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Liberal America’s Single-Family Hypocrisy

39 points by johnny313 7y ago

fopen64 7y ago
Liberal .* hypocrisy would match a lot of things...
0815test 7y ago
Is this a surprise? The Democrat party has historically been pro-segregation. For the bulk of its history, it was explicitly so. Hence, should we really be surprised when wealthy, white Democrat activists and policy-makers push segregation-inducing policies in CA?
- archgoon 7y ago
  Since LBJ's signing of the Civil Rights act in 1964 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964 and Nixon's embracement of the Southern Strategy (initially pioneered by Barry Goldwater) in the 1960s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy the two parties have largely swapped places on issues regarding minority rights. In many cases, the pro-segregationist democratic politicians switched parties completely (like Strom Thurmond). Another article that discusses the demographic shifts between the democratic and republican parties in the 60s is here: https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/07/14/331298996/why-did-black-voters-flee-the-republican-party-in-the-1960s https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/07/14/331298996...
  - 0815test 7y ago
    Okay, clearly you don't know what the real "Southern Strategy" was about. In many ways, the Civil Rights movement was the wake-up call that the South's entrenched elite had needed for a hundred years. It's no coincidence that the Civil Rights era was followed by a few intense decades (1970s and 1980s) of deep social and economic renewal; today, the South (and more generally, the Sun Belt!) is the most economically free area in the nation by far, including with respect to housing policies! To the extent that a Republican Southern strategy existed, it was playing to this, entirely novel side of Southern politics. The segregationist, pre-Civil Rights South was dead and still is dead, no matter how many white Democrats will try to sneakily revive it in the foreseeable future - that's why they mostly try those ploys elsewhere (like in CA and OR) by now. The South has had its grassroots Reconstruction, one hundred years past the original schedule. And it was Republicans who achieved it.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - mwfunk 7y ago
      Jesus Christ dude, I give up.
    - TulliusCicero 7y ago
      Praising the economy of the South seems a strange strategy when economically it's so weak. GDP per capita in Southern states is generally lower than average, sometimes much lower.
      - rayiner 7y ago
        Usually, when we compare GDP per capita between countries, we use PPP (purchasing power parity) rather than nominal values. You can achieve a similar result by adjusting state median incomes by a cost of living factor: https://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/2018/11/15/median-household-purchasing-power-for-the-50-states-and-dc https://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/2018/11/1.... Adjusted for cost of living, the median income in Alabama is about 10% higher than in California. California and New York are actually among the poorest states in the country in terms of standard-of-living, down there with Mississippi and West Virginia.
        TulliusCicero 7y ago
        That tells you about the standard of living, but not about economic output.
        CompanionCuuube 7y ago
        An utter neglect of the Purchasing Power Parity and standard of living of the citizens also tells a lot. In the US where capitalism dominates, the economic output is a better measure of the enrichment of the wealthy unless you believe in something like "trickle down".
    - Ericson2314 7y ago
- mwfunk 7y ago
  Right up until 1964, when all the Dixiecrats had finally had enough and switched over to the Republican Party, which welcomed their votes and bigotry with open arms. And that’s how it’s been for the last 60+ years, but surely you knew that, being such a student of history and all. LBJ thought that Democrats siding with the Civil Rights movement would drive away Southern Evangelicals for a generation, but he never counted on them being so devoid of principles, values, or integrity that they would double down on party over literally ever other factor, even their own religion, even their own interests. And here we are on Reddit, 65 years later, where someone to this day is claiming that Democrats are the pro-segregation party. What an awful time to be alive.
  - thepangolino 7y ago
    <And here we are on Reddit, 65 years late Wrong website, mate.
  - giggles_giggles 7y ago
    > 1964, when all the Dixiecrats had finally had enough and switched over to the Republican Party, Oh they had? When did Robert Byrd switch parties?
LargeWu 7y ago
