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> How is this not the easiest decision in the world? Unfortunately wealthy established homeowners don't want more people to near to them so they vote against a

> How is this not the easiest decision in the world? Unfortunately wealthy established homeowners don't want more people to near to them so they vote against any and all change. Welp! This is why higher orders of government need to step in to "force" municipalities to enact some of these sorts of policy changes you describe. This gives the local municipalities cover to enact the good policies that the selfish rich would kill at the ballot box.

orangecat 4y ago
Unfortunately wealthy established homeowners don't want more people to near to them so they vote against any and all change. Yes, combined with useful idiot "anti-gentrification" activists who have convinced themselves that the concept of supply and demand is a capitalist myth.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- laidoffamazon 4y ago
  I’ve just become negatively polarized into supporting gentrification at this point. Seems like the alternative is crime ridden, blighted cities without amenities.
  - zozbot234 4y ago
    Well yes, but why "negatively polarized"? Gentrification is just a somewhat derogatory word for "amenities that attract people to want to live in the area". It doesn't have to mean increased prices; that will depend on how easy it is to build real-estate there. A place can be perfectly "gentrified" in the amenities sense and be just a quaint, high-density town or neighborhood with average or even low housing costs.
    - laidoffamazon 4y ago
      I agree, that’s what I support it to be!
- jmoak3 4y ago
  Useful idiot is a great term for this. It's ironic that the same people who want to prevent gentrification are the actual "bootlickers" after all. I ended up leaving San Francisco over this sort of stuff to go to my hometown with a cheaper cost of living. Here in Louisville, we have fewer things going on than most metros. Yet every time a new apartment complex comes up a good amount of people scream bloody murder that it will raise rents unless 30% of it is marked "below market rate". This causes developers to spend their time building elsewhere, so that new options don't emerge to drive down rents. The city is objectively less wealthy than most other metros in the USA. Nobody has ever said "stop farming, all that food is allowing more people to live, and now food is more expensive", yet they will repeat it time and time again with housing. Instead they correctly think, "farm more, if we get more people on Earth they can help us farm even more food. Also we can finally have enough people to have doctors." Funny enough my state has 80% of the doctors per capita that California has, and 60% of the doctors per capita that New York has[1]. It's very frustrating to see people here fighting to stunt growth, and force their own young out to nearby cities with more open minds that let people make choices. For example, the state is debating between prioritizing poorly allocated pensions and lowering our tax rate. We're currently committed to lowering the income tax from 5% to 0% over 10 years but it's continually framed as theft to benefit the wealthy by opponents. Meanwhile Tennessee and Texas continue to have a 0% income tax and take our children and new businesses. The limited job market + wages and new business formations here reflect this. Everyone thinks of Kentucky as a poor state - people don't know we have one of the higher tax rates as well. The only thing these anti-growthers are accomplishing is making sure the same elites who made these people's lives meek stay relatively powerful by upholding the very structures that enrich the elites. Maybe the elites are the ones driving the conversation? I know I'm soapboxing here but wealth, a clean environment, ample jobs, and the ability for your own children to make a living in your region is as much a choice as anything else in this life. I'm thankful that San Francisco chose to let jobs develop there, but sad they chose not to allow me to settle there. I proudly work remotely for a CA company, and hope other states can copy the choices CA made to allow businesses and workers to flourish, and learn from their mistakes which are currently sending them away. If you choose to stop chaining your neighbor good things will flow. [1] https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/workforce/this-state-has-the-most-physicians-per-capita.html https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/workforce/this-state-h...
ROTMetro 4y ago
No, just average people, who built the community over time into something desirable, that were promised with zoning laws that it would be the type of community (single family homes, etc) that they wanted, and that then dedicated the majority of their lifetime earning power to purchase a home there. There are how many acres of land in this country? Why do you have a right to overrule the will of people in one comparatively small community to force that community to be something else, in the name of affordable housing, when there is so much land available elsewhere? You want it, build it, commit your life to it, like they did in paying so much of their lifetime income into their family home. If we were a tiny island country you might have an argument, but there is soooo much land in this country, arbitrarily picking one small area because that is where you want to be is not a right.
