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It's not peak housing dysfunction, but rather peak entitlement. Why is it important to accommodate people who might want to live in or move to an area despite l

It's not peak housing dysfunction, but rather peak entitlement. Why is it important to accommodate people who might want to live in or move to an area despite local incumbents' wishes to not have their neighborhood change? Does everyone have the right to live anywhere they want to live without having to pay the necessary price to be there? For example, does everyone have a right to expect a residence on a Hawaii beachfront? And if not, why is it reasonable to portray a city or state as somehow lacking because it serves existing constituents? It makes sense that the Bay area would be priced high given its tremendous desirability (which may be tapering off now). If people are willing to work there for low wages, then that is their choice - they have opted into a tradeoff they are OK with, and they/others should not demonize those who were already there and want to preserve their culture/way of life/standards of living. There are numerous affordable places to live in the US that are not [New York, San Francisco, Seattle, etc.] - you may not have every big city amenity you want, or maybe even be able to do the exact job you want - but such compromises are also just a regular part of life, aren't they? To me the reframing of this issue as a policy problem, or a rich versus poor thing, or through use of pejoratives like "NIMBY" serves to distract from the plain truth, which is simply that people are acting in their own self-interests. And yes, this includes the folks who believe they have an unalienable right to live in the Bay area and demand that local governance be replaced with top-down forceful governance (overriding local zoning policy). And the reality is proposals like the one around the missing middle will not solve the underlying issue - it just shifts the timeline around a bit until population growth brings us back to the same point anyways.

opportune 7y ago
>and they/others should not demonize those who were already there and want to preserve their culture/way of life/standards of living. This has a limit, namely, that we who move in are going to vote to change things, and the only way bay area property owners can prevent that is to not get rich off their property by selling or renting it at sky-high prices to new residents. To put their money where their mouth is and not change things, bay area residents need to not be getting rich off the density that they are nominally trying to fight. Otherwise it's just delaying a lost cause - population growth, and a shift in demographics from owners to renters, will inevitably happen barring some big tech recession. Once there are enough renters voting in municipal elections, change will come
- rsync 7y ago
  "This has a limit, namely, that we who move in are going to vote to change things, and the only way bay area property owners can prevent that is to not get rich off their property by selling or renting it at sky-high prices to new residents." This argument the two of you are engaged in would be more interesting and relevant, I think, if there were not a literal 50% off sale every 7-10 years in the bay area. The busts will continue to come and the more you think "it's different this time" the closer we are to one. Conversely, I'll bet I could pick up print publications in the alternative press from the 70s, 80s, 90s, and 00s wherein the same lamentations and accusations are leveled during the run-up to each peak. I quote the lead article from the OP: "... helplessness pervades many of my conversations with friends in the San Francisco Bay Area, where I lived for seven years ..."
quickthrower2 7y ago
Your comment doesn’t address people raised in but prices out of a city. I guess these days such people will have to either get top jobs, live with parents forever or move town away from their family. Or suffer long commutes from faraway suburbs or near but crime afflicted places. Now arguably there is a sense of entitlement if anyone expects to live in their home town, and there are people with bigger problems. But it’s not necessarily old timers vs new people thing.
kansface 7y ago
> Why is it important to accommodate people who might want to live in or move to an area despite local incumbent's wishes to not have their neighborhood change? Lets accommodate the people who own land, propose building upon it and meet and all relevant zoning codes and regulations but are denied because reasons: ```Marty Medina said he wished an agreement could have been reached which would have allowed the development to advance but he was unable to detail the specific size and scope of a project that he would have supported. “I don’t regret my decision because I have to live with it,” he said. “But I just wished for a different outcome.”``` ... > through use of pejoratives like "NIMBY" serves to distract from the plain truth, which is simply that people are acting in their own self-interests. The two "selfs" are not the same. The one group is literal millionaires (home owners) while the other is the working poor/middle class who would prefer to avoid 2 hour commutes.
wardbradt 7y ago
I am not certain who you are assigning "entitlement" to. I believe you are talking about non-residents who gripe about the Bay Area's laws and policies which protect the interests of incumbent residents to the effect of excluding non-residents by setting an artificially high (financial) barrier to entry. Please correct me if I am mistaken. I find this position extremely odd. I am unaware of other examples of non-federal (county, city, etc.) US governments and respective constituents opposing non-local residents relocating, for any reason (including "culture/way of life/standards of living"). I have seen this before in the Bay Area--I was refused an apartment viewing earlier this year in San Francisco because I am from New York. I think this relates to the Constitution's "Privileges and Immunities Clause" [0], which an 1832 federal court case, Corfield v. Coryell [1], ruled that all US citizens enjoy the right "to reside in any other state...; to take, hold and dispose of property, either real or personal; and an exemption from higher taxes or impositions that are paid by the other citizens of the state." I am not aware of any Bay Area laws which explicitly violate any of these rights. However, I do not see how Prop 13, which "prohibit[s] reassessment of value... except in cases of (a) change in ownership," required for non-renting non-locals, "or (b) completion of new construction," [2] i.e. new housing developments, does not indirectly violate non-residents' "exemption from higher taxes." Note that I have zero law experience, I just googled "discrimination based on state of residence." [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privileges_and_Immunities_Clause https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privileges_and_Immunities_Clau... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corfield_v._Coryell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corfield_v._Coryell [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_California_Proposition_13 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_California_Proposition_13