There's been a lot of pushback on Minneapolis's 2040 plan, but ultimately I think it's a step in the right direction. Most of the objections are from people living in quiet, mostly single-family neighborhoods who don't want apartments near them. But really, most of the rezoning only takes place directly along busier corridor streets; the interiors of those blocks would still be single-family zoned.
- rayiner 7y ago
  That’s really cool: https://www.curbed.com/2018/11/27/18113208/minneapolis-real-estate-rent-development-2040-zoning https://www.curbed.com/2018/11/27/18113208/minneapolis-real-.... Someone called Sweden “Minnesota writ large” and that really seems to have a kernel of truth to it.
  - Ericson2314 7y ago
    That and also it's full of Scandinavians.
- TulliusCicero 7y ago
  That's unfortunate that it doesn't go that far. Increasingly, people are willing to call mandatory single family home zoning what it is: economic segregation. If, to live in a particular neighborhood, your household has to own or rent a large home on a big plot of land, that's obviously going to keep out the poor and working class from living there. We tend accept this as if it's natural and fine, but is it? This isn't even a case where you can say, "well, that's just what the market has decided, it's the invisible hand," because it's actually government regulation that's enforcing the segregation here. Why do we want the government to do that again? I'm not saying that every neighborhood has to allow giant apartment towers, but that they won't even allow fourplexes or townhomes or small apartment buildings that would still allow for a peaceful neighborhood is an issue.
knolax 7y ago
Maybe it's just me but maybe we should do our partisan name-calling somewhere other than Hacker News. I'm sick of these flamebait articles that do not "satisfy curiosity" in any way.
- Wowfunhappy 7y ago
  The title should probably be edited. The article itself is quite interesting.
- vore 7y ago
  I don't think there's any partisan name-calling at all in here? If anything, it's partisan introspection. The content is pretty substantial and goes into great depth about the history of single-family zoning.
  - knolax 7y ago
    The title is flamebait. It's just the typical rant about NIMBYism with a partisan tinge to it. When I made my comment there was only two comments and one of them was: "Liberal .* hypocrisy would match a lot of things..." These types of tired comments, and more eloquently framed versions of them, always pop up under articles like this and they never bring up any interesting points.
    - SomeOldThrow 7y ago
      Liberal is ideological, not partisan. Nonetheless I agree.
- Ericson2314 7y ago
  Hypocrisy is not a matter of opinion. The left accusing the liberals of hypocrisy should neither irk left nor right-wing audiences, so I declare this non-partisan too.
rayiner 7y ago
> . As cities regain their cultural clout, low-income African-American and Latino neighborhoods are often among the few where new housing is permitted, concentrating growth pressure and accelerating the process of gentrification. This fact hit me like a ton of bricks. I had assumed that the reason all this new construction happens in gentrifying neighborhoods is because land is cheaper. But of course that can’t be the main reason. In Palo Alto, you can get a single family house with an 6,000-8,000 square foot lot for $2-3 million. With reasonable zoning you could put in a 6-8 story building with a 3,000-4,000 square foot footprint and 12-24 units. At the upper end, the land cost of each unit would be about $150,000. If construction costs $200 per square foot, that’s another $260,000 for a 1,300 square foot 3BR unit. Say half a million in costs for the whole unit. Already, you’re looking at land costs being a smaller part of the overall per-unit costs, and this is a relatively modest building (as you go higher, the per-unit land cost goes down). Going to a gentrifying neighborhood might save you on land costs, but at substantially greater risk. (Maybe the neighborhood won’t gentrify as fast as you expect, people will expect a discount to live in a gentrifying neighborhood, etc.)
- aaronbrethorst 7y ago
  A few months ago, I merged two data sets: one depicting Seattle’s history of redlining in the 20th century, and another that showed every building demolition project since around the year 2000. What I found was that these historically redlined districts have see over 10x the amount of demolition that explicitly white neighborhoods have had. I’ll put this online sometime soon. It’s really astonishing to see the data.
- gtfratteus 7y ago
  As a general rule of thumb, I'd expect building denser housing to be more attractive in areas with higher housing costs. However, the reason these areas have high housing costs is usually the same reason you can't build denser housing there. If California wants to fix its housing affordability issue, it needs state-level legislation that reduces impediments to denser housing. Palo Alto and other high cost areas aren't going to willingly densify.
