California Forever: The Startup Building America's Next Great City

California Forever aims to build a self-funded, sustainable new city in Solano County, addressing California's housing and infrastructure failures while revitalizing American manufacturing and shipbuilding capabilities.

• California Forever seeks to solve California's housing and infrastructure crisis by building a new, sustainable city in Solano County.

• The project aims to re-shore advanced manufacturing and shipbuilding, leveraging AI and robotics to compete globally and enhance national security.

• A new walkable city, drawing inspiration from historic American neighborhoods, will support up to 400,000 residents, symbolizing a renewed commitment to building for the future.

California Forever, backed by Silicon Valley investors, is developing a new city in Solano County, owning over 100 square miles of land to create a livable, affordable, and eco-friendly community. This initiative seeks to counter California's self-inflicted decline in building and infrastructure by establishing a hub for advanced manufacturing and shipbuilding, drawing on the region's historical strengths and AI talent. The project intends to serve as a symbol of renewed American ambition, addressing critical national needs and demonstrating a commitment to building at scale.

California's Decline in Building

• 00:02:00 After experiencing the 'California dream' from afar, Jan Sramic found the state grappling with homelessness, corporate exodus, and a profound failure to build essential infrastructure like housing, office spaces, factories, and transportation. This decline, perceived as entirely self-inflicted, contrasts sharply with America's historical capacity for rapid, monumental construction projects such as the Golden Gate Bridge or nuclear submarines. This realization highlights a critical need for a renewed focus on building to restore the state's and nation's former glory.

The Solano Foundry Project

• 00:04:48 California Forever is establishing the Solano Foundry, which will be America's largest advanced manufacturing park, allowing Silicon Valley to integrate R&D and production locally. This initiative aims to address the challenge of competing with countries like China in manufacturing by leveraging robotics and AI to boost productivity per worker, making jobs more rewarding and enabling higher wages. Co-locating these facilities an hour from Menlo Park will eliminate the need for engineers to undertake multi-day trips to factories in other states, thereby streamlining innovation and production.

Revitalizing US Shipbuilding

• 00:06:13 The project addresses a critical national security issue by proposing a new shipyard in Solano County, strategically located on the West Coast's Deepwater Ship Channel. This facility would rival the scale of China's largest shipyards, which are building commercial ships to military standards, and overcome the vulnerability of existing US shipyards concentrated on the East Coast and Gulf. Locating it in the Bay Area also leverages the region's AI talent, essential for developing future shipbuilding technologies, and provides a crucial Pacific defense asset against potential disruptions to the Panama Canal.

A New Walkable City

• 00:08:42 Alongside industrial development, California Forever is building a new walkable city for up to 400,000 residents, inspired by classic American neighborhoods like Charleston and San Francisco’s West Village. This city will feature traditional architecture, promoting a lifestyle where children can walk to school and residents can dine with friends in public squares. This initiative aims to provide affordable and desirable living spaces that are currently scarce in California, embodying a broader movement to meet America's building moment with optimism, abundance, and speed.