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Preston is unique in that although he probably isn't the biggest obstacle to housing in the super HCOL US cities, he is the only anti-housing politician who mak

Preston is unique in that although he probably isn't the biggest obstacle to housing in the super HCOL US cities, he is the only anti-housing politician who makes an attempt to portray himself as pro-housing. It's not surprising he makes people so upset. He is pretty much the perfect avatar of wrapping yourself up in progressive language and pretending to care - while working behind the scenes to find excuses to veto virtually every new housing project (high-end and low-end) that is proposed in the city.

api 5y ago
NIMBYism is how polite erudite folk implement red lining with plausible deniability.
- throwawaysea 5y ago
  First off, “NIMBY” is just an offensive pejorative that fails to recognize in good faith that many people like their existing lifestyle, community, and neighborhood character. People buy houses in certain locations or remain in certain locations seeking these qualities. There’s nothing wrong with that and incumbent residents shouldn’t be under any obligation to alter their governance and give up their lifestyle to accommodate new residents that feel entitled to live in a highly desirable location at low cost. Secondly, the accusation that people in cities today are actively seeking to racially discriminate using policy is without evidence. This is just a stretch that attempts to recast valid personal lifestyle preferences into some kind of oppressor-victim class warfare narrative, thereby painting those with differing opinions as something far worse. It’s simply not a civil perspective to hold.
  - samatman 5y ago
    Should have stuck with the second paragraph. The connection between redlining and NIMBYism is somewhere between dubious and risible. But "give up their lifestyle to accommodate new residents" and "not in my backyard"? Same thing. You can howl offense all you want; the shoe fits.
    - throwawaysea 5y ago
      They aren’t the same thing. One has the positive connotation of preserving something good. The other has a negative connotation of preventing something, when that isn’t where the motivation comes from. It is a subtle but significant difference that tries to paint people who like the life they’ve built with a caricature, just like other modern pejoratives such as “Karen”.
      - techsupporter 5y ago
        You know what? I don't care if the NIMBYs get their feelings hurt. I'm past the point of caring. Your username says "sea" in it which reminds me of Seattle, where I live. Where, even on the very good salary of a technology industry employee, I am just about priced out of. How can it be that someone who makes a "modest six figure income," to quote a person running for office in Seattle right now, is continually under the threat of a $3,000-or-more monthly bill to rent a place where a car is not required? My spouse cannot drive; I strongly prefer not to. Should be easy to find a place where someone can live and be transit-dependent, what with all of this transit expansion projects? Yet, for some inexplicable reason, we're spending billions of dollars to build a mass transit system that is either solely next to a freeway or goes through areas of the city that are next to golf courses and single-family housing. So, yeah, I don't really care about "preserving something good" when that "good" is turning into a MEDIAN house price of just short of ONE MILLION UNITED STATES DOLLARS and yet neither myself nor another family member--who also works in tech and has a salary that would be monumentally great everywhere in the country except here--can feel secure about the cost of living. It sucks.
        soheil 5y ago
        And how ironic to use a throwaway to deny its existence.
        dcow 5y ago
        Maybe move to a different city where people aren't clueless?
  - Schiendelman 5y ago
    There’s no good faith in limiting housing - it’s completely untenable. We have to let our cities grow upward as quickly as possible; letting people live in high density reduces energy use, carbon, even birthrate. Every opposition to building more housing pretends it’s special. Every opposition to building more housing puts people on the street and accelerates climate change.
    - TrispusAttucks 5y ago
      I respect your heart but there _are_ situations where limiting housing could be in good faith. Overcrowding and resource depletion are such situations that are currently playing out in the California and several other Western states as water and resources are being stretched to near breaking points. I don't think high density infinite economic growth is green or progressive but I do know it's untenable.