hackermailman 7y ago
They forced density in Vancouver, Canada by billing property taxes on possible uses of land instead of actual uses. So if city council decided your land could actually be a 10 story condo, they would hand you a gigantic tax bill based on that condo tower rate in hopes you'd sell to developers. It turned the city into a judge dredd style dystopia of luxury condo towers but they achieved density.
- Wowfunhappy 7y ago
  > It turned the city into a judge dredd style dystopia of luxury condo towers Is it really that bad?
  - hackermailman 7y ago
    Not entirely, but because of local political corruption a lot of development ended up like this but it doesn't have to be this way. US cities I imagine are far more strict seperating development from politicians than the grey areas here that permitted foreign money laundering.
- akvadrako 7y ago
  Sounds like a land value tax, which libertarians have been suggesting for decades.
  - thepangolino 7y ago
    It's actually a tax on potential land value.
    - Ericson2314 7y ago
      Potential building value, but real land value. "This might be near something someday" != "This is already near the city center".
- shduyuisdfiu 7y ago
  I'm guessing they didn't do this, but I think it would be fair if the city also forced developers to pay the owner what the land (potentially) could be worth.
jarjoura 7y ago
I'm a little confused by the implications the article is making. Density in the outer suburbs is probably not a good idea, for all the reasons the article mentions, such as traffic. Then you have to factor in all the other things like electricity, water, sewage, garbage collection, police, firefighters, more public schooling, etc. I'm 100% all for more density, but just throwing up 8 story apartments in what were single-family lots all over the outer suburbs isn't really going to help anyone. There are all kinds of competing forces at play, but the one I think is the hardest to understand is quality of life. Everyone has an idea of what works for them and it's different for everyone. Some of us do want to live in the core of a city and be as close to the energy as possible. While some of us need to be in a quiet area far from it all. I don't want to shame people for wanting to live in a single-family home with room for a garden and toolshed. Those spaces should exist and be in reach for anyone who wants that lifestyle. Yet, I do think we need to rethink what is considered the "core" of a city and should expect and demand that those areas build up. That's when I start getting frustrated with cities on the peninsula. All of the downtowns from Burlingame to Cupertino have height limits of 2 stories. Are you kidding me? None of them have views, and all of them have Caltrain stops. So I don't think "liberal America" is necessarily wrong, and I'm not sure the article is convincing me of that.
- esoterica 7y ago
  > I'm 100% all for more density, but just throwing up 8 story apartments in what were single-family lots all over the outer suburbs isn't really going to help anyone. It'll help the people who no longer have to pay $5k/month in rent. > Then you have to factor in all the other things like electricity, water, sewage, garbage collection, police, firefighters, more public schooling, etc. Density makes all of these things cheaper. > Those spaces should exist and be in reach for anyone who wants that lifestyle. Low density living is environmentally unsustainable yet heavily subsidized by the government. People living in rural and exurban areas receive far more infrastructure spending per capita while paying the same taxes as the rest of us. If you want to destroy the earth just so you can have big yard then not only should the government not subsidize you, you should be paying extra to reflect the negative externalities caused by your carbon emissions.
notasnakein 7y ago
I've got an important question for everyone the writer. According to their premise and most 'liberal' premises white people are inherently racist and don't want to live around 'poc' or whatever is the polite word these days. See white flight. So what makes them think the people won't just flee the suburbs again if they do this? I too think those rich people are racist and use their wealth to live away from poc while supposedly working for them but I need some clarification on this point. I'd also love to see and be amenable to the idea of the government forcing these people to practice what they preach to the rest of us. Diversity is our greatest strength after all.
brianberns 7y ago
I don’t find this persuasive at all. Over-population of humans on this planet is the root cause of the impending climate disaster. Jamming more people into cities is just going to fuel the population explosion. I think we have to find a way to reduce the population to a sustainable level.

