Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 358

In case I haven't been clear enough: I love cities. I vividly remember being a kid and being excited to come downtown. My mom has told me that my eyes used to light up -- every, single, time. Even today, when I'm away from Toronto and I return home, I'm excited to see the skyline. I miss it.

This afternoon I got that same feeling on our return to Paris, even though it is not home. We spent the last two days in Normandy, specifically Étretat and Rouen, and as beautiful and as wonderful as these places are, I was genuinely excited to come back to the capital.

My other revelation is that driving in Paris sucks.

I would much rather walk, cycle, or take the metro. That is what this city is designed for. Still, I'm happy that we rented a car for Normandy and that I learned -- after being honked at -- how to appropriately conduct myself in the infamous Arc de Triomphe roundabout.

https://videopress.com/v/6OapMom0?resizeToParent=true&cover=true&preloadContent=metadata&useAverageColor=true

Unlike every other roundabout in the world, you do not yield to cars already in the circle; you yield to cars entering the circle. Once you understand that, it's significantly easier. Though, supposedly, car accidents that happen within the circle are automatically every driver's fault and every insurer pays.

I guess that says something about its orderliness.

Aren't cities wonderful?

Étretat, France. Shot on a Fujifilm X-T3 with a 23mm f/2 prime lens.

We talk a lot about housing supply on this blog. And most of the time it is about creating more and better infill housing, In other words, housing that leverages existing infrastructure and uses previously developed land as efficiently possible.

But I suppose there are other options. You could, for instance, form an anonymous holding company, raise hundreds of a millions of dollars from leading venture capitalists in the Bay Area, spend $800 million on cheap agricultural land, and then just build an entirely new city about 60 miles northeast of San Francisco.

And apparently that is happening :

In 2017, Michael Moritz, the billionaire venture capitalist, sent a note to a potential investor about what he described as an unusual opportunity: a chance to invest in the creation of a new California city. The site was in a corner of the San Francisco Bay Area where land was cheap. Mr. Moritz and others had dreams of transforming tens of thousands of acres into a bustling metropolis that, according to the pitch, could generate thousands of jobs and be as walkable as Paris or the West Village in New York.

Here's the area; it's generally between Fairfield and Rio Vista in Solano County:

The real estate opportunity is an obvious one. The majority of the land in Solano County, roughly 62% of it, is zoned for agricultural uses. So it was and is relatively cheap to acquire. In isolation, I would imagine that it would be pretty difficult, if not impossible, to rezone any of it for other uses. But if you buy enough of it and if you have the resources, then maybe you figure it out.

And if you do, it'll all be worth significantly more, which is why this group has been reportedly paying many multiples of market value over the last 5 years. Because here's the thing, paying $6,000 per acre instead of $1,500 per acre is almost certainly not going to move the needle considering the broader strategy. More important is that you get enough contiguous land to execute on the vision of a new city.

This will be an interesting one to watch. And from what I have read, it sounds like they're just now coming out of stealth acquisition mode and preparing to engage the broader community.