opportune 7y ago

>and they/others should not demonize those who were already there and want to preserve their culture/way of life/standards of living. This has a limit, namely, that we who move in are going to vote to change things, and the only way bay area property owners can prevent that is to not get rich off their property by selling or renting it at sky-high prices to new residents. To put their money where their mouth is and not change things, bay area residents need to not be getting rich off the density that they are nominally trying to fight. Otherwise it's just delaying a lost cause - population growth, and a shift in demographics from owners to renters, will inevitably happen barring some big tech recession. Once there are enough renters voting in municipal elections, change will come

rsync 7y ago
"This has a limit, namely, that we who move in are going to vote to change things, and the only way bay area property owners can prevent that is to not get rich off their property by selling or renting it at sky-high prices to new residents." This argument the two of you are engaged in would be more interesting and relevant, I think, if there were not a literal 50% off sale every 7-10 years in the bay area. The busts will continue to come and the more you think "it's different this time" the closer we are to one. Conversely, I'll bet I could pick up print publications in the alternative press from the 70s, 80s, 90s, and 00s wherein the same lamentations and accusations are leveled during the run-up to each peak. I quote the lead article from the OP: "... helplessness pervades many of my conversations with friends in the San Francisco Bay Area, where I lived for seven years ..."

quickthrower2 7y ago

Your comment doesn’t address people raised in but prices out of a city. I guess these days such people will have to either get top jobs, live with parents forever or move town away from their family. Or suffer long commutes from faraway suburbs or near but crime afflicted places. Now arguably there is a sense of entitlement if anyone expects to live in their home town, and there are people with bigger problems. But it’s not necessarily old timers vs new people thing.

kansface 7y ago

> Why is it important to accommodate people who might want to live in or move to an area despite local incumbent's wishes to not have their neighborhood change? Lets accommodate the people who own land, propose building upon it and meet and all relevant zoning codes and regulations but are denied because reasons: ```Marty Medina said he wished an agreement could have been reached which would have allowed the development to advance but he was unable to detail the specific size and scope of a project that he would have supported. “I don’t regret my decision because I have to live with it,” he said. “But I just wished for a different outcome.”``` ... > through use of pejoratives like "NIMBY" serves to distract from the plain truth, which is simply that people are acting in their own self-interests. The two "selfs" are not the same. The one group is literal millionaires (home owners) while the other is the working poor/middle class who would prefer to avoid 2 hour commutes.

wardbradt 7y ago

I am not certain who you are assigning "entitlement" to. I believe you are talking about non-residents who gripe about the Bay Area's laws and policies which protect the interests of incumbent residents to the effect of excluding non-residents by setting an artificially high (financial) barrier to entry. Please correct me if I am mistaken. I find this position extremely odd. I am unaware of other examples of non-federal (county, city, etc.) US governments and respective constituents opposing non-local residents relocating, for any reason (including "culture/way of life/standards of living"). I have seen this before in the Bay Area--I was refused an apartment viewing earlier this year in San Francisco because I am from New York. I think this relates to the Constitution's "Privileges and Immunities Clause" [0], which an 1832 federal court case, Corfield v. Coryell [1], ruled that all US citizens enjoy the right "to reside in any other state...; to take, hold and dispose of property, either real or personal; and an exemption from higher taxes or impositions that are paid by the other citizens of the state." I am not aware of any Bay Area laws which explicitly violate any of these rights. However, I do not see how Prop 13, which "prohibit[s] reassessment of value... except in cases of (a) change in ownership," required for non-renting non-locals, "or (b) completion of new construction," [2] i.e. new housing developments, does not indirectly violate non-residents' "exemption from higher taxes." Note that I have zero law experience, I just googled "discrimination based on state of residence." [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privileges_and_Immunities_Clause https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privileges_and_Immunities_Clau... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corfield_v._Coryell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corfield_v._Coryell [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_California_Proposition_13 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_California_Proposition_13