SF Chronicle: Rubin discusses ‘laudable’, ‘weirdly uninformed’ plan for new city

Urban Studies and Planning Professor Jasper Rubin commented to the San Francisco Chronicle on Oct. 25 about a proposed city to be developed in rural Solano County. Funded largely by investors from the technology industry, the California Forever project has purchased 50,000 acres of land. 

“It smacks to me of the sort of failure of new urbanist design which sounded good but ended up being a better version of a suburb,” Rubin said. “Building a place from scratch in Solano County with the idea that it would be a walkable, self-sufficient city doesn’t require a lot of density, but it requires the right mix of uses and space for alternative means of getting around.”  

He says that the project’s vision is “laudable,” but also “weirdly uninformed.” 

“It seems like a rose-colored picture of what Mayberry land was like,” he said.