      - Schiendelman 5y ago
        Resource use is still lower at higher density, across all of the axes you’re discussing. Most of the water usage in western states is for farming, not individual use. It is vastly less resource-intensive to get water to someone living in downtown San Francisco in a condo than to get them water in Phoenix in a house - and that’s very commonly the trade here. Overcrowding is a word that doesn’t really mean anything. No Western US city is nearly as dense as most of the major cities in the world. When you say infinite economic growth and density, in the same sentence, I think you are ascribing a bunch of values that aren’t really related to density. To get to a steady state of resource use would require us to live in far higher density than we do today. While all of these seem on their face to be good faith arguments, and you certainly employ them in good faith!, they have relatively easy answers, and yet they are propagating the same way all misinformation does.
        TrispusAttucks 5y ago
        According to UN Habitat, cities consume 78 per cent of the world's energy and produce more than 60 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions. Population growth and corresponding high density cities are the driving force behind resource consumption. Those farms only use water so humans can eat. If they just stopped then we'd be starved instead of thirsty. The efficiency of a city is exactly the cause of resource depletion. Land limitations used to be a limiting factor that would put breaks on run away growth. We are not unlike animals in this regard. Higher density is a taller geometry and less stable. Whether other megacities are more dense is moot. I am not saying this because I have some solution. I am not saying this because cities and people are bad. I'm saying as a fact humans and our resource consumption has put the planet on a perilous path that will not end well. Our problem is carrying capacity and if an area is reaching its max stable carrying capacity it may be time to limit housing. If housing is not limited and controlled a population can overshoot because the illusion of a kind climate that is actually only temporary. Perhaps this is not the case for SF but it is and will be the case for many places.
cortesoft 5y ago
My wife has been getting into local politics here in California, and it has been really disheartening to see how thin the 'progressive' layer is for so many people here. California likes to think of itself as a very liberal state, but that really only changes how we frame what are still conservative and insular policies.
- bhawks 5y ago
  What's conservative about corruption and kleptocracy? One of the ways politicians like Preston cement their power is by convincing their constituents that the 'other team' are literal demons. I can disagree with someone's politics but still be confident that they can govern reasonably. Just because you clothe yourself in the memes you think I like doesn't win my vote.
  - nemothekid 5y ago
    Preston doesn't have to do any convincing - the national republican party might as well be literal demons, so you could the most reasonable republican ever and people would refuse to vote for them just to prevent the national republican party from even having an iota of more power. National strategy has effectively poisoned local races. You could run as independent but you would be a very uphill battle against very well funded opponents. Ultimately there seems to be little hope for progressive economic ideas.
  - renewiltord 5y ago
    The California Republican Party has stances on issues that are past what SF voters in the majority will accept. He doesn’t have to paint them as demons because their stated positions on abortion and gay marriage will make them untenable to SF voters and place SF voters in vocal opposition. Any demonic painting is unlikely to move the needle. This is merely a claim of fact about the CA GOP and SF, not a position on whether they are demons. It is not a claim that the CA GOP are evil because of these stances.
    - dang 5y ago
      Please don't take HN threads into tedious partisan flamewar. It's predictable and therefore boring, and inevitably turns nasty. We're trying to avoid that kind of thing here. I know the GP started it, but there's a difference between dipping a toe and jumping in. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
nixpulvis 5y ago
This feels like a good summary of the Bay Area to me. Worst of all, valuable conservative language in progressive discussion is baulked without thought.

