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Speaking to US readers: The big takeaway here is how municipal politics works. There’s a tiny number of people - largely volunteers - working on the issues tha

Speaking to US readers: The big takeaway here is how municipal politics works. There’s a tiny number of people - largely volunteers - working on the issues that have a huge impact on everyone’s daily life - and how much they deal with a very motivated and angry opposition all day long. The opposition size is never truly known, and the problem is it usually feels enormous and is actually tiny. It is not unusual for big city projects to be shut down literally by the angry screaming of a dozen people. Lest you think this is just a small town thing, I have first-hand experience working in a local committee when I lived in Houston, and it was basically identical to what this author described. Care about our national housing shortage? In nearly every city there exists a small angry mob that works to block every development project, and this job tends to be loudest and angriest about middle to low income housing and apartments. If you want that to change, the single best thing you can do is show up to local meetings and say “I support this apartment building.” Even better if you can mobilize a few friends. You would be shocked at how little it takes to have a big influence.

dbingham 5y ago
Can confirm. I live in a large town/small city (80k people, 140k in the county with 30k commuting in to the city) and this is exactly how every issue goes. I've been organizing around climate and sustainability, housing (affordability and density), economics, you name it and this how it all always goes. It's really hard, as one of those activists, to not burn out and get cynical. Those who have theirs, are quite comfortable with the way things are, and do not want the smallest amount of change are often also retired and have infinite time on their hands - which they can use to great effect to lobby local governments and organize with their friends. It's really hard to effectively organize against that among people who are trying to get themselves established in their careers, or who are starting/raising young families, or who are on the career grind. None of us have the time or energy to stay on a council meeting until 3 am every week. But we've finally gotten fed up to the point where we're starting to put together an organization that looks like a political party with in a political party (our city is a one party town so we have to operate with in that party). It will canvas and organize volunteers and build a database we can use to simply overwhelm that loud minority. It's going to be a fuck ton of work, and it may fall apart before it gets going, but this seems like the only way forward.
- alexose 5y ago
  I think you’ve hit the nail on the head with regards to the “infinite time” problem. Time is the currency of local government, and those of us with other commitments simply can’t go up against folks who make it their sole purpose to be loud at meetings. The only leverage we have is our greater numbers, which doesn’t count for much if we don’t organize.
  - dv_dt 5y ago
    That’s where I think overwork at almost all levels of pay scales is an insidious negative on our lives but also as a side effect our governments too. Less socialization, more isolation, less goverment oversight and participation.
    - matz1 5y ago
      Thats why goverment all over the world likes lockdown so much.
    - giovannibonetti 5y ago
      I Hope governments find a way to bring this conversations to the digital world, with some kind of voting scheme. This way, even people with scarce time can participate in important discussions.
      - toomuchtodo 5y ago
        This is definitely possible. Accela [1] [2] is a company that makes software for cities to administer their operations, and quite a few cities in the US use it. Login.gov [3] is available for identity proofing and authentication services to cities and local governments. It would be straightforward to implement a system where voting issues could be created, citizens notified (sms, email, or paper mailing with a QR code), and votes collected during a window of time. I'm aware of the significant infosec challenges online voting is up against, but I do believe headway can be made to enable broader citizen participation and equity in these issues. Tangentially, the NREL recently developed an app that streamlines the rooftop solar permitting process by integrating with the Accela city administration product. Permitting time has gone down from weeks to days (or sometimes minutes). [4] Progress is possible. [1] https://www.accela.com/ https://www.accela.com/ [2] https://developer.accela.com/ https://developer.accela.com/ [3] https://www.gsa.gov/blog/2021/02/18/logingov-to-provide-authentication-and-identity-proofing-services-to-a-limited-number-of-federally-funded-state-and-local-government-programs https://www.gsa.gov/blog/2021/02/18/logingov-to-provide-auth... [4] https://www.utilitydive.com/news/nrel-solar-app-rooftop-residential-instant-permitting-in-majority-us-installations/599403/ https://www.utilitydive.com/news/nrel-solar-app-rooftop-resi...
snarf21 5y ago
I agree with you but the other issue is the huge amount of pressure corporate concerns have. The regulatory capture game is strong. There are a lot of states that have passed laws that say it is illegal to run municipal broadband because of pressure from Comcast via campaign contributions. Everyone only cares about getting theirs. Very few public servants actually care about serving the public.
