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I'm not terribly surprised. In my experience the calls for more housing from the wealthy and business class are disingenuous; more often really a call for more

I'm not terribly surprised. In my experience the calls for more housing from the wealthy and business class are disingenuous; more often really a call for more apartments to be built exclusively in neighbourhoods dominated by the poor and working class and a continued ban of apartments in the low density single family home areas that the wealthy business owning class live in. Often this is called the "Grand Bargain," that new housing can be allowed, but only if it is constrained to a tiny area (which becomes increasingly dense), while the bulk of single family homes are left untouched. The challenge for voters is to discern between those that are calling for more housing that are genuine YIMBYs, that want to build more housing for everyone more equitably, everywhere in all neighbourhoods, and those like Andreessen, which merely want to continue on with Grand Bargain thinking, and want to continue the status quo by which the poors live as far as possible away from him.

TaylorAlexander 4y ago
I recently discovered the very very wealthy neighborhood of SF in the north west corner of the city and boy, that sure is a low density use and I would LOVE to see that area turned in to high density affordable housing. But then, those people must control the city so it doesn’t seem like that would ever happen. And hey, I honestly want all low density parts of the city densified. But it’s striking how big those houses are in that neighborhood and how low density it must be. EDIT: I think what bothers me about this neighborhood is what it represents. While so many people in the city are struggling to get by, these people have these huge homes with elaborate finishing work, huge gardens, fountains, the works. It feels gratuitous to me. And if you know anything about the history of red lining in this country, this would have been one of those areas with racial covenants in the deeds to their homes. All the power brokers of the city past and present must have lived here, and all manner of political maneuvering and disenfranchisement would have come from this place. I’d rather see it torn down, and used to build affordable housing for those in need. I just can’t find myself sympathizing with people who feel they need this much for themselves while so many people struggle for the basic necessities. I wouldn’t mind if no one had that. It doesn’t seem justified to me. EDIT2: Someone asked me what neighborhood so I looked on google maps (it's Sea Cliff) and was reminded that they also have THEIR OWN GOLF COURSE adjacent to this neighborhood. Yikes.
- huevosabio 4y ago
  I honestly don't necessarily want any particular area to be densified. What I want is: 1. Anyone be able to build any type of housing anywhere. 2. Really steep land value taxes I have no issue with a clique of hyper reach folk living in a low density neighborhood, as long as any of them is be able to defect and build a tower if they feel like it _and_ they all pay their LVT.
  - zhoujianfu 4y ago
    Exactly… no zoning is the best zoning! You wanna be low density, but out all the land and pay for it. If the market supports low density, so be it. In terms of property tax, I thought there was some research that the best way to do that was actually irrespective of the development on top of it? I think the idea being that would encourage development because you’re not taxed on the improvements? Or maybe I’ve got it backwards.
    - huevosabio 4y ago
      Yes, that's the whole point of Land Value Tax, you tax only the value of the "unimproved land". This incentivizes density since the tax can be distributed among all the tenants.
      - km3r 4y ago
        Honestly CA should propose replacing the mess that is property taxes, prop 13, and it's follow ups, with a LVT that is a net neutral revenue for the state. For 90% of people that would be a tax cut, for those who wish to underuse valuable space, they can pay for it.
        dragonwriter 4y ago
        > Honestly CA should propose replacing the mess that is property taxes, prop 13, and it's follow ups, with a LVT that is a net neutral revenue for the state. For 90% of people that would be a tax cut I think it's close to “for 90% of people who pay property tax that would be a tax increase”; the people it will be a tax cut for are the people with relatively high improvement value on their land compared to the bare land value, like corporate HQs and landlords of high density apartment complexes.
pj_mukh 4y ago
Honestly, having had lived in mixed-income neighborhoods, the wealthy are missing out. Dense mixed-income neighborhoods, pockets of which are holding on for dear life in parts of New York for example, are an absolute delight. We need to find a way to rebrand the American dream to be this.
- tptacek 4y ago
  Everyone assumes multi-family development means 10-story apartment buildings, but SFZ rules prevent duplexes and town houses from being built too, and some of the most charming, walkable, vibrant neighborhoods in the country are defined by those kinds of buildings. If it's me, I'm authorizing all the 10-story buildings too. But we don't have to rip the band-aid off all at once; municipalities could start by letting up just a little bit and letting two households share a lot.
  - toomuchtodo 4y ago
    There is hope. Wheaton just approved a ~330 unit 7 story apartment complex downtown on a 2 ac parcel, which came as quite a surprise considering the housing composition in the area.
    - tptacek 4y ago