39 points by johnny313 7y ago

Liberal .* hypocrisy would match a lot of things...

Is this a surprise? The Democrat party has historically been pro-segregation. For the bulk of its history, it was explicitly so. Hence, should we really be surprised when wealthy, white Democrat activists and policy-makers push segregation-inducing policies in CA?

archgoon 7y ago
Since LBJ's signing of the Civil Rights act in 1964 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964 and Nixon's embracement of the Southern Strategy (initially pioneered by Barry Goldwater) in the 1960s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy the two parties have largely swapped places on issues regarding minority rights. In many cases, the pro-segregationist democratic politicians switched parties completely (like Strom Thurmond). Another article that discusses the demographic shifts between the democratic and republican parties in the 60s is here: https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/07/14/331298996/why-did-black-voters-flee-the-republican-party-in-the-1960s https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/07/14/331298996...
- 0815test 7y ago
  Okay, clearly you don't know what the real "Southern Strategy" was about. In many ways, the Civil Rights movement was the wake-up call that the South's entrenched elite had needed for a hundred years. It's no coincidence that the Civil Rights era was followed by a few intense decades (1970s and 1980s) of deep social and economic renewal; today, the South (and more generally, the Sun Belt!) is the most economically free area in the nation by far, including with respect to housing policies! To the extent that a Republican Southern strategy existed, it was playing to this, entirely novel side of Southern politics. The segregationist, pre-Civil Rights South was dead and still is dead, no matter how many white Democrats will try to sneakily revive it in the foreseeable future - that's why they mostly try those ploys elsewhere (like in CA and OR) by now. The South has had its grassroots Reconstruction, one hundred years past the original schedule. And it was Republicans who achieved it.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - mwfunk 7y ago
    Jesus Christ dude, I give up.
  - TulliusCicero 7y ago
    Praising the economy of the South seems a strange strategy when economically it's so weak. GDP per capita in Southern states is generally lower than average, sometimes much lower.
    - rayiner 7y ago
      Usually, when we compare GDP per capita between countries, we use PPP (purchasing power parity) rather than nominal values. You can achieve a similar result by adjusting state median incomes by a cost of living factor: https://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/2018/11/15/median-household-purchasing-power-for-the-50-states-and-dc https://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/2018/11/1.... Adjusted for cost of living, the median income in Alabama is about 10% higher than in California. California and New York are actually among the poorest states in the country in terms of standard-of-living, down there with Mississippi and West Virginia.
      - TulliusCicero 7y ago
        That tells you about the standard of living, but not about economic output.
        CompanionCuuube 7y ago
        An utter neglect of the Purchasing Power Parity and standard of living of the citizens also tells a lot. In the US where capitalism dominates, the economic output is a better measure of the enrichment of the wealthy unless you believe in something like "trickle down".
  - Ericson2314 7y ago
mwfunk 7y ago
Right up until 1964, when all the Dixiecrats had finally had enough and switched over to the Republican Party, which welcomed their votes and bigotry with open arms. And that’s how it’s been for the last 60+ years, but surely you knew that, being such a student of history and all. LBJ thought that Democrats siding with the Civil Rights movement would drive away Southern Evangelicals for a generation, but he never counted on them being so devoid of principles, values, or integrity that they would double down on party over literally ever other factor, even their own religion, even their own interests. And here we are on Reddit, 65 years later, where someone to this day is claiming that Democrats are the pro-segregation party. What an awful time to be alive.
- thepangolino 7y ago
  <And here we are on Reddit, 65 years late Wrong website, mate.
- giggles_giggles 7y ago
  > 1964, when all the Dixiecrats had finally had enough and switched over to the Republican Party, Oh they had? When did Robert Byrd switch parties?