- nerdponx 5y ago
  It seems to me that state laws like this can't be passed with strong opposition from municipalities. I imagine that it's harder to ban municipal broadband at the state level if a medium-size city already has municipal broadband, or has strong local support for it. Maybe there's some interesting political science research on this.
  - snarf21 5y ago
    Maybe. The municipalities have no money and some small city council has no leverage over a US senator. How can they compete against the bankroll of Comcast in court, PR, etc. ?
    - dantheman 5y ago
      The municipalities agree to these rules to subsidize those who live in unprofitable areas. Those people don't want to pay for the actual cost of their service, so the town grants a monopoly and subsidizes the cost for those who live in the outskirts.
  - nitrogen 5y ago
    Utah's UTOPIA fiber network was already established, but blocked from growth for over a decade by incumbent lobbying. Conveniently the Wikipedia page has no mention of the Comcast and Qwest/CenturyLink meddling in Utah state and municipal politics that derailed funding and subscription.
  - gnopgnip 5y ago
    That isn't really how it works. The cities don't have a say in the state level government. The state level senators or assembly members make the laws.
nerdponx 5y ago
> Care about our national housing shortage? In nearly every city there exists a small angry mob that works to block every development project, and this job tends to be loudest and angriest about middle to low income housing and apartments. Somewhat tangential story, but I thought it was interesting in this context. A former landlord in NYC told me a story where some local community board was required to approve a new 3-story apartment building with some kind of public/community space on the first floor, which was replacing a couple old 2-family homes. There were two groups in opposition: the "old white men" who own property in the area, and the young DSA board members who stuck to their hard line of "no new development". Apparently the old white men didn't always get their way in the past, but their new coalition with the hipster socialists was enough to block the development. Said landlord had lived in the area for ~40 years so he was pretty annoyed at the blockage of what he saw as necessary and beneficial development, that (IMO) was also perfectly in-character with the area. Then again, the same landlord was strongly in favor of the Amazon deal in Long Island City. Axiom: "all politics are local". Theorem: "local politics are more important than you think". Corollary: "if you care about improving other people's lives, get involved in local politics".
- alistairSH 5y ago
  Why were the young liberals against an apartment building? That sounds way out of character, unless what they really wanted was an even taller (and more affordable) apartment building.
  - fossuser 5y ago
    See this: https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/the-left-nimby-canon https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/the-left-nimby-canon There’s a new form of NIMBYism that’s pretty extreme and comes from the left. The only group interested in building housing seems to be the neoliberals/moderates/center - people that believe in markets/supply and demand? The politics around this stuff is a mess. I wish there was just a way to incentivize building.
    - alistairSH 5y ago
ehnto 5y ago
Bicycle infrastructure is routinely shot down by a handful of business owners.
- iso1631 5y ago
  business owners who want to benefit from the public paying for parking near their stores so they don't have to? It's amazing how socialist america is.
  - ehnto 5y ago
    That is typically the argument yes. The business owners feel that the meager street side parking is integral to their business, and that their business' needs are more important than that of the thousands of daily commuters.
    - iso1631 5y ago
      Why not sell privitize the road space? City could auction it off to the highest bidder, perhaps as a lease.
      - vel0city 5y ago
        Some cities do sell street parking spaces as real estate deeds.
      - ehnto 5y ago
        To what end? I don't quite see any benefits to that except the public losing rights to the roads.
    - nitrogen 5y ago
      The business owners feel that the meager street side parking is integral to their business They're probably right. Have you ever tried to drop off a package at a UPS store that has no parking anywhere near it? Local businesses pay taxes and provide jobs. They are there on the street all day every day, while any commuter is there for a fraction of a second. Shafting them should be an obvious political non-starter.
duggable 5y ago
As someone who just moved to a small town, I appreciate this insight. You've motivated me to take action. Thank you for sharing.
rwmj 5y ago
One person in our village who happened to live next to the telephone cabinet had a campaign against the installation of a DSLAM which would have made the cabinet slightly larger. As a result the whole village couldn't get FTTC for a couple of years. The village is miles from the exchange and DSL speeds were really slow (1-2 Mbps on a good day). It was only resolved when our campaigner moved away. (Thankfully that was a few years ago, now I have FTTH, yay!)
- alistairSH 5y ago
  To be fair, if it was that important to the rest of the residents, they could have bought him out, or offered up an alternate location for the DSLAM.
codingdave 5y ago
