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>So the promise of economic justice erodes over time, as lucky insiders come to dominate rent-controlled apartments, especially because having gotten their hand

>So the promise of economic justice erodes over time, as lucky insiders come to dominate rent-controlled apartments, especially because having gotten their hands on an absurdly cheap apartment, said elites are loathe to move and free up space for others. So Megan's response is just not to pursue economic justice at all? It doesn't make any sense, of course the powerful will try to erode justice for the powerless, that's just society, that doesn't mean we stop pursuing justice. It means we become even more vigilant about it.

paulgb 9y ago
> Megan's response is just not to pursue economic justice at all? I think the argument here is more "not pursue short-term economic justice at the expense of long-term economic justice"
- AstralStorm 9y ago
  And she tested that the long term justice materialized ever how? Any reference group at least?
dkarl 9y ago
I don't agree with the article, but I think your reasoning is dangerous. If a means is introduced to serve a noble purpose, but it does not serve that purpose, then the nobility of the purpose is not a defense of the means. Right now there's an article on the front page about the consequences of applying that reasoning to dubious forensic sciences that were introduced with the noble intention of ensuring justice but in fact undermine it. If a means doesn't serve an end, then continuing to pursue it despite the perverse consequences doesn't prove your commitment to the to the desired result.
- closeparen 9y ago
  This statement right here is the entire philosophical disagreement between (liberal) YIMBYs and affordable housing activists: given that price controls (esp. affordability requirements for new construction) are well intentioned but don’t produce housing at a large enough scale to help, do we double down on them or back off? One side is hammering on the noble purpose, saying that if price controls don’t work, we must take housing entirely out of the hands of the market. The other is hammering on the practicality and implementation detail of particular regulatory regimes, and we talk past each other for years.
  - dkarl 9y ago
    I think you've left out the side that is incessantly, one-sidedly hammering on the "fact" that government restrictions never serve any constructive purpose, and the solution is always to remove or relax them, but with that addition, I would agree with you.
    - closeparen 9y ago
      Explicit limits on density and construction are unambiguously responsible for too-low levels of density and housing construction. That’s not “government can’t do anything right” - that’s “government works.” When you design public policy around single family homes and car-dependence, that’s what you get.
gwbas1c 9y ago
> If politicians actually want to make sure everyone who needs a place to rest their head has one, there’s only one way to do it: Build more housing. Which means, in turn, loosening the legal restrictions and community veto points that make it so hard to add supply. Because there’s no way to escape the fundamental math: Unless you build enough housing to shelter the people who want to live in your city, a whole lot of people will be left out in the cold. Plain and simple: The way to have economic justice is to build enough housing to satisfy demand.

paulgb 9y ago

> Megan's response is just not to pursue economic justice at all? I think the argument here is more "not pursue short-term economic justice at the expense of long-term economic justice"

AstralStorm 9y ago
And she tested that the long term justice materialized ever how? Any reference group at least?

dkarl 9y ago

I don't agree with the article, but I think your reasoning is dangerous. If a means is introduced to serve a noble purpose, but it does not serve that purpose, then the nobility of the purpose is not a defense of the means. Right now there's an article on the front page about the consequences of applying that reasoning to dubious forensic sciences that were introduced with the noble intention of ensuring justice but in fact undermine it. If a means doesn't serve an end, then continuing to pursue it despite the perverse consequences doesn't prove your commitment to the to the desired result.

closeparen 9y ago
This statement right here is the entire philosophical disagreement between (liberal) YIMBYs and affordable housing activists: given that price controls (esp. affordability requirements for new construction) are well intentioned but don’t produce housing at a large enough scale to help, do we double down on them or back off? One side is hammering on the noble purpose, saying that if price controls don’t work, we must take housing entirely out of the hands of the market. The other is hammering on the practicality and implementation detail of particular regulatory regimes, and we talk past each other for years.
- dkarl 9y ago
  I think you've left out the side that is incessantly, one-sidedly hammering on the "fact" that government restrictions never serve any constructive purpose, and the solution is always to remove or relax them, but with that addition, I would agree with you.
  - closeparen 9y ago
    Explicit limits on density and construction are unambiguously responsible for too-low levels of density and housing construction. That’s not “government can’t do anything right” - that’s “government works.” When you design public policy around single family homes and car-dependence, that’s what you get.

gwbas1c 9y ago

> If politicians actually want to make sure everyone who needs a place to rest their head has one, there’s only one way to do it: Build more housing. Which means, in turn, loosening the legal restrictions and community veto points that make it so hard to add supply. Because there’s no way to escape the fundamental math: Unless you build enough housing to shelter the people who want to live in your city, a whole lot of people will be left out in the cold. Plain and simple: The way to have economic justice is to build enough housing to satisfy demand.