13 ms·

I find these types of articles invigorating and demoralizing at the same time. I think the reason why, and something I've thought about a lot lately, is: what w

by morley 8y ago

I find these types of articles invigorating and demoralizing at the same time. I think the reason why, and something I've thought about a lot lately, is: what would it actually take to do something like this? It'd probably involve a series of steps like this to do _exactly_ this: * Decide to run for office * Raise an enormous amount of money, somehow without indebting yourself to private interests * Convince a large amount of people to vote you into office * Bring to bear an enormous amount of political capital to convince other people to enact these changes That involves no small amount of luck and personal charisma. I probably have none of these things, so that leaves me out. There are other methods that are potentially easier (the one that comes to mind is effectively paying off an incumbent politician), but I'd roughly guess that there's only a 40-60% chance to get the outcome you want. Even easier actions, like calling your representatives, I'd peg at 2-5% expected value. Voting is <0.1%. Are these really our only options? Am I thinking about this problem wrong? Is this just the great struggle of human governance we've been trying to solve for millenia?

rch 8y ago
There are workshops to prepare you for running for office, and it doesn't have to be all consuming. I'd like to see more support for credentialed STEM professionals who are willing to take time out of a career to hold public office, but there are at least a couple of options out there already. Edit: Actually, working with a think tank like Rocky Mountain Institute might be even more in line with your thinking. Let me know if you're curious and I'd be happy to make some introductions.
rayiner 8y ago
Quiet resignation is always an option! (I get so jealous when I go to Tokyo or Munich and see that they have a functioning society. But I'm resigned to the fact that I live in a country where the trains don't run on time, and people are just okay with it. As an immigrant to the U.S. to begin with, I can hardly complain.)
- NegativeLatency 8y ago
  I fully support your right to complain.
- clairity 8y ago
  even as a natural-born citizen, the fact that we accept crappy public transportation really chaps my hide. how do we (re-)instill pride in such things?
  - rayiner 8y ago
    It’s an emergent cultural phenomenon. Who knows how you change it, if you even can. My complaints that my scheduled 24-minute Metro ride regularly takes 30-35 minutes are met by blank stares and “so whats?” It’s like being outraged in India or Bangladesh that you had to make a small “facilitation payment” to access some service. So what? People don’t really care, or even realize it can be different.
    - clairity 8y ago
      it certainly can be cultural. for example, as noted in another comment, the idea of sitting on, and blocking, stairs strikes japanese folks as rude (i tend to agree, even if mildly). most other cultures wouldn't give it a second thought. i'd love to see a shift toward pride in craftsmanship (a japanese cultural value), over the pride in ownership americans seem to principally exhibit. you see a rennaisance of this in certain parts of the culture, like fancy barbershops and coffee shops. if we give esteem to bus drivers and train conductors for being on time (a form of craftsmanship), maybe we'd get better service (a tall order, i know).
raldi 8y ago
If a majority of the populace supports your position, you'll have a much easier (though by no means easy) time doing the above. If a majority doesn't, then it's a feature of democracy rather than a bug that you probably won't be able to do it. But lets assume you've identified a real winner of a platform. You don't have to start from zero to make it happen — there will be existing candidates and organizations looking to achieve the same goals as you, and you should just join those campaigns. For example, many American cities have YIMBY clubs. Join yours and they'll have lots of great input on how you can put your finite volunteer time to effective political use.
TheJakeSchmidt 8y ago
This problem is solvable, but not by a single person acting alone - we have to build a movement, and being the actual candidate in office is far from the only role. Getting sympathetic candidates elected is one of the later steps in a long process. Before that, we need lots of people working on movement building, small fights, activism, research, organizing... there's so much to be done! I'm part of a group working on this problem in NYC. If you (or anyone else reading this) are in New York and potentially interested in helping, shoot me an email! (my HN username at gmail dot com)
stickfigure 8y ago
I don't think even luck and charisma would make a difference. Humans just don't deal with change well, and "you're going to change the character of my neighborhood" is going to make a large subset of any neighborhood violently angry. Look at the backlash over 'gentrification'. No, we like our squalor just the way it is! What we really need to do is force every resident abroad for a year so that they can see the alternative to "life as I've always know it".
- aurailious 8y ago
  > Look at the backlash over 'gentrification'. No, we like our squalor just the way it is! This is highly dismissive of all the actual and legitimate problems gentrification has.
  - imgabe 8y ago
    Which are? There was a recent study which showed low income people in gentrifying neighborhoods don't move any more frequently than low income people do generally. And for those who actually own property, they get a huge windfall.
    - xVedun 8y ago
      Maybe some residents benefit from gentrification, but it seems that gentrification actually speeds up housing prices. Sources: https://journalistsresource.org/studies/economics/real-estate/gentrification-urban-displacement-affordable-housing-overview-research-roundup https://journalistsresource.org/studies/economics/real-estat...
      - stickfigure 8y ago
        Summary: Nice houses in nice neighborhoods cost more than crappy houses in crappy neighborhoods. This seems... reasonable.
    - andrepd 8y ago
      So you're agreeing with the criticism then? Property owners get stacks of cash, rich people move in and "take over" the neighbourhood, and the "commoners" get zilch.
jjaredsimpson 8y ago
A real problem is that public service is underpaid. I live in a state with a part time legislature that is paid $27k/year. I'm never going to run for office and derail my life by earning next to nothing and being co-mingled into a system I find full of corrupt and detestable people. America has a perverse relationship with politics, politicians, and governance. Politicians do some of the most important work possible in our society, but by underpaying you only attract certain types of people. Either those just hungry for power, using office as a stepping stone to wealth. Or those already wealthy looking to maintain existing structures and protect their wealth. I don't mean to sound flippant. Our system of government is an evolved process settled on over millennia. It's really close to some local maximum. My gripes are mostly centered around complaining that we "all know" there are obvious problems with the system but there isn't some obvious "continuous" path of from here to a better system. If I were benevolent dictator I'd like to see something like futarchy. And even while saying that I'm not sure if it just appeals to my hyper rationalism or if it's genuinely better. I assume current legislator suffer from this same bias on all kinds of issues.
