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> Building limits are systemically classist and racist. They maintain a geographical segregation system. This. Outlawing dense, urban growth does real harm to

by skewart 11y ago

> Building limits are systemically classist and racist. They maintain a geographical segregation system. This. Outlawing dense, urban growth does real harm to people's lives, and to the environment. It's one of the clearest examples of xenophobia and greed coallescing to extract wealth and concentrate it in the hands of the privileged few. Just because it's, say, a crowd of mostly Bernie Sanders supporters pushing to "preserve neighborhood character" in the Berkeley hills at a local city council meeting, and not a skyscraper board room full of bankers in expensive suits, doesn't make it any less nefarious or the impact any less real.

hodwik 11y ago
>"and to the environment" That's a great point, and one that has been largely missed here. I used to live in a city with aggressive green-space initiatives. (85% of the city had to be green space.) Locals would tell me that it was "good for the environment". I'm sorry, but no. Green space initiatives force sprawl. They're bad for the environment, full stop.
- makomk 11y ago
  Suppose there were no green space initiatives. Then the only green space you could be sure of having would be your own garden. How would this discourage sprawl?
  - skewart 11y ago
    Peole wouldn't have to leapfrog over the greenspace to find a place to live. I think urban green space is great, as long as it also comes with housing density. The problem is excessive greenspace coupled with mandatory low-density single family dwellings. You end up creating more sprawl and more carbon emissions as the people who can't afford to live in the close-in suburbs sprawl outward. Also, I say all of this as an environmentalist. Suburban parks do more to protect homeowner wealth than they do to protect our planet. Carbon emissions, ocean acidification, widespread habitat loss (think palm oil plantations in Borneo, not racoon territory in your backyard) are far more pressing environmental problems than suburban densification is by any stretch of the imagination. Seeing a few trees torn down to make way for an apartment building is a very tangible loss of greenery, but it's ultimately better for the environment. Density allows people to be more efficient in their use of resources, and ultimately preserves more habitat for wildlife.
  - meddlepal 11y ago
    You can pick a spot between two extremes...
Klinky 11y ago
Simply saying "let the market decide who is worthy of housing" is also classicist and racist. Unless you explicitly define the market has to cater to "X income brackets", "Y racial demographics", and "Z% needs to be for personal housing, not commercial or industrial usage", you're basically saying "whoever has the most money". How is this better and more inclusive to the poor and minorities?
- skewart 11y ago
  Because it works better in practice. Consider other markets where supply is not artificially constrained. There are no laws specifying how many cars can be manufactured, or how they can be priced. Manufacturers are able to make cars at a wide range of price points. And the used car market let's people buy at incredibly low prices. Or consider soap. We "let the market decide who is worthy" of soap, and yet there is no soap affordability crisis. Sure, you can spend $12 on a bar of soap, but you can get one for $0.49 too. Imagine if we applied SF housing laws to the car market. Only allow a few thousand new cars to be made every year. Then say manufacturers have to pay a $10,000 fee per car they sell, in addition to taxes on their revenues. Of course the super wealthy start bidding up the price of cars - they're hard to get, and becoming expensive, so it's a status symbol to have one. Existing car owners are happy to see that their current car is going up in value, so they don't want to change anything. Since cars are now so expensive people decide to mandate affordable cars. So a lottery is set up where a handful of new cars get sold at bellow market rates to some very lucky people. This does nothing to make good cars more affordable to the vast majority of people who can no longer afford them. But it lets the people contendedly driving their valuable BMWs and Volvos pat themselves on the back for having done something. Also, going back to housing, fast-growing metropolitan areas that have fewer zoning restrictions tend to have more affordable housing than ones that are anti-housing-construction. Houston, Dallas, and Atlanta have all seen incredible population and job growth but have housing that is far more affordable than in California.
  - maxerickson 11y ago
    Those metros are considerably less geographically constrained. Atlanta is famous for being sort of crappy for that reason (they just keep building more metro rather than doing any consolidation).

by skewart 11y ago

hodwik 11y ago

>"and to the environment" That's a great point, and one that has been largely missed here. I used to live in a city with aggressive green-space initiatives. (85% of the city had to be green space.) Locals would tell me that it was "good for the environment". I'm sorry, but no. Green space initiatives force sprawl. They're bad for the environment, full stop.

makomk 11y ago
Suppose there were no green space initiatives. Then the only green space you could be sure of having would be your own garden. How would this discourage sprawl?
- skewart 11y ago
  Peole wouldn't have to leapfrog over the greenspace to find a place to live. I think urban green space is great, as long as it also comes with housing density. The problem is excessive greenspace coupled with mandatory low-density single family dwellings. You end up creating more sprawl and more carbon emissions as the people who can't afford to live in the close-in suburbs sprawl outward. Also, I say all of this as an environmentalist. Suburban parks do more to protect homeowner wealth than they do to protect our planet. Carbon emissions, ocean acidification, widespread habitat loss (think palm oil plantations in Borneo, not racoon territory in your backyard) are far more pressing environmental problems than suburban densification is by any stretch of the imagination. Seeing a few trees torn down to make way for an apartment building is a very tangible loss of greenery, but it's ultimately better for the environment. Density allows people to be more efficient in their use of resources, and ultimately preserves more habitat for wildlife.
- meddlepal 11y ago
  You can pick a spot between two extremes...

Klinky 11y ago

Simply saying "let the market decide who is worthy of housing" is also classicist and racist. Unless you explicitly define the market has to cater to "X income brackets", "Y racial demographics", and "Z% needs to be for personal housing, not commercial or industrial usage", you're basically saying "whoever has the most money". How is this better and more inclusive to the poor and minorities?

skewart 11y ago
Because it works better in practice. Consider other markets where supply is not artificially constrained. There are no laws specifying how many cars can be manufactured, or how they can be priced. Manufacturers are able to make cars at a wide range of price points. And the used car market let's people buy at incredibly low prices. Or consider soap. We "let the market decide who is worthy" of soap, and yet there is no soap affordability crisis. Sure, you can spend $12 on a bar of soap, but you can get one for $0.49 too. Imagine if we applied SF housing laws to the car market. Only allow a few thousand new cars to be made every year. Then say manufacturers have to pay a $10,000 fee per car they sell, in addition to taxes on their revenues. Of course the super wealthy start bidding up the price of cars - they're hard to get, and becoming expensive, so it's a status symbol to have one. Existing car owners are happy to see that their current car is going up in value, so they don't want to change anything. Since cars are now so expensive people decide to mandate affordable cars. So a lottery is set up where a handful of new cars get sold at bellow market rates to some very lucky people. This does nothing to make good cars more affordable to the vast majority of people who can no longer afford them. But it lets the people contendedly driving their valuable BMWs and Volvos pat themselves on the back for having done something. Also, going back to housing, fast-growing metropolitan areas that have fewer zoning restrictions tend to have more affordable housing than ones that are anti-housing-construction. Houston, Dallas, and Atlanta have all seen incredible population and job growth but have housing that is far more affordable than in California.
- maxerickson 11y ago
  Those metros are considerably less geographically constrained. Atlanta is famous for being sort of crappy for that reason (they just keep building more metro rather than doing any consolidation).