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Single-family housing in the Bay Area linked to more racially segregated cities
- renewiltord 6y agoWell, the Bay Area has very conservative politics, so this is not a surprise. The rhetoric here is all around preservation and the lost golden age and all that stuff - standard conservative fare. There's a veneer of supporting progressive issues but it's a veneer. I imagine that most people would have high RWAS scores as well.
- ericmcer 6y agoI live in a fairly low income area of the bay area, and when I drive into the Berkeley hills, Marin, or Piedmont/rich Oakland the density of Black Lives Matter signs in front of houses increases. Thats anecdotal evidence obviously, but there is something funny about our status quo when people live in a $2m home on a 1/2 acre of extremely sought after real estate while loudly advertising their desire for more equality. It is an interesting time watching the intersection of all these disparate ideals trying to coalesce into a coherent worldview and lifestyle in everyones minds.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- emteycz 6y agoI thought BLM was about equality before law (enforcers), not economical egalitarianism.
- CydeWeys 6y agoUnfortunately there's a large overlap in the Venn diagram between NIMBYs and progressives, and those afflicted don't realize the inherent contradiction in holding both of those views. Personally I'm in the "build lots more housing everywhere because that'll make it cheaper for everyone" camp.
- fossuser 6y agoYeah there’s a certain irony living in Palo Alto and seeing all of the black lives matters signs while the owners here do everything in their power to prevent any housing from getting built. Housing that would actually make this area more affordable to a larger audience. Who are the signs even for? The feeling I get is, “black lives matter but they can stay a town or two away from us - like in East Palo Alto.” It doesn’t look better when the history had explicit racial constraints on zoning.
- tinyhouse 6y agoWell, people want to live in safe neighborhoods with good schools, with a well funded police, etc. There's nothing wrong with that. It's not their job to fix the systematic issues in the US. It's not about race, it's about socioeconomic status.
- jeffbee 6y agoThe inequitable aspect of "safe neighborhoods" is they depend on other cities for their existence. The people of Piedmont, as an example, require access to the cities of Oakland and San Francisco for their livelihoods, because there are no jobs, no businesses, and no cultural institutions of any kind in the town of Piedmont. They are purely parasitic. When you look at Berkeley you have somewhat of the opposite issue: they have the same population they had in 1950, but the number of jobs in Berkeley has doubled in the meantime. The general taxpayers of the Bay Area have paid to build three subway stations and an interstate highway through Berkeley, but Berkeley stubbornly refuses to let anyone enjoy the fruits of these investments except for people who already lived there half a century ago.
- tinyhouse 6y agoThat's true for many US cities but it doesn't mean it should be that way. In Europe for example there are many safe cities that are great places to live and raise a family but also have businesses and everything else you find in major urban areas. I can also give examples of such cities in the US.
- vidoc 6y ago> when I drive into the Berkeley hills, Marin, or Piedmont/rich Oakland the density of Black Lives Matter signs in front of houses increases. Because unfortunately, a large part of the phenomenon is just virtue signaling.
- paul7986 6y agoLove to see how much money those supporters of whatever virtual signaling they are cheerleading donate their wealth to such causes. Is it 25% ... is it anything at all? On a recent hiking trip up a popular mid-Atlantic hike virtue signal supporters defaced a huge sign/plaque dedicated to union soldiers. I was confused .. just as much as they are!
- bluntfang 6y ago>here is something funny about our status quo when people live in a $2m home on a 1/2 acre of extremely sought after real estate while loudly advertising their desire for more equality. This isn't isolated to the Bay either. I struggle with understanding activists who have careers in tech/pharma/etc who publically express these types of problems but privately are willing participants in the systems they deride. Sometimes I'm not sure if they actually want to live in the world they're fighting for. I know plenty of eco-activists who saddle up to the bar and order a hamburger after attending a meeting about how factory farming is destroying the world and we need to stop eating meat as a society yesterday.