- zdragnar 8y ago
  Depends on where you are. My nearest major city council has a member that gets paid just shy of 100k a year and misses roughly a third of the meetings. Great job if you can get it.
- raldi 8y ago
  It's true; here in San Francisco, the annual city budget is $11B, and each of the 11 members of the Board of Supervisors makes $110,000 a year (which sounds like a lot until you find out that thanks to our housing shortage, HUD defines the local "low-income" threshold as $117,400). The 11 supervisors are the equivalent of senior executives. How much do you think a senior executive of a company with $11B revenue gets paid? As a result, we get supervisors like Aaron Peskin (who's a landlord on the side and pushes civic policy that obstructs the creation of new apartments) or Chris Daly (basically a clown).
  - pound 8y ago
    it's $117,400 for the family of 4
sailfast 8y ago
Because zoning is not national (thankfully!) in the United States, you should be able to do a lot at the local level. I don't think you'll have to raise a lot of money to do this. Typically you really only need to have the desire to do it. Hardest part is probably convincing people to vote for you.
- closeparen 8y ago
  Zoning is far too local: each municipality, acting in its own self-interest, protects its own and plans to make growth someone else’s problem. If we had zoning at a regional, state, or national level, this passing of the buck wouldn’t make sense, and those negatively affected by restrictive policy (people stuck commuting from elsewhere or simply unable to access job centers) would have some power over the decision.
  - sailfast 8y ago
    If it was in the interest of each municipality to plan together for the area to grow, wouldn't that be a solid outcome much preferred to a state-level where you might be encumbered by a completely different set of interests with no interest in your growth? Townships and other inter-governmental organizations seem to handle this pretty well throughout the United States to reduce overhead and plan.
    - closeparen 8y ago
      A municipality will not participate in “planning together for growth” when it does not want to grow. We have such a regional planning process in the Bay Area; the plans it makes are pure fantasy. You could have 75% support among the 9-county population that commutes to SF for more housing in SF; something like 5% as many voters could defeat them, because only San Francisco residents have a say in San Francisco policymaking.
blacksmith_tb 8y ago
Do something like what? Move from a local to a nationally defined zoning scheme? That's not trivial for a country of any size. But moving your local zoning from exclusionary to inclusionary is theoretically possible, specifically because the consensus required is much smaller.
rcpt 8y ago
Zoning is particularly tough as the people who would benefit most from improved cities often don't yet live there and can't vote. Thus, the agencies that regulate zoning are effectively captured by local residents who, for completely rational concerns about their uninsurable property values, push for lots of legislation designed to mitigate change. I found chapters 6 and 7 of "The Captured Economy" by Lindsey and Teles to be the best exposition on this. They also detail a few ways one could change the system (eg. paying staffers more to attract better talent would make lobbyists jobs harder).
pc86 8y ago
These decisions are made by zoning boards. My borough's zoning board consists of: * 3 retired people who asked or were asked to be on the zoning board * 3 vacant seats Quorum is - you guessed it - 3. If you live in my borough and you ask to be on the zoning board, you'll be appointed at the next council meeting. They almost never meet except when someone dies, someone new is appointed, or they need to reorganize (yearly). Yeah there is a lot of paperwork and headache if you want to massively change the currently zoning of your area, but provided you're violating state or federal law in doing so it's not a remotely insurmountable task.
saalweachter 8y ago
Frankly, running for office is the worst way to effect change of this sort. Zoning isn't really driven by politicians in most polities in the US as it is the public who firmly believe their NIMBY-ism is necessary to protect their children, property values, and way of life (although not necessarily in that order of priorities). The local planning boards and town councils are mostly responding to whatever signals they receive from their constituents. If you want to change things, you need to change public opinion. The best case scenario of jumping to the top with some sort of majority cabal and changing things against public opinion is that you'll be voted out in the next cycle and all of your changes undone. Instead of campaigning for public office, you should start a campaign to inform the public with concrete, incremental, individual proposals for changes to zoning and explain how those proposals will increase property values, protect children, and improve the quality of life in a way consistent with people's desires. If you succeed, whoever is currently in office will happily put your proposals into practice as a feather in their own cap. And if you can't convince a majority of the people in your community, well, should your desires and opinions have priority over theirs?
- rayiner 8y ago
  Litigation has historically been an option when public opinion isn’t on your side. I dream of anti-NIMBY impact litigation, but haven’t figured out a good legal theory yet!
  - osdiab 8y ago
    In The SF Bay Area Sonja Trauss, SFYIMBY and friends actually did bring a lawsuit against the suburb of Lafayette for housing development. https://youtu.be/91g6N_JNnQE https://youtu.be/91g6N_JNnQE They also established a legal agency for doing exactly that: https://www.carlaef.org/ https://www.carlaef.org/ I wonder if this kind of thing will happen more often for other urban policy related things!
    - rayiner 8y ago
      Thank you for the link--this is amazing.
davidw 8y ago
There are a lot of YIMBY organizations and similar things popping up these days. It's a good way to get involved without doing everything yourself.
chrischen 8y ago
A politician isn’t supposed to enact their own will. In theory all you need to do is convince the constituents or the people who pay the politician with a public media campaign.
brudgers 8y ago
In Japan's case what it took was losing World War II and subsequent military occupation. Japan's zoning is the result of mid 1940's "industry best practice" where the zoning industry was fledgling and interrupted by war and depression. It was accompanied by land reform that redistributed land wealth downward. A foreign power declared it by fiat and implemented it under martial law. One might say that Japan's stacked zoning exists because Macarthur didn't have to hold an election. The Allies held war crimes trials instead...a type of political climate historically conducive to land reform and sweeping legal changes. Martial law is probably not the alternative you're looking for.