      We've had some successes in Oak Park, too, and I'm really grateful to our board for navigating the onslaught of negative commenting and campaigning to get new multifamily developments approved. But the fact is that it's too much work, and not reasonable to expect sane, pro-development people to be permanently vigilant and organized against the too-powerful default of saying no to these things.
      - ethbr0 4y ago
        The other way of looking at zoning changes is as a gift for the future. It's unlikely to ever be subsequently down-zoned (network effects of utilities, tax revenue, etc), so it's a one-time battle. Even if per-parcel.
kodah 4y ago
There's different kinds of NIMBYs and they all have different motivations. There's ones like Marc that are pretty classical. There's also ones that will push back on the kinds of property people can own, but fully support saturating an area with rentals. I don't think there's a challenge for voters here either. As the author points out, the real problem is listening to community feedback at all. It's undemocratic. Someone else needs to be in charge of how to fulfill the demands of the community at a higher level.
- whimsicalism 4y ago
  > There's also ones that will push back on the kinds of property people can own, but fully support saturating an area with rentals. ? Never seen this before, elaborate
- kelnos 4y ago
  There's also the kind that bought into an area when it was already quite expensive, stretching their finances to do so, and are terrified of the idea of their home dropping in value due to density increases. In reality, the kind of density increases that would actually meaningfully lower their home's value is well beyond what is required or feasible. But most people aren't economists or real estate experts, and don't know or believe this.
la64710 4y ago
The community that lives and pay taxes will not have a voice about what gets built in their community? Then HOA s should not exist either and neither should business and first class in airplanes. City planners need to thoughtfully rezone as needed and strike a balance to preserve the interest of the tax payers of a neighborhood as well as allow new population housing needs. But to simply demonize a set of residents who live in a particular place for voicing their opinions is middle age witch burning mentality.
- wiseowise 4y ago
  Why is this downvoted?
  - tptacek 4y ago
    Presumably because it ignores a zillion comments on the thread answering the objection. Regardless: the guidelines ask you not to comment on voting.
  - la64710 4y ago
    Because that is the mob mentality I referred before.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
jjav 4y ago
> new housing can be allowed, but only if it is constrained to a tiny area (which becomes increasingly dense) You seem to say that in a negative tone? Isn't increasingly dense exactly what most housing advocates wish for?
- michaelt 4y ago
  I think the criticism is it leads to not enough housing being built. If the city needs 10,000 new homes a year to keep up with population growth, and I support building 10 new blocks of 100 apartments downtown but oppose everything else, am I a hero or a villain?
- Tiktaalik 4y ago
  I think housing advocates are simply advocating for cheaper rents and more affordable, better housing, and environmentalists are advocating for walkable communities. It's not necessary to build a 20+ story tower to achieve these things. You could have a compact walkable community that houses a lot of people with 4-6 story buildings too (I mean Paris is..). I'm not really expressing a preference here, but in my comment noting that with the Grand Bargain it's not likely to result in the outcome of a broad amount of low density apartments, but rather the situation of extremes where you have ultra low density single family houses and then in slivers of downtown where apts are allowed, ultra tall 20+ story residential towers. This is commonly seen in Toronto and Vancouver.
hackerlight 4y ago
> more apartments to be built exclusively in neighbourhoods dominated by the poor Specifically, apartments to be built in poor neighbourhoods exclusively next to busy highways, where the residents can enjoy chronic exposure to toxic gases, tire dust, and car honking sounds.
anovikov 4y ago
I honestly can't understand what's wrong with this. Obviously, wealthy people want to live somewhere the there are no poor people. Class divides, including very physical divides, are a necessity in any society where there are well, classes. Only way to make it unnecessary is to destroy the concept of classes as it is by making it almost impossible to get rich. In any society where there are no losers, no poverty or homelessness, there are also no winners, you can't have the cake and eat it too. Yes here in Europe we are much less likely to face a stinking meth addict in a bus, but we are also almost unable to start a startup and win it big, and these are two sides of the same issue, you can't possibly separate them. To "fix" the problem of class divide and poverty, not just you need to introduce a cradle to grave social support system and overwhelming taxes to fund it, you need to also make the very idea of becoming rich morally unacceptable in the society.
- malermeister 4y ago
  Look at Vienna's Gemeindebau for a counterexample. It's high quality public housing where classes mingle. Two thirds of Vienna lives in public housing and the City of Vienna is the largest landlord in Europe. [0] It is, probably on a related note, also the city with the highest quality of live in the world for as long as I can remember. [1] [0] https://www.politico.eu/article/vienna-social-housing-architecture-austria-stigma/ https://www.politico.eu/article/vienna-social-housing-archit... [1] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/feb/23/vienna-named-worlds-top-city-for-quality-of-life https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/feb/23/vienna-name...
  - anovikov 4y ago
