joining me. |
| 1:10.6 | Thank you for having me. |
| 1:12.0 | So let's start with why you're here. |
| 1:14.1 | How did you first hear of the project |
| 1:16.8 | and what was it that convinced you to sign on? |
| 1:19.8 | I guess the real reason I'm here is because I love cities. I think cities are in a way |
| 1:26.5 | humanity's greatest invention and I've spent my whole career working on making |
... |
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