by morley 8y ago

rch 8y ago

There are workshops to prepare you for running for office, and it doesn't have to be all consuming. I'd like to see more support for credentialed STEM professionals who are willing to take time out of a career to hold public office, but there are at least a couple of options out there already. Edit: Actually, working with a think tank like Rocky Mountain Institute might be even more in line with your thinking. Let me know if you're curious and I'd be happy to make some introductions.

rayiner 8y ago

Quiet resignation is always an option! (I get so jealous when I go to Tokyo or Munich and see that they have a functioning society. But I'm resigned to the fact that I live in a country where the trains don't run on time, and people are just okay with it. As an immigrant to the U.S. to begin with, I can hardly complain.)

NegativeLatency 8y ago
I fully support your right to complain.
clairity 8y ago
even as a natural-born citizen, the fact that we accept crappy public transportation really chaps my hide. how do we (re-)instill pride in such things?
- rayiner 8y ago
  It’s an emergent cultural phenomenon. Who knows how you change it, if you even can. My complaints that my scheduled 24-minute Metro ride regularly takes 30-35 minutes are met by blank stares and “so whats?” It’s like being outraged in India or Bangladesh that you had to make a small “facilitation payment” to access some service. So what? People don’t really care, or even realize it can be different.
  - clairity 8y ago
    it certainly can be cultural. for example, as noted in another comment, the idea of sitting on, and blocking, stairs strikes japanese folks as rude (i tend to agree, even if mildly). most other cultures wouldn't give it a second thought. i'd love to see a shift toward pride in craftsmanship (a japanese cultural value), over the pride in ownership americans seem to principally exhibit. you see a rennaisance of this in certain parts of the culture, like fancy barbershops and coffee shops. if we give esteem to bus drivers and train conductors for being on time (a form of craftsmanship), maybe we'd get better service (a tall order, i know).

raldi 8y ago

If a majority of the populace supports your position, you'll have a much easier (though by no means easy) time doing the above. If a majority doesn't, then it's a feature of democracy rather than a bug that you probably won't be able to do it. But lets assume you've identified a real winner of a platform. You don't have to start from zero to make it happen — there will be existing candidates and organizations looking to achieve the same goals as you, and you should just join those campaigns. For example, many American cities have YIMBY clubs. Join yours and they'll have lots of great input on how you can put your finite volunteer time to effective political use.