To add to that, in the US, municipalities, school districts, and many other government entities fall under Open Records laws - the agendas for meetings must be published with enough advance notice that you can decide whether or not the decisions to be made at any given meeting are relevant to your interests. Check your local town's web site for where they publish the meeting notices and agendas.
- nitrogen 5y ago
  Be aware that the actual recorded minutes can be amended to erase any mention of opposition, so you need to attend meetings and not just request the minutes.
  - codingdave 5y ago
    True, but if you are so mistrustful of your elected officials that you are worried about the paper trails they write, you should be more concerned with voting them out at the next election than watchdogging every document they post.
tbihl 5y ago
>Care about our national housing shortage? In nearly every city there exists a small angry mob that works to block every development project, and this job tends to be loudest and angriest about middle to low income housing and apartments. If you want that to change, the single best thing you can do is show up to local meetings and say “I support this apartment building.” Even better if you can mobilize a few friends. You would be shocked at how little it takes to have a big influence. The flip side of this is that building middle- to low-income housing shouldn't be much of a thing. If there were enough development, the low-to-middle income housing would be the small units with the bad views and the laminate counters and no dishwasher and creaky floors, which is to say the older stuff that wasn't seriously maintained. Constrain supply and new construction enough, and all that stuff is intensely maintained because building new is not an option.
- huevosabio 5y ago
  > Constrain supply and new construction enough, and all that stuff is intensely maintained because building new is not an option. Anecdotally, from San Francisco, my experience is the opposite. Most units are in terrible conditions, barely painted over. There is no incentive for landlords to put extra money on the place, it will not increase the price at which it will rent. You end up with high income people moving into shitty housing, middle income moving to the outskirts and low income people moving to the streets. Only the landlords win.
  - zamfi 5y ago
    > There is no incentive for landlords to put extra money on the place, it will not increase the price at which it will rent. Oh, it definitely will. The well-maintained places rent for astonishingly crazy amounts, which is why most people don’t see them.
    - SamReidHughes 5y ago
      The situation in many apartments in SF has to do with rent control.
parenthesis 5y ago
From a UK perspective, my mother was kind of complaining about a large boring task she was doing in relation to her local community council (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_council https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_council) of which she is a member. I asked her how long she's been on the community council (a long time) and suggested it might be someone else's turn, to which she replied that there isn't anybody else (there are other members, but they are few and old). So if this is typical, then if you are in the UK and care about / have strong opinions about what's right or wrong or needed in your local community: join you local community council.
imgabe 5y ago
Very very true. In Washington, DC - not a small town by any standard - there were numerous, large multi-family development projects that were thwarted by a single crank going to town meetings and making noise. Get involved in your local politics, people. It matters much, much more than whatever the NY Times and CNN are trying to get you riled up about.
mjevans 5y ago
My takeaway is that the local, state, and national interests aren't balanced correctly. Things should be done at a high enough level so that it's worth having experts do them. They should be done locally enough so that people can get involved and be heard, but not to the point where personal vendettas against volunteers matter. Utilities should provide infrastructure, and should be for anything worth doing (correctly) once. Paths, roads, pipes of all sorts, including data pipes; even basic postal and transit options. Competition should happen over those utilities, where public interests aren't paramount. 911 and similar can just exist on a data-pipe network. Power is often so critical that failures of the market, like Texas recently, show exactly why that has to be highly regulated even if there's competition. Water and sewer can't be divided like that. Though options for transit, and secondary providers for other forms of movement (like long distance data transfer) are logical to have.
TrispusAttucks 5y ago
Also can confirm. Worked to improve broadband and build a co-working space in small town. Submitted writing for a state grant. Against all odds was selected as one of the winners. They only awarded a few. At the end of this long process after everything had been agreed to and supported and focus grouped... The group started talking about what to do with grant money.. as in like something other than broadband improvements and a co-working space. Then I get paired with a working partner to develop the plan further. The partner upon first time meeting refuses the idea and then we have a brainstorming session about some other "neat" ideas people had. I was furious but held my tongue. Resigned next day. Life is too short to spend time with politics. I hate it.