- jeffbee 6y agoThere recently was a kerfuffle in Berkeley when Robert Reich, ex-Secretary of Laber, UC Berkeley professor, and author of "The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It" was found to have written a letter to the city in opposition of a small apartment building that is proposed to replace an empty detached house on the block where he lives in his 2-million-dollar house. There is often a gap between the positions taken in print, and the actions taken in practice.
- raincom 6y agoPerversity of doing good at others' expense!!
- reducesuffering 6y agoWhich, to my knowledge, he hasn't addressed or offered any rebuttal.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- tinyhouse 6y agoI don't see why it's funny. The fact you're rich doesn't mean you don't support equality. Also the slogan BLM can mean many things. The fact someone supports BLM (for whatever it means) doesn't mean they also think money should be equally distributed.
- PragmaticPulp 6y agoRealistically, what do you expect them to do? Bulldoze their own homes, become real estate developers, and build high-density housing on the lot? Living in an expensive house shouldn't disqualify someone from advocating against racial injustice. Simply buying a home and living in it is hardly equivalent to being a NIMBY.
- m0zg 6y agoThose are called "luxury beliefs". The very same people would start locking their doors at night if a black family were to move in next door, and move their kids to a different private school if it got a little too "diverse" with Hispanic and black kids. That's why they move their kids out of public schools in the first place. Classic hypocrisy and NIMBY-ism. Nominally, they support the lofty causes as long as they're paid with someone else's money and are in someone else's backyard. Ex: Beverly Hills calling the police on the rioters while supporting the riots just the day before, or Seattle mayor Jenny Durkan who, when rioters showed up at her house, had CHOP bulldozed the very next day. There are are almost no exceptions to this that I could personally observe. And they will of course vehemently deny it (just watch the downvote count on this post), but in private that's how they behave.
- d1zzy 6y agoHow do you reconcile that some of the most respected and influential US politicians (the main authors of the US Constitution) were essentially rich people from well off families? If you think about it it makes sense: poor families do not have the luxury to care for societal level change or to promote it in any shape or form. They are more worried about putting food on the table, keeping themselves clothed and a roof over their heads. I think it's only logical that people who do not have to struggle with such issues are the ones that are more likely to influence political change, even if at a glance the changes they are proposing do not seem to directly serve their interests. Now whether their stated ideas are followed with action is a different matter.
- boreas 6y agoPersonally, it strikes me as profoundly illiberal that we allow and expect from local governments such complete control over private use of private property. It is probably one of the most important policy issues from an economic/social perspective, and yet it doesn't have a clear valence in today's binary, identitarian political discourse. I see people from all backgrounds and affiliations arguing for/against upzoning/housing density.
- adammunich 6y ago"we support housing, just not in our neighborhood"
- lotsofpulp 6y agoEveryone wants to surround themselves with those at a socioeconomic status above them, or at worst equal to them.
- rootsudo 6y agoAgreed, even as I am currently home searching - this, I want to be the worst house in the neighborhood. Not the best, never the best.
- thatfrenchguy 6y agoWhen you rezone, it doesn't force houses to be torn down, it just allows people to build denser.
- antepodius 6y agoWhich may well devalue someone's house as much as tearing down a supporting wall would...
- julienb_sea 6y agoUltimately it is about protection of personal property. The value and and desirability of your personal property is directly tied to adjacent properties and the neighborhood. Height restrictions prevent someone building a tall building and blocking your view, which would have significant and direct cost to your asset value. Zoning restrictions ensure the neighborhood stays safe and quiet, another direct contributor of asset value. This is not sustainable at scale, clearly density is necessary. But, there is a legitimate case for protecting private property values, creating density where it makes sense but not where it doesn't.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago> Wright’s opposition to denser housing in his San Jose neighborhood has made him bedfellows with one rather uncomfortable partner for the self-described liberal: President Donald Trump, who has decried efforts led by Wiener and others to build “low income housing” in suburban communities. “It’s an absolute nightmare for me to say anything that is so close to what Trump has been saying about the invasion of the suburbs,” Wright said. “There’s a very embarrassing and disturbing parallel.” People are always very woke and liberal until it affects their privilege or their pocketbooks. Which is a huge problem. You get great responses when you take polls about whether racial equality and justice is important to people and that something should be done. But, if you try to do any actual, concrete policy, the polling rapidly drops.