TheJakeSchmidt 8y ago

This problem is solvable, but not by a single person acting alone - we have to build a movement, and being the actual candidate in office is far from the only role. Getting sympathetic candidates elected is one of the later steps in a long process. Before that, we need lots of people working on movement building, small fights, activism, research, organizing... there's so much to be done! I'm part of a group working on this problem in NYC. If you (or anyone else reading this) are in New York and potentially interested in helping, shoot me an email! (my HN username at gmail dot com)

stickfigure 8y ago

I don't think even luck and charisma would make a difference. Humans just don't deal with change well, and "you're going to change the character of my neighborhood" is going to make a large subset of any neighborhood violently angry. Look at the backlash over 'gentrification'. No, we like our squalor just the way it is! What we really need to do is force every resident abroad for a year so that they can see the alternative to "life as I've always know it".

aurailious 8y ago
> Look at the backlash over 'gentrification'. No, we like our squalor just the way it is! This is highly dismissive of all the actual and legitimate problems gentrification has.
- imgabe 8y ago
  Which are? There was a recent study which showed low income people in gentrifying neighborhoods don't move any more frequently than low income people do generally. And for those who actually own property, they get a huge windfall.
  - xVedun 8y ago
    Maybe some residents benefit from gentrification, but it seems that gentrification actually speeds up housing prices. Sources: https://journalistsresource.org/studies/economics/real-estate/gentrification-urban-displacement-affordable-housing-overview-research-roundup https://journalistsresource.org/studies/economics/real-estat...
    - stickfigure 8y ago
      Summary: Nice houses in nice neighborhoods cost more than crappy houses in crappy neighborhoods. This seems... reasonable.
  - andrepd 8y ago
    So you're agreeing with the criticism then? Property owners get stacks of cash, rich people move in and "take over" the neighbourhood, and the "commoners" get zilch.

jjaredsimpson 8y ago

A real problem is that public service is underpaid. I live in a state with a part time legislature that is paid $27k/year. I'm never going to run for office and derail my life by earning next to nothing and being co-mingled into a system I find full of corrupt and detestable people. America has a perverse relationship with politics, politicians, and governance. Politicians do some of the most important work possible in our society, but by underpaying you only attract certain types of people. Either those just hungry for power, using office as a stepping stone to wealth. Or those already wealthy looking to maintain existing structures and protect their wealth. I don't mean to sound flippant. Our system of government is an evolved process settled on over millennia. It's really close to some local maximum. My gripes are mostly centered around complaining that we "all know" there are obvious problems with the system but there isn't some obvious "continuous" path of from here to a better system. If I were benevolent dictator I'd like to see something like futarchy. And even while saying that I'm not sure if it just appeals to my hyper rationalism or if it's genuinely better. I assume current legislator suffer from this same bias on all kinds of issues.

zdragnar 8y ago
Depends on where you are. My nearest major city council has a member that gets paid just shy of 100k a year and misses roughly a third of the meetings. Great job if you can get it.
raldi 8y ago
It's true; here in San Francisco, the annual city budget is $11B, and each of the 11 members of the Board of Supervisors makes $110,000 a year (which sounds like a lot until you find out that thanks to our housing shortage, HUD defines the local "low-income" threshold as $117,400). The 11 supervisors are the equivalent of senior executives. How much do you think a senior executive of a company with $11B revenue gets paid? As a result, we get supervisors like Aaron Peskin (who's a landlord on the side and pushes civic policy that obstructs the creation of new apartments) or Chris Daly (basically a clown).
- pound 8y ago
  it's $117,400 for the family of 4

sailfast 8y ago

Because zoning is not national (thankfully!) in the United States, you should be able to do a lot at the local level. I don't think you'll have to raise a lot of money to do this. Typically you really only need to have the desire to do it. Hardest part is probably convincing people to vote for you.