LargeWu 7y ago

There's been a lot of pushback on Minneapolis's 2040 plan, but ultimately I think it's a step in the right direction. Most of the objections are from people living in quiet, mostly single-family neighborhoods who don't want apartments near them. But really, most of the rezoning only takes place directly along busier corridor streets; the interiors of those blocks would still be single-family zoned.

rayiner 7y ago
That’s really cool: https://www.curbed.com/2018/11/27/18113208/minneapolis-real-estate-rent-development-2040-zoning https://www.curbed.com/2018/11/27/18113208/minneapolis-real-.... Someone called Sweden “Minnesota writ large” and that really seems to have a kernel of truth to it.
- Ericson2314 7y ago
  That and also it's full of Scandinavians.
TulliusCicero 7y ago
That's unfortunate that it doesn't go that far. Increasingly, people are willing to call mandatory single family home zoning what it is: economic segregation. If, to live in a particular neighborhood, your household has to own or rent a large home on a big plot of land, that's obviously going to keep out the poor and working class from living there. We tend accept this as if it's natural and fine, but is it? This isn't even a case where you can say, "well, that's just what the market has decided, it's the invisible hand," because it's actually government regulation that's enforcing the segregation here. Why do we want the government to do that again? I'm not saying that every neighborhood has to allow giant apartment towers, but that they won't even allow fourplexes or townhomes or small apartment buildings that would still allow for a peaceful neighborhood is an issue.

knolax 7y ago

Maybe it's just me but maybe we should do our partisan name-calling somewhere other than Hacker News. I'm sick of these flamebait articles that do not "satisfy curiosity" in any way.

Wowfunhappy 7y ago
The title should probably be edited. The article itself is quite interesting.
vore 7y ago
I don't think there's any partisan name-calling at all in here? If anything, it's partisan introspection. The content is pretty substantial and goes into great depth about the history of single-family zoning.
- knolax 7y ago
  The title is flamebait. It's just the typical rant about NIMBYism with a partisan tinge to it. When I made my comment there was only two comments and one of them was: "Liberal .* hypocrisy would match a lot of things..." These types of tired comments, and more eloquently framed versions of them, always pop up under articles like this and they never bring up any interesting points.
  - SomeOldThrow 7y ago
    Liberal is ideological, not partisan. Nonetheless I agree.
Ericson2314 7y ago
Hypocrisy is not a matter of opinion. The left accusing the liberals of hypocrisy should neither irk left nor right-wing audiences, so I declare this non-partisan too.

rayiner 7y ago

> . As cities regain their cultural clout, low-income African-American and Latino neighborhoods are often among the few where new housing is permitted, concentrating growth pressure and accelerating the process of gentrification. This fact hit me like a ton of bricks. I had assumed that the reason all this new construction happens in gentrifying neighborhoods is because land is cheaper. But of course that can’t be the main reason. In Palo Alto, you can get a single family house with an 6,000-8,000 square foot lot for $2-3 million. With reasonable zoning you could put in a 6-8 story building with a 3,000-4,000 square foot footprint and 12-24 units. At the upper end, the land cost of each unit would be about $150,000. If construction costs $200 per square foot, that’s another $260,000 for a 1,300 square foot 3BR unit. Say half a million in costs for the whole unit. Already, you’re looking at land costs being a smaller part of the overall per-unit costs, and this is a relatively modest building (as you go higher, the per-unit land cost goes down). Going to a gentrifying neighborhood might save you on land costs, but at substantially greater risk. (Maybe the neighborhood won’t gentrify as fast as you expect, people will expect a discount to live in a gentrifying neighborhood, etc.)

aaronbrethorst 7y ago
A few months ago, I merged two data sets: one depicting Seattle’s history of redlining in the 20th century, and another that showed every building demolition project since around the year 2000. What I found was that these historically redlined districts have see over 10x the amount of demolition that explicitly white neighborhoods have had. I’ll put this online sometime soon. It’s really astonishing to see the data.
gtfratteus 7y ago
As a general rule of thumb, I'd expect building denser housing to be more attractive in areas with higher housing costs. However, the reason these areas have high housing costs is usually the same reason you can't build denser housing there. If California wants to fix its housing affordability issue, it needs state-level legislation that reduces impediments to denser housing. Palo Alto and other high cost areas aren't going to willingly densify.

hackermailman 7y ago

They forced density in Vancouver, Canada by billing property taxes on possible uses of land instead of actual uses. So if city council decided your land could actually be a 10 story condo, they would hand you a gigantic tax bill based on that condo tower rate in hopes you'd sell to developers. It turned the city into a judge dredd style dystopia of luxury condo towers but they achieved density.