    That one is super easy! That "renting" is actually, a form of ownership where you "own" the rental contract. It's impossible to get in for a new person without decades of waiting, if ever - because there is no free lunch, if rent is many times lower than market rate, there will be a queue (or gatekeepers from who you simply buy your place in the queue). It's not a solution, just a way to keep outsiders out not too dissimilar to redlining: probably if you grandfather wasn't born in the same city, it's all but impossible to get in.
ramraj07 4y ago
Which is ironic because no matter how much money I have I would want to live in a location with dense population of people from all strata - it just means shops and food of all levels are just a walk away the moment you leave your house. One of the benefits of living in many places in india, and in some locations in New York City.
- imtringued 4y ago
  Don't worry policy makers and neighboring homeowners know better what you want than you do.
zozbot234 4y ago
> ... calls for more housing from the wealthy and business class are disingenuous; more often really a call for more apartments to be built exclusively in neighbourhoods dominated by the poor and working class and a continued ban of apartments in the low density single family home areas that the wealthy business owning class live in. ... If you densify the wealthiest areas instead, people will complain that you're "just building more luxury housing for the rich" and not fixing the pricing problem. You just can't win! (The simple truth, of course, is that both are good things to do. Every little bit helps.)
eru 4y ago
Better more denser housing in previously poor areas than no density at all. You make it sound like putting up with density is a chore.
asiachick 4y ago
Looking for a modern apartment in SF recently it was annoying that 95% of them are only allowed to be built on busy noisy dirty streets. Market, Gough, Franklin, Octavia, etc... If they're not on a busy street then they're within ear distance of a freeway like all the complexes near the design district and any of them near the 280 in the Dogpatch. The only big exception is some of the complexes in Mission Bay, but even there, many of them are on 3rd. There are very few allowed to be built on quieter streets
cm2187 4y ago
You seem to be confusing two distinct objectives: 1) more housing, 2) everyone should live in the same place. How wanting 1) is disingenuous because we don't necessarily want 2)?
- whimsicalism 4y ago
  Pauli exclusion principle rules out option 2 so no need to worry.
datavirtue 4y ago
The real problem is that we have run out of infrastructure. The wealthy don't even have enough money to build it. So we fight over housing policy that involves areas with existing infrastructure. Why doesn't Marc and his lovely wife just build a house far away from the plebs? They can't!
spaetzleesser 4y ago
"calls for more housing from the wealthy and business class are disingenuous; more often really a call for more apartments to be built exclusively in neighbourhoods dominated by the poor and working class and a continued ban of apartments in the low density single family home areas that the wealthy business owning class live in." That's the case with a lot of the initiatives coming from wealthy people. Le'ts reduce carbon footprint but we still need private jets and multiple huge houses for ourselves. We need privacy but obviously we still need to mine our users' data for profit as much as possible. We need to do something about homelessness but certainly not close to where we are living. The free market is better than government as long as the government protects our IP so we can make profits.
anony23 4y ago
Yimbys are the extreme minority to the point they hardly exist
sokoloff 4y ago
If we posit that there are people who would like to live in high-density neighborhoods and others who would like to live in lower-density areas (which seems like a reasonable assumption and matches my lifetime observations), encouraging high-density buildings to be near each other seems to serve both groups better than to have the outcome appear to be the result of randomness.
- frob 4y ago
  "Would like to" is doing a whole lot of heavy lifting here. I'd argue that a large fraction of people live not where they "would like to," but where they can afford.
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    There are people on this very page who could well afford to live in a high or low density area and are arguing the benefits they experience and their preference for high-density. Building more housing units would lower the price of housing units. The question is, within that, how should we approach it. I don’t think plopping randomly placed high-density buildings into low-density neighborhoods is optimal compared to planned development.
- Tiktaalik 4y ago
  It's really not about housing preferences. When cities ban apartments from entire neighbourhoods, they're banning people from living there. It ensures only the very wealthy can. This means people have to go somewhere else. This could mean longer commutes for the poor and worse living conditions. There's nothing stopping someone who wants to have a SFH from buying a lot and building a SFH. The problem is when cities impose housing bans that limit people's ability to live in these communities.
sershe 4y ago
Is there data for how small of an area (i.e. they are arguing for)? I think Seattle has a good approach with urban villages (that are also easier to connect via transit), they just need to be somewhat taller and bigger until they eventually merge. The rich typically live in tiny areas and small cities; not wanting those tiny areas upzoned (to be clear, I personally oppose any zoning - let the market decide; but I can see where they are coming from) is not the same as wanting to squeeze the apartments into tiny areas.