- darawk 6y agoEveryone is pretty sure that "rich people" should pay for everything, and that "rich" is defined as anyone that has 10x more wealth than I do. Whether you're making 20k or making 200k, everyone thinks that real wealth is one order of magnitude away.
- isx726552 6y agoIt’s not all relative, there are levels of wealth which are beyond normal conception, even in absolute terms. There are people who clearly have more money than they could reasonably spend in a lifetime (billionaires in particular), and then there are people who have an expensive house but not much else to speak of.
- jeffbee 6y agoBoth of those classes of people are right. Wealth in America is now so concentrated that "the rich" can all fit on the same airplane. The political conversation has been corrupted by convincing ordinary people that they have a common interest with the rich. This has been so successful that my mother, with a net worth of about $50k, gets on the phone to tell me how angry she is about Joe Biden's inheritance tax, which doesn't cost anything on estates worth less than $5 million.
- raxxorrax 6y ago
- isx726552 6y ago> Wright’s opposition to denser housing in his San Jose neighborhood has made him bedfellows with one rather uncomfortable partner for the self-described liberal: President Donald Trump, who has decried efforts led by Wiener and others to build “low income housing” in suburban communities. “It’s an absolute nightmare for me to say anything that is so close to what Trump has been saying about the invasion of the suburbs,” Wright said. “There’s a very embarrassing and disturbing parallel.” And yet he is also quoted as saying “I don’t know what the answer is.” This just reflects the same issue I’ve seen since moving to the Bay Area 20 years ago: people’s value and pride in their “diverse” geographical area being at odds with their desire for ever-higher property values and NIMBYism. It’s pretty clear which one usually wins, even if folks can scarcely bring themselves to admit it.
- evan_ 6y agoit's pretty obvious that he DOES know what the answer is, he just doesn't like it...
- some-guy 6y agoOutline version for those with browsers that won't render the page properly without massive amounts of popups: https://outline.com/3Ezn4C https://outline.com/3Ezn4C
- golemiprague 6y agoIt will not change anything, people will find a way to segregate themselves away from blacks because nobody wants their kids to be in a school with blacks. It happens all over the US and the world, whether there is high density housing or not. When a school starts to have a certain amount of black people it becomes dysfunctional and a hell of a place for a white person to study in. The first and foremost to know that are those middle class liberals who are even more afraid because the really rich one lives in a complete different class where this issue doesn't matter that much.
- hardtke 6y agoBurlingame, one of the wealthiest cities in the Bay Area, has a decent mix of multifamily and single family housing. The last time I checked, it was about 50/50 renters owners. Given the exorbitant prices to buy a house there, the rents are somewhat reasonable (quite a bit cheaper than SF, starting at about $1800 for a one bedroom). In spite of this, it still is very racially homogenous (very few African Americans or Latinos). Additionally, the schools tend to be mostly homeowner's children -- very few families rent there in order to give their children access into the top ranked public schools. Based on the real world example of Burlingame, it's not clear that changing the zoning rules will lead to the outcomes that the study authors hope for.
- vanusa 6y agoUnflag please - this post is perfectly consistent with site guidelines.
- jrnichols 6y agounsure why this is flagged, Bay Area housing issues directly affect some major technology companies as we know them. The lack of affordable housing for many "minority" communities is a huge barrier to technology jobs, among many other things. Bay Area housing prices are still out of control, though. I worry that it's going to continue to push ethnic communities right out of the area forever.