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L.A. has a major NIMBY problem: as soon as anyone gets a whiff of new housing development you'll see someone pile on the fud about how it will increase crime an

by ugh123 9y ago

L.A. has a major NIMBY problem: as soon as anyone gets a whiff of new housing development you'll see someone pile on the fud about how it will increase crime and homelessness (ironically) in their neighborhood.

FooHentai 9y ago
is there no validity in those concerns? I mean, the projects was a thing. The problems that sprang up around high-rises was certainly a thing.
- kevinburke 9y ago
  Statistically, increasing the number of people in an area will increase the amount of crime, the same way increasing the number of people will increase the traffic or the water usage or the electricity usage. Most people also overestimate the costs of crime by a factor of about 15; see http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9018.html http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9018.html for more information. It's too simplistic to just consider that. It may be a valid concern but it's also valid to consider the rights of the person or entity that owns the land to build what they want on it, and the consequence of underbuilding and the subsequent effect on real wages. If you want to do it properly you'd want to consider the increase in crime from a marginal resident added to area X, vs. the increase in crime from wherever they would live if you didn't build more housing in area X. Not to mention the effect on crime from perpetual underbuilding and the subsequent decline in most folks' real wages...
- kasey_junk 9y ago
  It's largely a myth that high rise projects were an experiment that went poorly. At the time that they were built, most of the high rise public housing projects were argued against by public housing advocates. Public high rise projects were a cynical racist tool of large political machines to segregate voter basis and solidify biased voting blocs. The earlier public housing experiments were more about integrated mixed income housing, which were very successful. There are lots of examples of this model that are successful but modern versions get voted down due to the specter of the Robert Taylor homes. One of my favorite books about this subject is "Blueprint for Disaster" by Hunt.
- dionidium 9y ago
  It's pretty simplistic to suggest that the projects caused crime and social problems. A good first step toward understanding the broader cultural context is The Pruitt-Igoe Myth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pruitt-Igoe_Myth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pruitt-Igoe_Myth
1812Overture 9y ago
I've heard people in the same breath complain that a housing development will ruin home values and cause gentrification.
- khuey 9y ago
  This is a common political position in San Francisco.
- closeparen 9y ago
  Gentrification and displacement are distinct. Downward pressure on home values mitigates displacement, but the presence of more above-median-income people is gentrification. It can change the social fabric of a neighborhood (different taste in retail, different participation in neighborhood social life, etc), even if the original lower-income residents are still there. I think this is something we should accept, but they're not technically wrong to call it gentrification.
- TACIXAT 9y ago
  I got into it on Facebook one time with a guy complaining about the high housing prices in Venice, as well as the parking garage they were constructing in his neighborhood. You can solve one of these problems. Probably going to NIMBY the parking garage then rant about parking problems.
bkjelden 9y ago
This isn't just LA by any means. I live in a suburb of Denver and my neighbors will argue in one breath how the city is 'greedy' for trying to regulate utilities, and in the next breath complain that the city is also 'greedy' for not blocking the construction of new multi-family housing.
dionidium 9y ago
Everywhere has a big NIMBY problem. Where I'm from in St. Louis they're seeing one of the biggest (although still modest in absolute terms) construction booms in over 50 years and people are complaining. This is a city that has lost 2/3 its peak population, that has underfunded basic services, that has tens of thousands of vacant buildings and lots. But when somebody wants to build a new apartment building in a single-family neighborhood we get questions like, "where will people park?" And even straight-faced complaints about gentrification (in a city where you can still find apartments for $400/month). Incumbents can derail almost anything, even in a city that should be begging for new development. It's a huge problem.
- closeparen 9y ago
  It's always fashionable to complain about new development. What matters is, do residents have a venue to elevate their complaints to serious legal barriers for the project?
  - dionidium 9y ago
    It doesn't always require a big legal battle. If you can convince someone on the Preservation Board to require N more parking spaces (resulting in X fewer rental units at an even higher cost than originally planned), then you can shift the economics enough to render the project unviable.

by ugh123 9y ago

FooHentai 9y ago

is there no validity in those concerns? I mean, the projects was a thing. The problems that sprang up around high-rises was certainly a thing.

kevinburke 9y ago
Statistically, increasing the number of people in an area will increase the amount of crime, the same way increasing the number of people will increase the traffic or the water usage or the electricity usage. Most people also overestimate the costs of crime by a factor of about 15; see http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9018.html http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9018.html for more information. It's too simplistic to just consider that. It may be a valid concern but it's also valid to consider the rights of the person or entity that owns the land to build what they want on it, and the consequence of underbuilding and the subsequent effect on real wages. If you want to do it properly you'd want to consider the increase in crime from a marginal resident added to area X, vs. the increase in crime from wherever they would live if you didn't build more housing in area X. Not to mention the effect on crime from perpetual underbuilding and the subsequent decline in most folks' real wages...
kasey_junk 9y ago
It's largely a myth that high rise projects were an experiment that went poorly. At the time that they were built, most of the high rise public housing projects were argued against by public housing advocates. Public high rise projects were a cynical racist tool of large political machines to segregate voter basis and solidify biased voting blocs. The earlier public housing experiments were more about integrated mixed income housing, which were very successful. There are lots of examples of this model that are successful but modern versions get voted down due to the specter of the Robert Taylor homes. One of my favorite books about this subject is "Blueprint for Disaster" by Hunt.
dionidium 9y ago
It's pretty simplistic to suggest that the projects caused crime and social problems. A good first step toward understanding the broader cultural context is The Pruitt-Igoe Myth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pruitt-Igoe_Myth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pruitt-Igoe_Myth

1812Overture 9y ago

I've heard people in the same breath complain that a housing development will ruin home values and cause gentrification.

khuey 9y ago
This is a common political position in San Francisco.
closeparen 9y ago
Gentrification and displacement are distinct. Downward pressure on home values mitigates displacement, but the presence of more above-median-income people is gentrification. It can change the social fabric of a neighborhood (different taste in retail, different participation in neighborhood social life, etc), even if the original lower-income residents are still there. I think this is something we should accept, but they're not technically wrong to call it gentrification.
TACIXAT 9y ago
I got into it on Facebook one time with a guy complaining about the high housing prices in Venice, as well as the parking garage they were constructing in his neighborhood. You can solve one of these problems. Probably going to NIMBY the parking garage then rant about parking problems.

bkjelden 9y ago

This isn't just LA by any means. I live in a suburb of Denver and my neighbors will argue in one breath how the city is 'greedy' for trying to regulate utilities, and in the next breath complain that the city is also 'greedy' for not blocking the construction of new multi-family housing.

dionidium 9y ago

Everywhere has a big NIMBY problem. Where I'm from in St. Louis they're seeing one of the biggest (although still modest in absolute terms) construction booms in over 50 years and people are complaining. This is a city that has lost 2/3 its peak population, that has underfunded basic services, that has tens of thousands of vacant buildings and lots. But when somebody wants to build a new apartment building in a single-family neighborhood we get questions like, "where will people park?" And even straight-faced complaints about gentrification (in a city where you can still find apartments for $400/month). Incumbents can derail almost anything, even in a city that should be begging for new development. It's a huge problem.

closeparen 9y ago
It's always fashionable to complain about new development. What matters is, do residents have a venue to elevate their complaints to serious legal barriers for the project?
- dionidium 9y ago
  It doesn't always require a big legal battle. If you can convince someone on the Preservation Board to require N more parking spaces (resulting in X fewer rental units at an even higher cost than originally planned), then you can shift the economics enough to render the project unviable.