> I think NIMBYism should be accepted as-is. Existing housing has an interest in preventing new housing by default, especially down market of them I don't thin

> I think NIMBYism should be accepted as-is. Existing housing has an interest in preventing new housing by default, especially down market of them I don't think this is necessarily true. Allowing further construction and development raises the value of land, it doesn't decrease it: a square foot in a dense city is worth a lot more than in a sparse one. Its possible NIMBYism exists on the wrong belief that it's in their economic interest to prevent new housing though I'm skeptical. The core problem of NIMBYism is not the pulling-rope game of wanting and not wanting housing: its a crisis of tax design and political design. If California, and a city like san francisco, eliminated sales taxes and income taxes and would gather those revenues with property taxes and land taxes, they would be so high that property wouldn't be worth a damn. (SF city alone spends something like 1000U$S per household per month) This distortive tax does benefit old landlords, and in a state with such a transient population it should be politically popular to change that. But it doesn't because of a political design issue: renters and immigrants either can't or tend not to vote. SF population is like 25% immigrants, almost all of them renters and with no capacity to politically fight back anything. It is my belief that these things will change when they have to be changed and not a minute sooner.