Wowfunhappy 7y ago
> It turned the city into a judge dredd style dystopia of luxury condo towers Is it really that bad?
- hackermailman 7y ago
  Not entirely, but because of local political corruption a lot of development ended up like this but it doesn't have to be this way. US cities I imagine are far more strict seperating development from politicians than the grey areas here that permitted foreign money laundering.
akvadrako 7y ago
Sounds like a land value tax, which libertarians have been suggesting for decades.
- thepangolino 7y ago
  It's actually a tax on potential land value.
  - Ericson2314 7y ago
    Potential building value, but real land value. "This might be near something someday" != "This is already near the city center".
shduyuisdfiu 7y ago
I'm guessing they didn't do this, but I think it would be fair if the city also forced developers to pay the owner what the land (potentially) could be worth.

jarjoura 7y ago

I'm a little confused by the implications the article is making. Density in the outer suburbs is probably not a good idea, for all the reasons the article mentions, such as traffic. Then you have to factor in all the other things like electricity, water, sewage, garbage collection, police, firefighters, more public schooling, etc. I'm 100% all for more density, but just throwing up 8 story apartments in what were single-family lots all over the outer suburbs isn't really going to help anyone. There are all kinds of competing forces at play, but the one I think is the hardest to understand is quality of life. Everyone has an idea of what works for them and it's different for everyone. Some of us do want to live in the core of a city and be as close to the energy as possible. While some of us need to be in a quiet area far from it all. I don't want to shame people for wanting to live in a single-family home with room for a garden and toolshed. Those spaces should exist and be in reach for anyone who wants that lifestyle. Yet, I do think we need to rethink what is considered the "core" of a city and should expect and demand that those areas build up. That's when I start getting frustrated with cities on the peninsula. All of the downtowns from Burlingame to Cupertino have height limits of 2 stories. Are you kidding me? None of them have views, and all of them have Caltrain stops. So I don't think "liberal America" is necessarily wrong, and I'm not sure the article is convincing me of that.

esoterica 7y ago
> I'm 100% all for more density, but just throwing up 8 story apartments in what were single-family lots all over the outer suburbs isn't really going to help anyone. It'll help the people who no longer have to pay $5k/month in rent. > Then you have to factor in all the other things like electricity, water, sewage, garbage collection, police, firefighters, more public schooling, etc. Density makes all of these things cheaper. > Those spaces should exist and be in reach for anyone who wants that lifestyle. Low density living is environmentally unsustainable yet heavily subsidized by the government. People living in rural and exurban areas receive far more infrastructure spending per capita while paying the same taxes as the rest of us. If you want to destroy the earth just so you can have big yard then not only should the government not subsidize you, you should be paying extra to reflect the negative externalities caused by your carbon emissions.

notasnakein 7y ago

I've got an important question for everyone the writer. According to their premise and most 'liberal' premises white people are inherently racist and don't want to live around 'poc' or whatever is the polite word these days. See white flight. So what makes them think the people won't just flee the suburbs again if they do this? I too think those rich people are racist and use their wealth to live away from poc while supposedly working for them but I need some clarification on this point. I'd also love to see and be amenable to the idea of the government forcing these people to practice what they preach to the rest of us. Diversity is our greatest strength after all.

brianberns 7y ago

I don’t find this persuasive at all. Over-population of humans on this planet is the root cause of the impending climate disaster. Jamming more people into cities is just going to fuel the population explosion. I think we have to find a way to reduce the population to a sustainable level.