- CogitoCogito 4y ago
  > No, just average people, who built the community over time into something desirable, that were promised with zoning laws that it would be the type of community (single family homes, etc) that they wanted, and that then dedicated the majority of their lifetime earning power to purchase a home there. No one was promised that the zoning laws wouldn't someday change. Maybe what's really needed is a complete repeal of proposition 13. If homeowners want to block local development leading to increasing housing costs, they can at least pay for it in their taxes.
  - nradov 4y ago
    You are welcome to put a repeal of Proposition 13 on the next ballot. All it takes is a $2000 fee and some signed petitions. https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/ballot-measures/how-qualify-initiative https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/ballot-measures/how-qualify...
    - CogitoCogito 4y ago
      Frankly that's a waste of time. People are are all too happy not paying their fair share of taxes and will fight hard to preserve that inequity. The clearly correct approach is for the state to continue its current path of overruling local zoning ordinances and to allow increases in density against the will of local homeowners.
majormajor 4y ago
> Unfortunately wealthy established homeowners don't want more people to near to them so they vote against any and all change. Sometimes poor established renters also don't want change. In the 20th century a lot of cities grew practically 'out of nowhere'. Why has that stopped? That's a great pressure relief valve and gets new buyers/renters out of a vicious feedback loop caused by the tendency of already cash-or-property-rich people to concentrate resources. "The opportunity/jobs are there" is historically the answer, for millennia of cities. But does it have to be that forever? In the 20th century US, there were a lot of explicit government interventions and such that caused things like the defense industry to sprawl across countless different states and counterbalance it. What would that look like in a post-2020 world?
- novok 4y ago
  Cities out of nowhere do exist in function in the USA, there are plenty of cities where people can buy for cheap. New settlements get started due to something unique about the place, be it ports, resources, trade route nexuses, and so on. The USA was a frontier and thus these cities were established. You'll notice in western europe you don't see many new towns either for 100s of years, because it's frontier was settled long time ago. People want to live in SF because of the effective social networks that develop there and access to it's labor market. Cities are essentially representations of different labor markets, and labor markets in specific places develop because there is something unique about the place, or they seed crystal into a form of 'labor black hole' as a new industry develops.
  - majormajor 4y ago
    Sure, but we explicitly tried to counter those forces in the US, including through government policy to build industry in areas where it wasn't before. Moving the defense industry to be less-concentrated in Los Angeles was deliberate and wasn't moving to "frontier" towns. It was moving to towns that were created for one purpose but had been somewhat "skipped over" after that in favor of the biggest cities. I think it's probably worth trying to incentivize that more today. It still happens organically some (big companies moving HQs out of expensive areas, for instance), but probably could stand to happen more.
ejb999 4y ago
>>This is why higher orders of government need to step in to "force" municipalities to enact some of these sorts of policy changes you describe. The people that live there, don't want their city/neighborhood to change in a certain way, so people that don't live there should force them to do it? Why are people that aren't even voters in that location have a say at all?
- supersour 4y ago
  The state has an interest in keeping its cities economically healthy, perhaps more than the city government itself which is focused on appeasing citizens with its delivery of police/recreation services. The state government can act more dynamically since it has a wider voter base to consider, including those who would like to live in the city but are pushed out. The Valley must maintain some level of competitiveness with other city hubs, else the techxodus worsens and California loses a large portion of their economy and tax revenue. This is an existential threat to California, and the residents of the valley will lose out in the long run.
  - UncleEntity 4y ago
    > This is an existential threat to California… California was doing just fine when I was a kid growing up in the 70s and 80s. No doubt it’ll be doing just fine when the tech bros take their ball and go home. There’s absolutely nothing in California that is essential for the tech industry but plenty to offer that turned it into an economic powerhouse before that time. Pretty depressing that the only way I could possibly permanently move back to the land of my birth is in a casket.
- fxleach 4y ago
  It's not "their" city/neighbourhood. It existed before them and it will exist after. What gives someone a right to move in and create laws to make it harder for other people to do the same thing they did? I understand they actually have that right, it's just shitty to have that kind of mindset.
  - 4y ago

