Betting on Government working shouldn't be a radical idea

I did an interview with Christine Lagorio from Inc the other day covering a wide range of topics around tech regulation. At one point in the interview, Christine asked me: “You’re a techno-optimist but want a lot more regulatory oversight and actual regulation than, say, the folks trying to start the techno-libertarian city in Solano County called California Forever.”

My answer focused on the big picture, how regulation is not good or bad but necessary, and I opined about the deficiencies both tech and government officials bring to the discussion, but I missed a really good opportunity. The reason we work with California Forever is precisely because they don’t see regulation or government as inherently evil or problematic. The project is typically framed in the media as a techno-optimist utopia disconnected from the reality of government and politics – but that’s exactly the opposite of what it actually is.  

First, California Forever is actually following the rules and working with local political, business and community leaders. Second, the only politically “radical” idea in their ballot initiative is that once the project goes through standard regulatory approvals and environmental review, it should be possible to get a building permit to build a house or a manufacturing facility within weeks, not years. 

In my firsthand experience, California Forever is a genuine, well intentioned attempt to solve high level problems facing the state and Solano County – the lack of affordable housing, the lack of good paying jobs, the lack of sustainable energy sources – not with the usual political tactics of rhetoric and white papers and tweets and press conferences but by building an actual city, on the ground, that physically embodies the values of job creation, affordable housing, clean energy and sustainability. Doing that requires permits, zoning ordinances and variances and multiple approvals, just like every major construction project (let alone something this ambitious).

California, led by Governor Newsom, has been working on increasing housing production by trying to eliminate many of the bottlenecks that cause projects to be held up in red tape for years (and sometimes decades). But this effort has so far not resulted in making housing more affordable.

California Forever is asking for permission to build a new city for up to 400,000 people, with hundreds of thousands of jobs, affordable homes, and new entertainment and recreation facilities in eastern Solano County. The plan they proposed also includes building one of the largest solar farms in America, and new transportation infrastructure. It’s very rare in politics that anyone puts their actual money where their mouth is. Everyone has big ideas and proposals and almost no one uses their own money to turn them into actual projects that can house and employ actual people. This one does and it’s targeting a county where key economic indicators like wages and employment are lagging behind its neighbors, and residents are forced to endure the “worst commutes of any U.S. metro area” 

There’s a lot of thinking coming out of Silicon Valley that is, at best, an ideological stalking horse. It’s fine for people in the private sector to tout a worldview that may not fully comport with reality and may not work for most Americans but frames the kind of world they’d personally like to see. But when someone in tech is willing to work within the constructs of government, policy and politics, do something real and tangible and is willing to use their own money to do so, that’s rare and admirable. It’s why the project is so worthwhile and it’s why it needs to move forward.