4 ms·

The headline about all American cities seems like it doesn't match the rest of the article, which is really just about San Francisco.

by gok 7y ago

bryanlarsen 7y ago
NIMBYism is a problem in all American cities.
- rubicon33 7y ago
  I'm not sure that there will EVER be a solution to this, especially in California. Why? Property is an investment (and that investment creates wealth for CA via Prop 13). It's rational to oppose anything which would decrease the value of your investment. For many home owners, their home is one of their biggest wealth sinks. That said, we should have never treated housing as an investment without some sort of control.
  - falcolas 7y ago
    And when they want to put it in your (literal) back yard, your property is foreclosed by the city, often for a tiny fraction of the actual market value of your property. Once that occurs - you have two choices - you take it or you put up a lot of money and fight it in the court systems. In the grand scheme of things, screwing over one person (or one family) could be considered to be OK, given the benefit to the city as a whole. But, having gone through this with my parents in a stupidly small town (40k), I can understand why anybody doesn't want it in their back yard. And ultimately, they're the tax payers and voters for that city. What they want is valued more than what outsiders want for their city.
    - TulliusCicero 7y ago
      > And ultimately, they're the tax payers and voters for that city. What they want is valued more than what outsiders want for their city. Yup, this is a big part of the problem. Potential residents can't vote, so you end up with a tragedy of the commons kind of situation: everyone agrees that someone ought to make more housing, but they all want someone else to handle it, and leave them alone. It's not entirely unlike homeless shelters. People agree that they should exist, just never in their own neighborhood. Because, y'know, eww. The solution is to have policy dictated at a higher level of authority that can avoid regulatory capture by hyperlocal interests. A zoning board that operated at the regional level would have fewer problems than cities or neighborhoods making these decisions.
TulliusCicero 7y ago
The bay area is the most obvious example, but the problems of exclusionary zoning in America are extremely widespread. In practice, this means the booming, high-income metros (which are largely liberal, like SF, NYC, Boston, and Seattle) are suffering the worst of high housing prices. More conservative metros will at least build outward to deal with housing supply problems. Yeah, that's not really good for the environment, but it does help with prices. But not liberal cities: they don't want to build out OR up. Instead, you get a plethora of excuses as to how they really shouldn't be expected to host any more human beings: why can't another city in the metro build more? Why can't those people move to another state? Why can't those companies hire more in another state? What about my god-given right to free, abundant car parking? Shouldn't we build more infrastructure before more housing (also let's not build that infrastructure please)? Why can't we freeze my neighborhood in amber? Etc.
- ptyyy 7y ago
  > More conservative metros will at least build outward to deal with housing supply problems. Yeah, that's not really good for the environment, but it does help with prices. But not liberal cities: they don't want to build out OR up. SF, NYC, Seattle, and Boston don't have more land to open up for development by virtue of their geography. Of course places like Dallas, Oklahoma city, etc. are able to build outward -- they aren't surrounded on multiple sides by large bodies of water. To build outward in SF, NYC, Seattle, and Boston they would have to recreate Waterworld.
  - nostrademons 7y ago
    They could still build upwards, and that has been suggested many times by residents. They (or rather, certain powerful factions within them) just don't want to.
    - cannonedhamster 7y ago
      Can the land actually handle building up? Wouldn't building down be the better way to go? I mean most of those cities are already threatened by rising sea levels. Boston and New York are pretty dense areas who's home do you want to tear down to build new more expensive high rises that the working poor can't afford.
nostrademons 7y ago
The headline about wealthy liberals doesn't match the bottom of the article, which rags on both parties. It's clickbait - it got you to click, after all. I thought the article made a good point, that tribalism and xenophobia is common to most humans and that wealthy & powerful people have the means to enforce their exclusivity on less wealthy & powerful people, and that different parties just manifest it through different policies operating at different levels. Then they dress it up in outrage politics because that generates pageviews.