TaylorAlexander 4y ago

I recently discovered the very very wealthy neighborhood of SF in the north west corner of the city and boy, that sure is a low density use and I would LOVE to see that area turned in to high density affordable housing. But then, those people must control the city so it doesn’t seem like that would ever happen. And hey, I honestly want all low density parts of the city densified. But it’s striking how big those houses are in that neighborhood and how low density it must be. EDIT: I think what bothers me about this neighborhood is what it represents. While so many people in the city are struggling to get by, these people have these huge homes with elaborate finishing work, huge gardens, fountains, the works. It feels gratuitous to me. And if you know anything about the history of red lining in this country, this would have been one of those areas with racial covenants in the deeds to their homes. All the power brokers of the city past and present must have lived here, and all manner of political maneuvering and disenfranchisement would have come from this place. I’d rather see it torn down, and used to build affordable housing for those in need. I just can’t find myself sympathizing with people who feel they need this much for themselves while so many people struggle for the basic necessities. I wouldn’t mind if no one had that. It doesn’t seem justified to me. EDIT2: Someone asked me what neighborhood so I looked on google maps (it's Sea Cliff) and was reminded that they also have THEIR OWN GOLF COURSE adjacent to this neighborhood. Yikes.

huevosabio 4y ago
I honestly don't necessarily want any particular area to be densified. What I want is: 1. Anyone be able to build any type of housing anywhere. 2. Really steep land value taxes I have no issue with a clique of hyper reach folk living in a low density neighborhood, as long as any of them is be able to defect and build a tower if they feel like it _and_ they all pay their LVT.
- zhoujianfu 4y ago
  Exactly… no zoning is the best zoning! You wanna be low density, but out all the land and pay for it. If the market supports low density, so be it. In terms of property tax, I thought there was some research that the best way to do that was actually irrespective of the development on top of it? I think the idea being that would encourage development because you’re not taxed on the improvements? Or maybe I’ve got it backwards.
  - huevosabio 4y ago
    Yes, that's the whole point of Land Value Tax, you tax only the value of the "unimproved land". This incentivizes density since the tax can be distributed among all the tenants.
    - km3r 4y ago
      Honestly CA should propose replacing the mess that is property taxes, prop 13, and it's follow ups, with a LVT that is a net neutral revenue for the state. For 90% of people that would be a tax cut, for those who wish to underuse valuable space, they can pay for it.
      - dragonwriter 4y ago
        > Honestly CA should propose replacing the mess that is property taxes, prop 13, and it's follow ups, with a LVT that is a net neutral revenue for the state. For 90% of people that would be a tax cut I think it's close to “for 90% of people who pay property tax that would be a tax increase”; the people it will be a tax cut for are the people with relatively high improvement value on their land compared to the bare land value, like corporate HQs and landlords of high density apartment complexes.

pj_mukh 4y ago

Honestly, having had lived in mixed-income neighborhoods, the wealthy are missing out. Dense mixed-income neighborhoods, pockets of which are holding on for dear life in parts of New York for example, are an absolute delight. We need to find a way to rebrand the American dream to be this.

tptacek 4y ago
Everyone assumes multi-family development means 10-story apartment buildings, but SFZ rules prevent duplexes and town houses from being built too, and some of the most charming, walkable, vibrant neighborhoods in the country are defined by those kinds of buildings. If it's me, I'm authorizing all the 10-story buildings too. But we don't have to rip the band-aid off all at once; municipalities could start by letting up just a little bit and letting two households share a lot.
- toomuchtodo 4y ago
  There is hope. Wheaton just approved a ~330 unit 7 story apartment complex downtown on a 2 ac parcel, which came as quite a surprise considering the housing composition in the area.
  - tptacek 4y ago
    We've had some successes in Oak Park, too, and I'm really grateful to our board for navigating the onslaught of negative commenting and campaigning to get new multifamily developments approved. But the fact is that it's too much work, and not reasonable to expect sane, pro-development people to be permanently vigilant and organized against the too-powerful default of saying no to these things.
    - ethbr0 4y ago
      The other way of looking at zoning changes is as a gift for the future. It's unlikely to ever be subsequently down-zoned (network effects of utilities, tax revenue, etc), so it's a one-time battle. Even if per-parcel.

