3 ms·

The difference is that the legalization only affects the people in that region, whereas exclusionary housing policies affect other people who would like to move

The difference is that the legalization only affects the people in that region, whereas exclusionary housing policies affect other people who would like to move to the region, but cannot (because they did not get into the region fast enough, for example, because they are young) and therefore cannot vote on this issue. That is literally "Democracy for me but not for thee." - people who made it there early ("me") can vote, and do (effectively) vote to keep newcomers ("thee") out and therefore not voting on those "local" policies. Yet somehow you turn it on its head. I think policies should be decided at the level at which they affect people. As an example that I think we can both agree on: Foreign policy -> federal. Noise ordinances -> county. Would you consider this "Democracy for me not thee" as well? I don't care whether I convince you, but I would really like to understand how your viewpoint interacts with my argument. If I understand it right, the core of our disagreement seems to be that I consider everyone who wants to move somewhere a stakeholder who should be able to vote, and you only consider people who already are somewhere. The rest follows from that.

frongpik 6y ago
Well, their wish to move into a desireable area has no power over those who already live there. The bay area problem is easy to solve, though: tie the number of office space permits to the number of single family houses. With such a law, a big corp won't be able to build another tower and bring 5k more employees there. What prevents such a law from happening is greed: the SF city council understands that there's no room there for another 50k office workers, but it can't resist the payroll taxes those will bring.
rsync 6y ago
"If I understand it right, the core of our disagreement seems to be that I consider everyone who wants to move somewhere a stakeholder who should be able to vote, and you only consider people who already are somewhere." I don't know if that's the core of our disagreement but I certainly do disagree with that. I think that I need a new term - I continue to use the word "stakeholder" but I am open-minded to the idea that someone who works in a place or consumes services in a place ... or even vacations in a place could be considered a stakeholder, of sorts. I, on the other hand, am trying to distinguish people who have skin in the game - who have dedicated their life energies and life savings to a particular community. We need to draw that line somehow and I think the purchase of real property is a decent candidate.

frongpik 6y ago

Well, their wish to move into a desireable area has no power over those who already live there. The bay area problem is easy to solve, though: tie the number of office space permits to the number of single family houses. With such a law, a big corp won't be able to build another tower and bring 5k more employees there. What prevents such a law from happening is greed: the SF city council understands that there's no room there for another 50k office workers, but it can't resist the payroll taxes those will bring.

rsync 6y ago

"If I understand it right, the core of our disagreement seems to be that I consider everyone who wants to move somewhere a stakeholder who should be able to vote, and you only consider people who already are somewhere." I don't know if that's the core of our disagreement but I certainly do disagree with that. I think that I need a new term - I continue to use the word "stakeholder" but I am open-minded to the idea that someone who works in a place or consumes services in a place ... or even vacations in a place could be considered a stakeholder, of sorts. I, on the other hand, am trying to distinguish people who have skin in the game - who have dedicated their life energies and life savings to a particular community. We need to draw that line somehow and I think the purchase of real property is a decent candidate.