3 ms·

> Now of course, relaxing zoning is important and necessary, you can't have a city with single family housing. It's just not a sustainable solution. Much of SF

by Kalium 6y ago

> Now of course, relaxing zoning is important and necessary, you can't have a city with single family housing. It's just not a sustainable solution. Much of SF's voters see this as the greatest of heresies. The honest and earnest expectation is that SF can, should, and shall remain mostly detached single family homes forever. They vote accordingly, and often make common cause with the left-NIMBYs. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this has not produced a sustainable state of affairs.

sudosysgen 6y ago
"Left-NIMBYs" are not opposed to increases in density. What they are opposed to is short-sighted pure free market solutions, which is what would happen if they gave way. Strategically, the current situation is preferable to deregulation of housing, which will not only not fix the rent problem, but also reduce quality of life and displace existing communities. The solution here is to make an alliance with the progressive left for an actually effective solution that implies increasing density, while building public housing and having well-tuned rent control systems in place.
- astrange 6y ago
  But they are opposed to increases in density. This article is a response to Nathan Robinson (a guy who goes around dressing like a plantation owner) writing an article that poor people should not have density because they deserve to live in picturesque SF Victorians too. (Which, if they're public and you give them out for free, excludes whoever doesn't get there first.) The entire point of the left-NIMBY alliance is that the NIMBYs want everything to look like the 50s farmland it was when they were born, and they get this by pretending to be leftist and calling it "not affordable housing".
- Kalium 6y ago
  If you support change, but only in a particular way that's unavailable, then do you really support change? Or have you found a way to gesture in the direction of change while being content with the status quo? Does this distinction have any actual difference to it, in practical political terms? That's the kind of behavior pattern that leads to people being regarded as left-NIMBYs. They're not opposed to density! They're just opposed to every proposal that comes before them and insist on perfection. Whether or not that perfect solution, the mix of public housing for all and perfectly tuned rent control and running evil for-profit developers out of town, is reasonably achievable seems irrelevant. Until that wonderful day, the status quo is just fine. So perhaps this is why they're called left-NIMBYs. They find the status quo acceptable and are willing to fight for it.

by Kalium 6y ago

sudosysgen 6y ago

"Left-NIMBYs" are not opposed to increases in density. What they are opposed to is short-sighted pure free market solutions, which is what would happen if they gave way. Strategically, the current situation is preferable to deregulation of housing, which will not only not fix the rent problem, but also reduce quality of life and displace existing communities. The solution here is to make an alliance with the progressive left for an actually effective solution that implies increasing density, while building public housing and having well-tuned rent control systems in place.

astrange 6y ago
But they are opposed to increases in density. This article is a response to Nathan Robinson (a guy who goes around dressing like a plantation owner) writing an article that poor people should not have density because they deserve to live in picturesque SF Victorians too. (Which, if they're public and you give them out for free, excludes whoever doesn't get there first.) The entire point of the left-NIMBY alliance is that the NIMBYs want everything to look like the 50s farmland it was when they were born, and they get this by pretending to be leftist and calling it "not affordable housing".
Kalium 6y ago
If you support change, but only in a particular way that's unavailable, then do you really support change? Or have you found a way to gesture in the direction of change while being content with the status quo? Does this distinction have any actual difference to it, in practical political terms? That's the kind of behavior pattern that leads to people being regarded as left-NIMBYs. They're not opposed to density! They're just opposed to every proposal that comes before them and insist on perfection. Whether or not that perfect solution, the mix of public housing for all and perfectly tuned rent control and running evil for-profit developers out of town, is reasonably achievable seems irrelevant. Until that wonderful day, the status quo is just fine. So perhaps this is why they're called left-NIMBYs. They find the status quo acceptable and are willing to fight for it.