kodah 4y ago

There's different kinds of NIMBYs and they all have different motivations. There's ones like Marc that are pretty classical. There's also ones that will push back on the kinds of property people can own, but fully support saturating an area with rentals. I don't think there's a challenge for voters here either. As the author points out, the real problem is listening to community feedback at all. It's undemocratic. Someone else needs to be in charge of how to fulfill the demands of the community at a higher level.

whimsicalism 4y ago
> There's also ones that will push back on the kinds of property people can own, but fully support saturating an area with rentals. ? Never seen this before, elaborate
kelnos 4y ago
There's also the kind that bought into an area when it was already quite expensive, stretching their finances to do so, and are terrified of the idea of their home dropping in value due to density increases. In reality, the kind of density increases that would actually meaningfully lower their home's value is well beyond what is required or feasible. But most people aren't economists or real estate experts, and don't know or believe this.

la64710 4y ago

The community that lives and pay taxes will not have a voice about what gets built in their community? Then HOA s should not exist either and neither should business and first class in airplanes. City planners need to thoughtfully rezone as needed and strike a balance to preserve the interest of the tax payers of a neighborhood as well as allow new population housing needs. But to simply demonize a set of residents who live in a particular place for voicing their opinions is middle age witch burning mentality.

wiseowise 4y ago
Why is this downvoted?
- tptacek 4y ago
  Presumably because it ignores a zillion comments on the thread answering the objection. Regardless: the guidelines ask you not to comment on voting.
- la64710 4y ago
  Because that is the mob mentality I referred before.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

jjav 4y ago

> new housing can be allowed, but only if it is constrained to a tiny area (which becomes increasingly dense) You seem to say that in a negative tone? Isn't increasingly dense exactly what most housing advocates wish for?

michaelt 4y ago
I think the criticism is it leads to not enough housing being built. If the city needs 10,000 new homes a year to keep up with population growth, and I support building 10 new blocks of 100 apartments downtown but oppose everything else, am I a hero or a villain?
Tiktaalik 4y ago
I think housing advocates are simply advocating for cheaper rents and more affordable, better housing, and environmentalists are advocating for walkable communities. It's not necessary to build a 20+ story tower to achieve these things. You could have a compact walkable community that houses a lot of people with 4-6 story buildings too (I mean Paris is..). I'm not really expressing a preference here, but in my comment noting that with the Grand Bargain it's not likely to result in the outcome of a broad amount of low density apartments, but rather the situation of extremes where you have ultra low density single family houses and then in slivers of downtown where apts are allowed, ultra tall 20+ story residential towers. This is commonly seen in Toronto and Vancouver.

hackerlight 4y ago

> more apartments to be built exclusively in neighbourhoods dominated by the poor Specifically, apartments to be built in poor neighbourhoods exclusively next to busy highways, where the residents can enjoy chronic exposure to toxic gases, tire dust, and car honking sounds.

anovikov 4y ago

I honestly can't understand what's wrong with this. Obviously, wealthy people want to live somewhere the there are no poor people. Class divides, including very physical divides, are a necessity in any society where there are well, classes. Only way to make it unnecessary is to destroy the concept of classes as it is by making it almost impossible to get rich. In any society where there are no losers, no poverty or homelessness, there are also no winners, you can't have the cake and eat it too. Yes here in Europe we are much less likely to face a stinking meth addict in a bus, but we are also almost unable to start a startup and win it big, and these are two sides of the same issue, you can't possibly separate them. To "fix" the problem of class divide and poverty, not just you need to introduce a cradle to grave social support system and overwhelming taxes to fund it, you need to also make the very idea of becoming rich morally unacceptable in the society.

malermeister 4y ago
Look at Vienna's Gemeindebau for a counterexample. It's high quality public housing where classes mingle. Two thirds of Vienna lives in public housing and the City of Vienna is the largest landlord in Europe. [0] It is, probably on a related note, also the city with the highest quality of live in the world for as long as I can remember. [1] [0] https://www.politico.eu/article/vienna-social-housing-architecture-austria-stigma/ https://www.politico.eu/article/vienna-social-housing-archit... [1] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/feb/23/vienna-named-worlds-top-city-for-quality-of-life https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/feb/23/vienna-name...
- anovikov 4y ago
  That one is super easy! That "renting" is actually, a form of ownership where you "own" the rental contract. It's impossible to get in for a new person without decades of waiting, if ever - because there is no free lunch, if rent is many times lower than market rate, there will be a queue (or gatekeepers from who you simply buy your place in the queue). It's not a solution, just a way to keep outsiders out not too dissimilar to redlining: probably if you grandfather wasn't born in the same city, it's all but impossible to get in.

