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Do you feel their actions are from accidental incompetence, or from deliberate action? I've noticed that most cities strike some kind of middleground tone, whe

Do you feel their actions are from accidental incompetence, or from deliberate action? I've noticed that most cities strike some kind of middleground tone, where they say "homelessness is a big problem affecting us, but surely we can't live in a world without zoning regulations (because we want to keep property taxes and assessments high)." These programs for the homeless are mostly just lipservice to the actual problems you pointed out. I would know-- I was employed and homeless for 4 months until I found a girlfriend to split a very distant apartment with!

rayiner 8y ago
> Do you feel their actions are from accidental incompetence, or from deliberate action? Deliberate action. Back in the day, there was a lot of transient housing. Shared rooms, boarding arrangements, and the like for people whose economic condition didn't allow entering into a long term lease. Property owners found these people undesirable, and zoned those living situations out of existence. This was a deliberate and malicious effort.
- tptacek 8y ago
  It's not just short-term housing; it's not even just residential zoning. It appears to be all zoning in places with engaged residents. In my sister's Jeff Park neighborhood in Chicago, there's a bitter fight over whether to allow dense multi-family developments; in Oak Park, where I live, people litigate repurposing vacant lots(!) for fear of the clientele benign businesses will attract. It's not like liquor licenses or banquet halls, it's just basic services, and the subtext is always "keep new low income black and latinx families out". It makes me worry that as neighborhoods get more connected (as mine has, with Facebook, and others are with Nextdoor), this problem is going to get much worse before it gets better.
  - rayiner 8y ago
    I remember in Streeterville there was a big kerfuffle against construction of a Ronald McDonald house. I'd like to think people felt guilty when it turned out that the house would be a place for families of cancer patients to stay while their kids were getting treated at the children's hospital...
  - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
    It's trite to imply everything is some secret racial motive. There's a extremely strong connection between low income and crime. That already is a major deterrent to low income housing. But it has effects aside from that. The crime and other consequences tend to make it less safe to simply live in areas, and also simultaneously destroy home values - which destroys the wealth that people in an area have paid for already. Nobody wants this. There are also longterm effects. Low income families tend to be net negative on taxes. This means that a city has less money to fund the basic necessities. Pair a higher strain on those same necessities and a declining tax base and it's not hard to see what happens. And even within the US low income families tend to have a far greater fertility rate than higher income families. Those earning < $10,000 per year currently have about 50% more children than those earning $200k+ per year. [1] This again compounds all the other already existing effects. I think focusing on race prevents people from actually having any sort of conversation since it's just a straw man. How do you deal with the above while also having the desire to enable more people to achieve a better life? It's not an easy question, but one that has to be answered. Good intentions mean nothing if the actions effected do more harm than good. [1] - https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-family-income-in-the-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-fam...
    - cnbx 8y ago
      There's also a connection between low income and turning up the stereo to an obnoxious level, which renders your own home useless for intellectual pursuits. I agree that race has nothing to do with this. Being educated or just considerate has.
    - lifeformed 8y ago
      It's not a secret racial motive, it's an overt one: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining I'm not saying race is the only factor - this is a multifaceted problem for sure. But race is definitely one of the facets. If you trace the history of a poor urban area back just a few decades, the relevance of race becomes increasingly apparent. I do agree that it's unproductive to simplify the issue down to just one of the many factors.
- detcader 8y ago
  What can people do to be effective actors against the societal inertia that inevitably throws well-off, as tptacek put it, "engaged residents" (they're always instant experts in the next arena of material advantage, eh?) against fair zoning due to fear of poor people/non-whites? What are historic models of activism? Book recommendations? I get the feeling zoning and housing is one of those unsexy problems less broadcast within mainstream liberal and left politics, like gerrymandering or campaign finance.
tehlike 8y ago
PRoperty taxes would be higher, assesments would be lower (or it would lower other's property values). By building more housing on a given plot of land, each unit cost would be lower, but total would be higher.
- zhoujianfu 8y ago
  Yeah, it’s that each individual property owner is worried about their home’s value, not the city government worried about losing property tax revenue.

rayiner 8y ago

> Do you feel their actions are from accidental incompetence, or from deliberate action? Deliberate action. Back in the day, there was a lot of transient housing. Shared rooms, boarding arrangements, and the like for people whose economic condition didn't allow entering into a long term lease. Property owners found these people undesirable, and zoned those living situations out of existence. This was a deliberate and malicious effort.

tptacek 8y ago
It's not just short-term housing; it's not even just residential zoning. It appears to be all zoning in places with engaged residents. In my sister's Jeff Park neighborhood in Chicago, there's a bitter fight over whether to allow dense multi-family developments; in Oak Park, where I live, people litigate repurposing vacant lots(!) for fear of the clientele benign businesses will attract. It's not like liquor licenses or banquet halls, it's just basic services, and the subtext is always "keep new low income black and latinx families out". It makes me worry that as neighborhoods get more connected (as mine has, with Facebook, and others are with Nextdoor), this problem is going to get much worse before it gets better.
- rayiner 8y ago
  I remember in Streeterville there was a big kerfuffle against construction of a Ronald McDonald house. I'd like to think people felt guilty when it turned out that the house would be a place for families of cancer patients to stay while their kids were getting treated at the children's hospital...
- TangoTrotFox 8y ago
  It's trite to imply everything is some secret racial motive. There's a extremely strong connection between low income and crime. That already is a major deterrent to low income housing. But it has effects aside from that. The crime and other consequences tend to make it less safe to simply live in areas, and also simultaneously destroy home values - which destroys the wealth that people in an area have paid for already. Nobody wants this. There are also longterm effects. Low income families tend to be net negative on taxes. This means that a city has less money to fund the basic necessities. Pair a higher strain on those same necessities and a declining tax base and it's not hard to see what happens. And even within the US low income families tend to have a far greater fertility rate than higher income families. Those earning < $10,000 per year currently have about 50% more children than those earning $200k+ per year. [1] This again compounds all the other already existing effects. I think focusing on race prevents people from actually having any sort of conversation since it's just a straw man. How do you deal with the above while also having the desire to enable more people to achieve a better life? It's not an easy question, but one that has to be answered. Good intentions mean nothing if the actions effected do more harm than good. [1] - https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-family-income-in-the-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-fam...
  - cnbx 8y ago
    There's also a connection between low income and turning up the stereo to an obnoxious level, which renders your own home useless for intellectual pursuits. I agree that race has nothing to do with this. Being educated or just considerate has.
  - lifeformed 8y ago
    It's not a secret racial motive, it's an overt one: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining I'm not saying race is the only factor - this is a multifaceted problem for sure. But race is definitely one of the facets. If you trace the history of a poor urban area back just a few decades, the relevance of race becomes increasingly apparent. I do agree that it's unproductive to simplify the issue down to just one of the many factors.
detcader 8y ago
What can people do to be effective actors against the societal inertia that inevitably throws well-off, as tptacek put it, "engaged residents" (they're always instant experts in the next arena of material advantage, eh?) against fair zoning due to fear of poor people/non-whites? What are historic models of activism? Book recommendations? I get the feeling zoning and housing is one of those unsexy problems less broadcast within mainstream liberal and left politics, like gerrymandering or campaign finance.

tehlike 8y ago

PRoperty taxes would be higher, assesments would be lower (or it would lower other's property values). By building more housing on a given plot of land, each unit cost would be lower, but total would be higher.

zhoujianfu 8y ago
Yeah, it’s that each individual property owner is worried about their home’s value, not the city government worried about losing property tax revenue.