The headline about all American cities seems like it doesn't match the rest of the article, which is really just about San Francisco.

by gok 7y ago

The headline about all American cities seems like it doesn't match the rest of the article, which is really just about San Francisco.

bryanlarsen 7y ago

NIMBYism is a problem in all American cities.

rubicon33 7y ago
I'm not sure that there will EVER be a solution to this, especially in California. Why? Property is an investment (and that investment creates wealth for CA via Prop 13). It's rational to oppose anything which would decrease the value of your investment. For many home owners, their home is one of their biggest wealth sinks. That said, we should have never treated housing as an investment without some sort of control.
- falcolas 7y ago
  And when they want to put it in your (literal) back yard, your property is foreclosed by the city, often for a tiny fraction of the actual market value of your property. Once that occurs - you have two choices - you take it or you put up a lot of money and fight it in the court systems. In the grand scheme of things, screwing over one person (or one family) could be considered to be OK, given the benefit to the city as a whole. But, having gone through this with my parents in a stupidly small town (40k), I can understand why anybody doesn't want it in their back yard. And ultimately, they're the tax payers and voters for that city. What they want is valued more than what outsiders want for their city.
  - TulliusCicero 7y ago
    > And ultimately, they're the tax payers and voters for that city. What they want is valued more than what outsiders want for their city. Yup, this is a big part of the problem. Potential residents can't vote, so you end up with a tragedy of the commons kind of situation: everyone agrees that someone ought to make more housing, but they all want someone else to handle it, and leave them alone. It's not entirely unlike homeless shelters. People agree that they should exist, just never in their own neighborhood. Because, y'know, eww. The solution is to have policy dictated at a higher level of authority that can avoid regulatory capture by hyperlocal interests. A zoning board that operated at the regional level would have fewer problems than cities or neighborhoods making these decisions.

TulliusCicero 7y ago

The bay area is the most obvious example, but the problems of exclusionary zoning in America are extremely widespread. In practice, this means the booming, high-income metros (which are largely liberal, like SF, NYC, Boston, and Seattle) are suffering the worst of high housing prices. More conservative metros will at least build outward to deal with housing supply problems. Yeah, that's not really good for the environment, but it does help with prices. But not liberal cities: they don't want to build out OR up. Instead, you get a plethora of excuses as to how they really shouldn't be expected to host any more human beings: why can't another city in the metro build more? Why can't those people move to another state? Why can't those companies hire more in another state? What about my god-given right to free, abundant car parking? Shouldn't we build more infrastructure before more housing (also let's not build that infrastructure please)? Why can't we freeze my neighborhood in amber? Etc.

ptyyy 7y ago
> More conservative metros will at least build outward to deal with housing supply problems. Yeah, that's not really good for the environment, but it does help with prices. But not liberal cities: they don't want to build out OR up. SF, NYC, Seattle, and Boston don't have more land to open up for development by virtue of their geography. Of course places like Dallas, Oklahoma city, etc. are able to build outward -- they aren't surrounded on multiple sides by large bodies of water. To build outward in SF, NYC, Seattle, and Boston they would have to recreate Waterworld.
- nostrademons 7y ago
  They could still build upwards, and that has been suggested many times by residents. They (or rather, certain powerful factions within them) just don't want to.
  - cannonedhamster 7y ago
    Can the land actually handle building up? Wouldn't building down be the better way to go? I mean most of those cities are already threatened by rising sea levels. Boston and New York are pretty dense areas who's home do you want to tear down to build new more expensive high rises that the working poor can't afford.

nostrademons 7y ago

The headline about wealthy liberals doesn't match the bottom of the article, which rags on both parties. It's clickbait - it got you to click, after all. I thought the article made a good point, that tribalism and xenophobia is common to most humans and that wealthy & powerful people have the means to enforce their exclusivity on less wealthy & powerful people, and that different parties just manifest it through different policies operating at different levels. Then they dress it up in outrage politics because that generates pageviews.