ramraj07 4y ago

Which is ironic because no matter how much money I have I would want to live in a location with dense population of people from all strata - it just means shops and food of all levels are just a walk away the moment you leave your house. One of the benefits of living in many places in india, and in some locations in New York City.

imtringued 4y ago
Don't worry policy makers and neighboring homeowners know better what you want than you do.

zozbot234 4y ago

> ... calls for more housing from the wealthy and business class are disingenuous; more often really a call for more apartments to be built exclusively in neighbourhoods dominated by the poor and working class and a continued ban of apartments in the low density single family home areas that the wealthy business owning class live in. ... If you densify the wealthiest areas instead, people will complain that you're "just building more luxury housing for the rich" and not fixing the pricing problem. You just can't win! (The simple truth, of course, is that both are good things to do. Every little bit helps.)

eru 4y ago

Better more denser housing in previously poor areas than no density at all. You make it sound like putting up with density is a chore.

asiachick 4y ago

Looking for a modern apartment in SF recently it was annoying that 95% of them are only allowed to be built on busy noisy dirty streets. Market, Gough, Franklin, Octavia, etc... If they're not on a busy street then they're within ear distance of a freeway like all the complexes near the design district and any of them near the 280 in the Dogpatch. The only big exception is some of the complexes in Mission Bay, but even there, many of them are on 3rd. There are very few allowed to be built on quieter streets

cm2187 4y ago

You seem to be confusing two distinct objectives: 1) more housing, 2) everyone should live in the same place. How wanting 1) is disingenuous because we don't necessarily want 2)?

whimsicalism 4y ago
Pauli exclusion principle rules out option 2 so no need to worry.

datavirtue 4y ago

The real problem is that we have run out of infrastructure. The wealthy don't even have enough money to build it. So we fight over housing policy that involves areas with existing infrastructure. Why doesn't Marc and his lovely wife just build a house far away from the plebs? They can't!

spaetzleesser 4y ago

"calls for more housing from the wealthy and business class are disingenuous; more often really a call for more apartments to be built exclusively in neighbourhoods dominated by the poor and working class and a continued ban of apartments in the low density single family home areas that the wealthy business owning class live in." That's the case with a lot of the initiatives coming from wealthy people. Le'ts reduce carbon footprint but we still need private jets and multiple huge houses for ourselves. We need privacy but obviously we still need to mine our users' data for profit as much as possible. We need to do something about homelessness but certainly not close to where we are living. The free market is better than government as long as the government protects our IP so we can make profits.

anony23 4y ago

Yimbys are the extreme minority to the point they hardly exist

sokoloff 4y ago

If we posit that there are people who would like to live in high-density neighborhoods and others who would like to live in lower-density areas (which seems like a reasonable assumption and matches my lifetime observations), encouraging high-density buildings to be near each other seems to serve both groups better than to have the outcome appear to be the result of randomness.

frob 4y ago
"Would like to" is doing a whole lot of heavy lifting here. I'd argue that a large fraction of people live not where they "would like to," but where they can afford.
- sokoloff 4y ago
  There are people on this very page who could well afford to live in a high or low density area and are arguing the benefits they experience and their preference for high-density. Building more housing units would lower the price of housing units. The question is, within that, how should we approach it. I don’t think plopping randomly placed high-density buildings into low-density neighborhoods is optimal compared to planned development.
Tiktaalik 4y ago
It's really not about housing preferences. When cities ban apartments from entire neighbourhoods, they're banning people from living there. It ensures only the very wealthy can. This means people have to go somewhere else. This could mean longer commutes for the poor and worse living conditions. There's nothing stopping someone who wants to have a SFH from buying a lot and building a SFH. The problem is when cities impose housing bans that limit people's ability to live in these communities.

sershe 4y ago

Is there data for how small of an area (i.e. they are arguing for)? I think Seattle has a good approach with urban villages (that are also easier to connect via transit), they just need to be somewhat taller and bigger until they eventually merge. The rich typically live in tiny areas and small cities; not wanting those tiny areas upzoned (to be clear, I personally oppose any zoning - let the market decide; but I can see where they are coming from) is not the same as wanting to squeeze the apartments into tiny areas.