A company has spent hundreds of millions of dollars buying land in the Bay Area in the hopes of building a new city.

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March 11, 2024, 6:00 a.m. ET

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For years, a mysterious company has been buying farmland on the outskirts of Silicon Valley, eventually putting together a plot twice the size of San Francisco.

At every step, those behind the company kept their plans for the land shrouded in secrecy. Conor Dougherty, an economics reporter at The Times, figured out what they were up to.

On today’s episode

On a cloudy day, a man and a women are walking through a field with red barns in the background. — Some farmers in Solano County, Calif., say that aggressive tactics were used to persuade them to sell their land.Credit...Aaron Wojack for The New York Times

Background reading

Tech industry investors spent roughly $900 million buying land to build a dream city in a rural part of the Bay Area.
In Solano County, Calif., a who’s who of tech money is trying to build a city from the ground up. But some of the locals whose families have been there for generations don’t want to sell the land.

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Fact-checking by Susan Lee.

The Daily is made by Rachel Quester, Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Leigh Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, Luke Vander Ploeg, M.J. Davis Lin, Dan Powell, Sydney Harper, Mike Benoist, Liz O. Baylen, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Rachelle Bonja, Diana Nguyen, Marion Lozano, Corey Schreppel, Rob Szypko, Elisheba Ittoop, Mooj Zadie, Patricia Willens, Rowan Niemisto, Jody Becker, Rikki Novetsky, John Ketchum, Nina Feldman, Will Reid, Carlos Prieto, Ben Calhoun, Susan Lee, Lexie Diao, Mary Wilson, Alex Stern, Dan Farrell, Sophia Lanman, Shannon Lin, Diane Wong, Devon Taylor, Alyssa Moxley, Summer Thomad, Olivia Natt, Daniel Ramirez and Brendan Klinkenberg.

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Conor Dougherty is an economics reporter and the author of “Golden Gates: Fighting for Housing in America.” His work focuses on the West Coast, real estate and wage stagnation among U.S. workers. More about Conor Dougherty

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