dbingham 5y ago

Can confirm. I live in a large town/small city (80k people, 140k in the county with 30k commuting in to the city) and this is exactly how every issue goes. I've been organizing around climate and sustainability, housing (affordability and density), economics, you name it and this how it all always goes. It's really hard, as one of those activists, to not burn out and get cynical. Those who have theirs, are quite comfortable with the way things are, and do not want the smallest amount of change are often also retired and have infinite time on their hands - which they can use to great effect to lobby local governments and organize with their friends. It's really hard to effectively organize against that among people who are trying to get themselves established in their careers, or who are starting/raising young families, or who are on the career grind. None of us have the time or energy to stay on a council meeting until 3 am every week. But we've finally gotten fed up to the point where we're starting to put together an organization that looks like a political party with in a political party (our city is a one party town so we have to operate with in that party). It will canvas and organize volunteers and build a database we can use to simply overwhelm that loud minority. It's going to be a fuck ton of work, and it may fall apart before it gets going, but this seems like the only way forward.

alexose 5y ago
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head with regards to the “infinite time” problem. Time is the currency of local government, and those of us with other commitments simply can’t go up against folks who make it their sole purpose to be loud at meetings. The only leverage we have is our greater numbers, which doesn’t count for much if we don’t organize.
- dv_dt 5y ago
  That’s where I think overwork at almost all levels of pay scales is an insidious negative on our lives but also as a side effect our governments too. Less socialization, more isolation, less goverment oversight and participation.
  - matz1 5y ago
    Thats why goverment all over the world likes lockdown so much.
  - giovannibonetti 5y ago
    I Hope governments find a way to bring this conversations to the digital world, with some kind of voting scheme. This way, even people with scarce time can participate in important discussions.
    - toomuchtodo 5y ago
      This is definitely possible. Accela [1] [2] is a company that makes software for cities to administer their operations, and quite a few cities in the US use it. Login.gov [3] is available for identity proofing and authentication services to cities and local governments. It would be straightforward to implement a system where voting issues could be created, citizens notified (sms, email, or paper mailing with a QR code), and votes collected during a window of time. I'm aware of the significant infosec challenges online voting is up against, but I do believe headway can be made to enable broader citizen participation and equity in these issues. Tangentially, the NREL recently developed an app that streamlines the rooftop solar permitting process by integrating with the Accela city administration product. Permitting time has gone down from weeks to days (or sometimes minutes). [4] Progress is possible. [1] https://www.accela.com/ https://www.accela.com/ [2] https://developer.accela.com/ https://developer.accela.com/ [3] https://www.gsa.gov/blog/2021/02/18/logingov-to-provide-authentication-and-identity-proofing-services-to-a-limited-number-of-federally-funded-state-and-local-government-programs https://www.gsa.gov/blog/2021/02/18/logingov-to-provide-auth... [4] https://www.utilitydive.com/news/nrel-solar-app-rooftop-residential-instant-permitting-in-majority-us-installations/599403/ https://www.utilitydive.com/news/nrel-solar-app-rooftop-resi...

snarf21 5y ago

I agree with you but the other issue is the huge amount of pressure corporate concerns have. The regulatory capture game is strong. There are a lot of states that have passed laws that say it is illegal to run municipal broadband because of pressure from Comcast via campaign contributions. Everyone only cares about getting theirs. Very few public servants actually care about serving the public.

