Jan Sramek, CEO of California Forever, discusses housing scarcity and population outflow from California over the past decade.
Assertion Partly supported
Sramek: Restrictive housing in major metros depresses US GDP by 14%
“Where they argued quite convincingly that if we built enough housing in the Bay, in New York, and a couple of other places, American GDP would be higher by 14% or more.”
Prediction Held up
Sramek: California Forever city is designed for up to 400,000 residents
“And then imagine that it was a city for up to 400,000 people that was entitled and approved at once, and so you knew that for the next you knew that for the next 30 years, if this office is going to work and you'll be able to hire talent there, there'll be eno…”
Prediction Open · timeframe Mar 2029
Sramek: California Forever homes will cost $1M vs $4-5M in Palo Alto
“And then imagine that instead of paying four or five million dollars for a mediocre home in Palo Alto or San Francisco, your employees would be able to buy a nice house for a million dollars.”
Prediction Open · timeframe Dec 2027
Sramek: California Forever targets breaking ground in Solano County by 2027
“Our target is to break ground in twenty-twenty-seven. That is ambitious by California standards. A couple of things have to happen for that to be the case. But we're pretty optimistic that we would be able to do that.”
Disclosure
Sramek: California Forever purchased 60,000 acres in Solano County
“And we've purchased about 60,000 acres in that area.”
Opinion
Sramek: Bay Area-level innovation clusters have occurred only seven times in history
“I think what's happened in the Bay Area has happened maybe seven times in the history of the modern world, at least in the West. I think it happened in Florence, and Paris, and London, and New York, and Chicago, and maybe LA, and then it happened in the Bay Ar…”