closeparen 8y ago
Zoning is far too local: each municipality, acting in its own self-interest, protects its own and plans to make growth someone else’s problem. If we had zoning at a regional, state, or national level, this passing of the buck wouldn’t make sense, and those negatively affected by restrictive policy (people stuck commuting from elsewhere or simply unable to access job centers) would have some power over the decision.
- sailfast 8y ago
  If it was in the interest of each municipality to plan together for the area to grow, wouldn't that be a solid outcome much preferred to a state-level where you might be encumbered by a completely different set of interests with no interest in your growth? Townships and other inter-governmental organizations seem to handle this pretty well throughout the United States to reduce overhead and plan.
  - closeparen 8y ago
    A municipality will not participate in “planning together for growth” when it does not want to grow. We have such a regional planning process in the Bay Area; the plans it makes are pure fantasy. You could have 75% support among the 9-county population that commutes to SF for more housing in SF; something like 5% as many voters could defeat them, because only San Francisco residents have a say in San Francisco policymaking.

blacksmith_tb 8y ago

Do something like what? Move from a local to a nationally defined zoning scheme? That's not trivial for a country of any size. But moving your local zoning from exclusionary to inclusionary is theoretically possible, specifically because the consensus required is much smaller.

rcpt 8y ago

Zoning is particularly tough as the people who would benefit most from improved cities often don't yet live there and can't vote. Thus, the agencies that regulate zoning are effectively captured by local residents who, for completely rational concerns about their uninsurable property values, push for lots of legislation designed to mitigate change. I found chapters 6 and 7 of "The Captured Economy" by Lindsey and Teles to be the best exposition on this. They also detail a few ways one could change the system (eg. paying staffers more to attract better talent would make lobbyists jobs harder).

pc86 8y ago

These decisions are made by zoning boards. My borough's zoning board consists of: * 3 retired people who asked or were asked to be on the zoning board * 3 vacant seats Quorum is - you guessed it - 3. If you live in my borough and you ask to be on the zoning board, you'll be appointed at the next council meeting. They almost never meet except when someone dies, someone new is appointed, or they need to reorganize (yearly). Yeah there is a lot of paperwork and headache if you want to massively change the currently zoning of your area, but provided you're violating state or federal law in doing so it's not a remotely insurmountable task.

saalweachter 8y ago

Frankly, running for office is the worst way to effect change of this sort. Zoning isn't really driven by politicians in most polities in the US as it is the public who firmly believe their NIMBY-ism is necessary to protect their children, property values, and way of life (although not necessarily in that order of priorities). The local planning boards and town councils are mostly responding to whatever signals they receive from their constituents. If you want to change things, you need to change public opinion. The best case scenario of jumping to the top with some sort of majority cabal and changing things against public opinion is that you'll be voted out in the next cycle and all of your changes undone. Instead of campaigning for public office, you should start a campaign to inform the public with concrete, incremental, individual proposals for changes to zoning and explain how those proposals will increase property values, protect children, and improve the quality of life in a way consistent with people's desires. If you succeed, whoever is currently in office will happily put your proposals into practice as a feather in their own cap. And if you can't convince a majority of the people in your community, well, should your desires and opinions have priority over theirs?

rayiner 8y ago
Litigation has historically been an option when public opinion isn’t on your side. I dream of anti-NIMBY impact litigation, but haven’t figured out a good legal theory yet!
- osdiab 8y ago
  In The SF Bay Area Sonja Trauss, SFYIMBY and friends actually did bring a lawsuit against the suburb of Lafayette for housing development. https://youtu.be/91g6N_JNnQE https://youtu.be/91g6N_JNnQE They also established a legal agency for doing exactly that: https://www.carlaef.org/ https://www.carlaef.org/ I wonder if this kind of thing will happen more often for other urban policy related things!
  - rayiner 8y ago
    Thank you for the link--this is amazing.

davidw 8y ago

There are a lot of YIMBY organizations and similar things popping up these days. It's a good way to get involved without doing everything yourself.

chrischen 8y ago

A politician isn’t supposed to enact their own will. In theory all you need to do is convince the constituents or the people who pay the politician with a public media campaign.

brudgers 8y ago

In Japan's case what it took was losing World War II and subsequent military occupation. Japan's zoning is the result of mid 1940's "industry best practice" where the zoning industry was fledgling and interrupted by war and depression. It was accompanied by land reform that redistributed land wealth downward. A foreign power declared it by fiat and implemented it under martial law. One might say that Japan's stacked zoning exists because Macarthur didn't have to hold an election. The Allies held war crimes trials instead...a type of political climate historically conducive to land reform and sweeping legal changes. Martial law is probably not the alternative you're looking for.