nerdponx 5y ago
It seems to me that state laws like this can't be passed with strong opposition from municipalities. I imagine that it's harder to ban municipal broadband at the state level if a medium-size city already has municipal broadband, or has strong local support for it. Maybe there's some interesting political science research on this.
- snarf21 5y ago
  Maybe. The municipalities have no money and some small city council has no leverage over a US senator. How can they compete against the bankroll of Comcast in court, PR, etc. ?
  - dantheman 5y ago
    The municipalities agree to these rules to subsidize those who live in unprofitable areas. Those people don't want to pay for the actual cost of their service, so the town grants a monopoly and subsidizes the cost for those who live in the outskirts.
- nitrogen 5y ago
  Utah's UTOPIA fiber network was already established, but blocked from growth for over a decade by incumbent lobbying. Conveniently the Wikipedia page has no mention of the Comcast and Qwest/CenturyLink meddling in Utah state and municipal politics that derailed funding and subscription.
- gnopgnip 5y ago
  That isn't really how it works. The cities don't have a say in the state level government. The state level senators or assembly members make the laws.

nerdponx 5y ago

> Care about our national housing shortage? In nearly every city there exists a small angry mob that works to block every development project, and this job tends to be loudest and angriest about middle to low income housing and apartments. Somewhat tangential story, but I thought it was interesting in this context. A former landlord in NYC told me a story where some local community board was required to approve a new 3-story apartment building with some kind of public/community space on the first floor, which was replacing a couple old 2-family homes. There were two groups in opposition: the "old white men" who own property in the area, and the young DSA board members who stuck to their hard line of "no new development". Apparently the old white men didn't always get their way in the past, but their new coalition with the hipster socialists was enough to block the development. Said landlord had lived in the area for ~40 years so he was pretty annoyed at the blockage of what he saw as necessary and beneficial development, that (IMO) was also perfectly in-character with the area. Then again, the same landlord was strongly in favor of the Amazon deal in Long Island City. Axiom: "all politics are local". Theorem: "local politics are more important than you think". Corollary: "if you care about improving other people's lives, get involved in local politics".

alistairSH 5y ago
Why were the young liberals against an apartment building? That sounds way out of character, unless what they really wanted was an even taller (and more affordable) apartment building.
- fossuser 5y ago
  See this: https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/the-left-nimby-canon https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/the-left-nimby-canon There’s a new form of NIMBYism that’s pretty extreme and comes from the left. The only group interested in building housing seems to be the neoliberals/moderates/center - people that believe in markets/supply and demand? The politics around this stuff is a mess. I wish there was just a way to incentivize building.
  - alistairSH 5y ago

ehnto 5y ago

Bicycle infrastructure is routinely shot down by a handful of business owners.

iso1631 5y ago
business owners who want to benefit from the public paying for parking near their stores so they don't have to? It's amazing how socialist america is.
- ehnto 5y ago
  That is typically the argument yes. The business owners feel that the meager street side parking is integral to their business, and that their business' needs are more important than that of the thousands of daily commuters.
  - iso1631 5y ago
    Why not sell privitize the road space? City could auction it off to the highest bidder, perhaps as a lease.
    - vel0city 5y ago
      Some cities do sell street parking spaces as real estate deeds.
    - ehnto 5y ago
      To what end? I don't quite see any benefits to that except the public losing rights to the roads.
  - nitrogen 5y ago
    The business owners feel that the meager street side parking is integral to their business They're probably right. Have you ever tried to drop off a package at a UPS store that has no parking anywhere near it? Local businesses pay taxes and provide jobs. They are there on the street all day every day, while any commuter is there for a fraction of a second. Shafting them should be an obvious political non-starter.

duggable 5y ago

As someone who just moved to a small town, I appreciate this insight. You've motivated me to take action. Thank you for sharing.

rwmj 5y ago

One person in our village who happened to live next to the telephone cabinet had a campaign against the installation of a DSLAM which would have made the cabinet slightly larger. As a result the whole village couldn't get FTTC for a couple of years. The village is miles from the exchange and DSL speeds were really slow (1-2 Mbps on a good day). It was only resolved when our campaigner moved away. (Thankfully that was a few years ago, now I have FTTH, yay!)

alistairSH 5y ago
To be fair, if it was that important to the rest of the residents, they could have bought him out, or offered up an alternate location for the DSLAM.

