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"They want to live in houses with gardens where their neighbours also have houses with gardens." ... which is a totally reasonable and in-bounds objective for
by rsync 8y ago
"They want to live in houses with gardens where their neighbours also have houses with gardens."
... which is a totally reasonable and in-bounds objective for an actor in a democracy.
I might not personally vote for such a thing - I happen to think that a LOT of San Francisco should be in-filled and doubled in height - but I value democracy and local control more than I value my personal tastes in SF neighborhoods.
The predictable retort which will now appear, like clockwork, is that local control is inherently undemocratic to which I would respond: how did you vote in the Marijuana legalization ballot initiative ? Where do you stand on sanctuary cities ? Why are those local control issues palatable, but financially inconvenient ones are not ?
- fzeroracer 8y agoA local city choosing to ban gay marriage or gay people from their city would be completely democratic, but would you be willing to defend that action? It gets even muddier when you start to consider who has more power in those situations to influence votes, or to deny people their rights to vote and so forth. This is similarly the case with NIMBYism which can be viewed as a battle between the wealthier home owners and the influx of young professionals who are being priced out of basic living arrangements. Democracy only really works when each individual actor is playing on the same equal playing field. When you have companies lobbying to frack on public parks or wealthier individuals taking advantage of outdated laws or AirBnB, that's not exactly something I'd consider democratic.
- xvedejas 8y agoI have learned not to value local control. This is because I value incumbent residents and future residents equally, but local control only can give the former group of people a voice. In this way, I do absolutely find it anti-democratic. I would definitely prefer issues like marijuana and sanctuary to be settled on the national level if that were possible. Same goes for zoning. I don't see the paradox you seem to see; when these things are forced to be solved on the local level, I'll support my position. That doesn't stop me from thinking that sometimes the local level is part of the problem.
- cabaalis 8y ago> This is because I value incumbent residents and future residents equally, but local control only can give the former group of people a voice. In this way, I do absolutely find it anti-democratic. Maybe I'm just a hick who doesn't understand big city think. But I interpret this to read "The people around here can't make proper decisions for our future, so let's depend on everyone else from other places to make the decisions for us and force us to obey." That logic seems flawed.