api 5y ago

NIMBYism is how polite erudite folk implement red lining with plausible deniability.

throwawaysea 5y ago
First off, “NIMBY” is just an offensive pejorative that fails to recognize in good faith that many people like their existing lifestyle, community, and neighborhood character. People buy houses in certain locations or remain in certain locations seeking these qualities. There’s nothing wrong with that and incumbent residents shouldn’t be under any obligation to alter their governance and give up their lifestyle to accommodate new residents that feel entitled to live in a highly desirable location at low cost. Secondly, the accusation that people in cities today are actively seeking to racially discriminate using policy is without evidence. This is just a stretch that attempts to recast valid personal lifestyle preferences into some kind of oppressor-victim class warfare narrative, thereby painting those with differing opinions as something far worse. It’s simply not a civil perspective to hold.
- samatman 5y ago
  Should have stuck with the second paragraph. The connection between redlining and NIMBYism is somewhere between dubious and risible. But "give up their lifestyle to accommodate new residents" and "not in my backyard"? Same thing. You can howl offense all you want; the shoe fits.
  - throwawaysea 5y ago
    They aren’t the same thing. One has the positive connotation of preserving something good. The other has a negative connotation of preventing something, when that isn’t where the motivation comes from. It is a subtle but significant difference that tries to paint people who like the life they’ve built with a caricature, just like other modern pejoratives such as “Karen”.
    - techsupporter 5y ago
      You know what? I don't care if the NIMBYs get their feelings hurt. I'm past the point of caring. Your username says "sea" in it which reminds me of Seattle, where I live. Where, even on the very good salary of a technology industry employee, I am just about priced out of. How can it be that someone who makes a "modest six figure income," to quote a person running for office in Seattle right now, is continually under the threat of a $3,000-or-more monthly bill to rent a place where a car is not required? My spouse cannot drive; I strongly prefer not to. Should be easy to find a place where someone can live and be transit-dependent, what with all of this transit expansion projects? Yet, for some inexplicable reason, we're spending billions of dollars to build a mass transit system that is either solely next to a freeway or goes through areas of the city that are next to golf courses and single-family housing. So, yeah, I don't really care about "preserving something good" when that "good" is turning into a MEDIAN house price of just short of ONE MILLION UNITED STATES DOLLARS and yet neither myself nor another family member--who also works in tech and has a salary that would be monumentally great everywhere in the country except here--can feel secure about the cost of living. It sucks.
      - soheil 5y ago
        And how ironic to use a throwaway to deny its existence.
      - dcow 5y ago
        Maybe move to a different city where people aren't clueless?
- Schiendelman 5y ago
  There’s no good faith in limiting housing - it’s completely untenable. We have to let our cities grow upward as quickly as possible; letting people live in high density reduces energy use, carbon, even birthrate. Every opposition to building more housing pretends it’s special. Every opposition to building more housing puts people on the street and accelerates climate change.
  - TrispusAttucks 5y ago
    I respect your heart but there _are_ situations where limiting housing could be in good faith. Overcrowding and resource depletion are such situations that are currently playing out in the California and several other Western states as water and resources are being stretched to near breaking points. I don't think high density infinite economic growth is green or progressive but I do know it's untenable.
    - Schiendelman 5y ago
      Resource use is still lower at higher density, across all of the axes you’re discussing. Most of the water usage in western states is for farming, not individual use. It is vastly less resource-intensive to get water to someone living in downtown San Francisco in a condo than to get them water in Phoenix in a house - and that’s very commonly the trade here. Overcrowding is a word that doesn’t really mean anything. No Western US city is nearly as dense as most of the major cities in the world. When you say infinite economic growth and density, in the same sentence, I think you are ascribing a bunch of values that aren’t really related to density. To get to a steady state of resource use would require us to live in far higher density than we do today. While all of these seem on their face to be good faith arguments, and you certainly employ them in good faith!, they have relatively easy answers, and yet they are propagating the same way all misinformation does.
      - TrispusAttucks 5y ago
        According to UN Habitat, cities consume 78 per cent of the world's energy and produce more than 60 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions. Population growth and corresponding high density cities are the driving force behind resource consumption. Those farms only use water so humans can eat. If they just stopped then we'd be starved instead of thirsty. The efficiency of a city is exactly the cause of resource depletion. Land limitations used to be a limiting factor that would put breaks on run away growth. We are not unlike animals in this regard. Higher density is a taller geometry and less stable. Whether other megacities are more dense is moot. I am not saying this because I have some solution. I am not saying this because cities and people are bad. I'm saying as a fact humans and our resource consumption has put the planet on a perilous path that will not end well. Our problem is carrying capacity and if an area is reaching its max stable carrying capacity it may be time to limit housing. If housing is not limited and controlled a population can overshoot because the illusion of a kind climate that is actually only temporary. Perhaps this is not the case for SF but it is and will be the case for many places.

cortesoft 5y ago

My wife has been getting into local politics here in California, and it has been really disheartening to see how thin the 'progressive' layer is for so many people here. California likes to think of itself as a very liberal state, but that really only changes how we frame what are still conservative and insular policies.

bhawks 5y ago
What's conservative about corruption and kleptocracy? One of the ways politicians like Preston cement their power is by convincing their constituents that the 'other team' are literal demons. I can disagree with someone's politics but still be confident that they can govern reasonably. Just because you clothe yourself in the memes you think I like doesn't win my vote.
- nemothekid 5y ago
  Preston doesn't have to do any convincing - the national republican party might as well be literal demons, so you could the most reasonable republican ever and people would refuse to vote for them just to prevent the national republican party from even having an iota of more power. National strategy has effectively poisoned local races. You could run as independent but you would be a very uphill battle against very well funded opponents. Ultimately there seems to be little hope for progressive economic ideas.
- renewiltord 5y ago
  The California Republican Party has stances on issues that are past what SF voters in the majority will accept. He doesn’t have to paint them as demons because their stated positions on abortion and gay marriage will make them untenable to SF voters and place SF voters in vocal opposition. Any demonic painting is unlikely to move the needle. This is merely a claim of fact about the CA GOP and SF, not a position on whether they are demons. It is not a claim that the CA GOP are evil because of these stances.
  - dang 5y ago
    Please don't take HN threads into tedious partisan flamewar. It's predictable and therefore boring, and inevitably turns nasty. We're trying to avoid that kind of thing here. I know the GP started it, but there's a difference between dipping a toe and jumping in. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

nixpulvis 5y ago

This feels like a good summary of the Bay Area to me. Worst of all, valuable conservative language in progressive discussion is baulked without thought.