codingdave 5y ago

To add to that, in the US, municipalities, school districts, and many other government entities fall under Open Records laws - the agendas for meetings must be published with enough advance notice that you can decide whether or not the decisions to be made at any given meeting are relevant to your interests. Check your local town's web site for where they publish the meeting notices and agendas.

nitrogen 5y ago
Be aware that the actual recorded minutes can be amended to erase any mention of opposition, so you need to attend meetings and not just request the minutes.
- codingdave 5y ago
  True, but if you are so mistrustful of your elected officials that you are worried about the paper trails they write, you should be more concerned with voting them out at the next election than watchdogging every document they post.

tbihl 5y ago

>Care about our national housing shortage? In nearly every city there exists a small angry mob that works to block every development project, and this job tends to be loudest and angriest about middle to low income housing and apartments. If you want that to change, the single best thing you can do is show up to local meetings and say “I support this apartment building.” Even better if you can mobilize a few friends. You would be shocked at how little it takes to have a big influence. The flip side of this is that building middle- to low-income housing shouldn't be much of a thing. If there were enough development, the low-to-middle income housing would be the small units with the bad views and the laminate counters and no dishwasher and creaky floors, which is to say the older stuff that wasn't seriously maintained. Constrain supply and new construction enough, and all that stuff is intensely maintained because building new is not an option.

huevosabio 5y ago
> Constrain supply and new construction enough, and all that stuff is intensely maintained because building new is not an option. Anecdotally, from San Francisco, my experience is the opposite. Most units are in terrible conditions, barely painted over. There is no incentive for landlords to put extra money on the place, it will not increase the price at which it will rent. You end up with high income people moving into shitty housing, middle income moving to the outskirts and low income people moving to the streets. Only the landlords win.
- zamfi 5y ago
  > There is no incentive for landlords to put extra money on the place, it will not increase the price at which it will rent. Oh, it definitely will. The well-maintained places rent for astonishingly crazy amounts, which is why most people don’t see them.
  - SamReidHughes 5y ago
    The situation in many apartments in SF has to do with rent control.

parenthesis 5y ago

From a UK perspective, my mother was kind of complaining about a large boring task she was doing in relation to her local community council (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_council https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_council) of which she is a member. I asked her how long she's been on the community council (a long time) and suggested it might be someone else's turn, to which she replied that there isn't anybody else (there are other members, but they are few and old). So if this is typical, then if you are in the UK and care about / have strong opinions about what's right or wrong or needed in your local community: join you local community council.

imgabe 5y ago

Very very true. In Washington, DC - not a small town by any standard - there were numerous, large multi-family development projects that were thwarted by a single crank going to town meetings and making noise. Get involved in your local politics, people. It matters much, much more than whatever the NY Times and CNN are trying to get you riled up about.

mjevans 5y ago

My takeaway is that the local, state, and national interests aren't balanced correctly. Things should be done at a high enough level so that it's worth having experts do them. They should be done locally enough so that people can get involved and be heard, but not to the point where personal vendettas against volunteers matter. Utilities should provide infrastructure, and should be for anything worth doing (correctly) once. Paths, roads, pipes of all sorts, including data pipes; even basic postal and transit options. Competition should happen over those utilities, where public interests aren't paramount. 911 and similar can just exist on a data-pipe network. Power is often so critical that failures of the market, like Texas recently, show exactly why that has to be highly regulated even if there's competition. Water and sewer can't be divided like that. Though options for transit, and secondary providers for other forms of movement (like long distance data transfer) are logical to have.

TrispusAttucks 5y ago

Also can confirm. Worked to improve broadband and build a co-working space in small town. Submitted writing for a state grant. Against all odds was selected as one of the winners. They only awarded a few. At the end of this long process after everything had been agreed to and supported and focus grouped... The group started talking about what to do with grant money.. as in like something other than broadband improvements and a co-working space. Then I get paired with a working partner to develop the plan further. The partner upon first time meeting refuses the idea and then we have a brainstorming session about some other "neat" ideas people had. I was furious but held my tongue. Resigned next day. Life is too short to spend time with politics. I hate it.