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Swinging back on this, because I find this stuff interesting. I don't necessarily disagree with anything you say here. But I'm still not sure it gets at the cr

Swinging back on this, because I find this stuff interesting. I don't necessarily disagree with anything you say here. But I'm still not sure it gets at the crux of my question. If local control of land use systematically creates problems for people that don't have the privilege of living in the jurisdiction in question, maybe it's time to put control of land use or certain aspects of land use in the hands of regional counsels of government (much like Metropolitan Planning Organizations plan for transportation needs at a metro-area level, rather than a city level). I think that lets you start solving not only the problem in question in the article, but all sorts of other problems that you address. (Maybe this could work at the State level too, but I think that's too broad. People in San Jose certainly have some interest in San Francisco land use... but do people in Sacramento? Not much.) But that's very different from leaving land use in the hands of city governments, then overriding them on individual issues when you don't like what they're doing. Right? I think part of my thinking on this is shaped from living in NC, and watching the insanity that was HB2 (which you likely heard of, if you're up on the news). Basically, Charlotte raises minimum wage and adds some protections for LGBT folks, state legislatures doesn't like it, and so passes a law preventing local governments from being able to set the minimum wage in their area, or grant rights/protections beyond what's granted by the state. The fallout was absolute insanity for, like, a year. All of that to say - if you want State government overriding local government rights, you have to be prepared for the day when the State legislature is doing something you don't like, and the local government is doing something you do. Right? In the end, like I said before, I think this policy is good, but I think there's better ways to go about it. Regional counsels of government having more authority over land use seems like a great start to me. Actually, I'd be interested to know if somebody's proposed that.

tmh79 9y ago
I agree with your idea that, in an ideal world, we should promote more land use and transit decision making to metro level governments. The problem is that politics is the art of the possible, and this is the set of stakeholders we can currently wrangle to push forth a pro-housing agenda. > if you want State government overriding local government rights, you have to be prepared for the day when the State legislature is doing something you don't like, and the local government is doing something you do. Right? I do some volunteering/organizing in local politics, and there are a few "problem domains" within local government. Pretty much everything in local government boils down to "land use", "police" and "education". Additionally, smaller governments are _always_ more beholden to parochial interests than state governments are. Its kind of a "sample size" issue with local governments. As an example, lets say that 1 in 1000 people cares a lot about 1 specific issue and get involved, and that there is a universe of 10 issues in which government is looking to work on. In a city of 20k people, you would expect that each of these 10 issues would have thought leadership promulgated by only 2 people, thus the debates, policy crafting etc will be highly impacted by these 2 peoples narrow views. in a state government of 2m people, there will be more like 200 people interested in thought leadership and policy crafting on a single issue, thus the ultimate policies crafted will be less beholden to the specific biases of individuals.

tmh79 9y ago

I agree with your idea that, in an ideal world, we should promote more land use and transit decision making to metro level governments. The problem is that politics is the art of the possible, and this is the set of stakeholders we can currently wrangle to push forth a pro-housing agenda. > if you want State government overriding local government rights, you have to be prepared for the day when the State legislature is doing something you don't like, and the local government is doing something you do. Right? I do some volunteering/organizing in local politics, and there are a few "problem domains" within local government. Pretty much everything in local government boils down to "land use", "police" and "education". Additionally, smaller governments are _always_ more beholden to parochial interests than state governments are. Its kind of a "sample size" issue with local governments. As an example, lets say that 1 in 1000 people cares a lot about 1 specific issue and get involved, and that there is a universe of 10 issues in which government is looking to work on. In a city of 20k people, you would expect that each of these 10 issues would have thought leadership promulgated by only 2 people, thus the debates, policy crafting etc will be highly impacted by these 2 peoples narrow views. in a state government of 2m people, there will be more like 200 people interested in thought leadership and policy crafting on a single issue, thus the ultimate policies crafted will be less beholden to the specific biases of individuals.