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Yes they do. But are there not far fewer home owners than renters? Somewhere some one renting a apartment with a nice view voted down a building changing their

Yes they do. But are there not far fewer home owners than renters? Somewhere some one renting a apartment with a nice view voted down a building changing their view.

AnimalMuppet 8y ago
For every renter, there's an owner that they rent from. That owner has the same incentives as other owners, plus the incentive of having the rent keep going up. Renters outnumber owners, and could in theory outvote them. But I don't think they will. Renters have a different mind-set from owners. Owners are in for the long(er) haul; renters can leave at the end of the lease if they choose. So owners tend to care more about politics and the future of the city, and therefore vote in higher numbers. Or so I suspect, with exactly zero evidence to back it up.
- netheril96 8y ago
  In Silicon Valley, often several renters correspond to a single owner.
standardUser 8y ago
Renters are more transient, so less willing and able to exert political pressure. And they usually have fewer resources to advocate for their own benefit in the first place. But you still make a great point. Long-term renters must at least sometimes vote on the side of the "NIMBYs". If you've lived in a unit for 10 years and have rent control, do you want low-income housing or giant view-blocking structures put up in your neighborhood? Maybe not.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > Renters are more transient, so less willing and able to exert political pressure New York's renters are quite politically active. The bottom line is most people in the Bay Area aren't politically active. It's not cool to write to one's elected representatives, go to town halls, collect petitions for candidates and spend weekends stumping for them. Primary and local election turn-outs, critical in an effectively one-party region, are miserable. These factors lead to a large fraction of the population self selecting out of the political process.
eli_gottlieb 8y ago
It depends where. Before the present housing shortages, in most American municipalities, more people lived in owner-occupying households than rentals. I think a lot of politicians in the most housing-constrained metros haven't really started assuming as a background expectation that their average constituent is not now and can never realistically be an above-water homeowner on a non-shared unit without drastic political and urbanism reform.

Yes they do. But are there not far fewer home owners than renters? Somewhere some one renting a apartment with a nice view voted down a building changing their view.

AnimalMuppet 8y ago

For every renter, there's an owner that they rent from. That owner has the same incentives as other owners, plus the incentive of having the rent keep going up. Renters outnumber owners, and could in theory outvote them. But I don't think they will. Renters have a different mind-set from owners. Owners are in for the long(er) haul; renters can leave at the end of the lease if they choose. So owners tend to care more about politics and the future of the city, and therefore vote in higher numbers. Or so I suspect, with exactly zero evidence to back it up.

netheril96 8y ago
In Silicon Valley, often several renters correspond to a single owner.

standardUser 8y ago

Renters are more transient, so less willing and able to exert political pressure. And they usually have fewer resources to advocate for their own benefit in the first place. But you still make a great point. Long-term renters must at least sometimes vote on the side of the "NIMBYs". If you've lived in a unit for 10 years and have rent control, do you want low-income housing or giant view-blocking structures put up in your neighborhood? Maybe not.

JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> Renters are more transient, so less willing and able to exert political pressure New York's renters are quite politically active. The bottom line is most people in the Bay Area aren't politically active. It's not cool to write to one's elected representatives, go to town halls, collect petitions for candidates and spend weekends stumping for them. Primary and local election turn-outs, critical in an effectively one-party region, are miserable. These factors lead to a large fraction of the population self selecting out of the political process.

eli_gottlieb 8y ago

It depends where. Before the present housing shortages, in most American municipalities, more people lived in owner-occupying households than rentals. I think a lot of politicians in the most housing-constrained metros haven't really started assuming as a background expectation that their average constituent is not now and can never realistically be an above-water homeowner on a non-shared unit without drastic political and urbanism reform.