orangecat 4y ago

Unfortunately wealthy established homeowners don't want more people to near to them so they vote against any and all change. Yes, combined with useful idiot "anti-gentrification" activists who have convinced themselves that the concept of supply and demand is a capitalist myth.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
laidoffamazon 4y ago
I’ve just become negatively polarized into supporting gentrification at this point. Seems like the alternative is crime ridden, blighted cities without amenities.
- zozbot234 4y ago
  Well yes, but why "negatively polarized"? Gentrification is just a somewhat derogatory word for "amenities that attract people to want to live in the area". It doesn't have to mean increased prices; that will depend on how easy it is to build real-estate there. A place can be perfectly "gentrified" in the amenities sense and be just a quaint, high-density town or neighborhood with average or even low housing costs.
  - laidoffamazon 4y ago
    I agree, that’s what I support it to be!
jmoak3 4y ago
Useful idiot is a great term for this. It's ironic that the same people who want to prevent gentrification are the actual "bootlickers" after all. I ended up leaving San Francisco over this sort of stuff to go to my hometown with a cheaper cost of living. Here in Louisville, we have fewer things going on than most metros. Yet every time a new apartment complex comes up a good amount of people scream bloody murder that it will raise rents unless 30% of it is marked "below market rate". This causes developers to spend their time building elsewhere, so that new options don't emerge to drive down rents. The city is objectively less wealthy than most other metros in the USA. Nobody has ever said "stop farming, all that food is allowing more people to live, and now food is more expensive", yet they will repeat it time and time again with housing. Instead they correctly think, "farm more, if we get more people on Earth they can help us farm even more food. Also we can finally have enough people to have doctors." Funny enough my state has 80% of the doctors per capita that California has, and 60% of the doctors per capita that New York has[1]. It's very frustrating to see people here fighting to stunt growth, and force their own young out to nearby cities with more open minds that let people make choices. For example, the state is debating between prioritizing poorly allocated pensions and lowering our tax rate. We're currently committed to lowering the income tax from 5% to 0% over 10 years but it's continually framed as theft to benefit the wealthy by opponents. Meanwhile Tennessee and Texas continue to have a 0% income tax and take our children and new businesses. The limited job market + wages and new business formations here reflect this. Everyone thinks of Kentucky as a poor state - people don't know we have one of the higher tax rates as well. The only thing these anti-growthers are accomplishing is making sure the same elites who made these people's lives meek stay relatively powerful by upholding the very structures that enrich the elites. Maybe the elites are the ones driving the conversation? I know I'm soapboxing here but wealth, a clean environment, ample jobs, and the ability for your own children to make a living in your region is as much a choice as anything else in this life. I'm thankful that San Francisco chose to let jobs develop there, but sad they chose not to allow me to settle there. I proudly work remotely for a CA company, and hope other states can copy the choices CA made to allow businesses and workers to flourish, and learn from their mistakes which are currently sending them away. If you choose to stop chaining your neighbor good things will flow. [1] https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/workforce/this-state-has-the-most-physicians-per-capita.html https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/workforce/this-state-h...

ROTMetro 4y ago

No, just average people, who built the community over time into something desirable, that were promised with zoning laws that it would be the type of community (single family homes, etc) that they wanted, and that then dedicated the majority of their lifetime earning power to purchase a home there. There are how many acres of land in this country? Why do you have a right to overrule the will of people in one comparatively small community to force that community to be something else, in the name of affordable housing, when there is so much land available elsewhere? You want it, build it, commit your life to it, like they did in paying so much of their lifetime income into their family home. If we were a tiny island country you might have an argument, but there is soooo much land in this country, arbitrarily picking one small area because that is where you want to be is not a right.

CogitoCogito 4y ago
> No, just average people, who built the community over time into something desirable, that were promised with zoning laws that it would be the type of community (single family homes, etc) that they wanted, and that then dedicated the majority of their lifetime earning power to purchase a home there. No one was promised that the zoning laws wouldn't someday change. Maybe what's really needed is a complete repeal of proposition 13. If homeowners want to block local development leading to increasing housing costs, they can at least pay for it in their taxes.
- nradov 4y ago
  You are welcome to put a repeal of Proposition 13 on the next ballot. All it takes is a $2000 fee and some signed petitions. https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/ballot-measures/how-qualify-initiative https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/ballot-measures/how-qualify...
  - CogitoCogito 4y ago
    Frankly that's a waste of time. People are are all too happy not paying their fair share of taxes and will fight hard to preserve that inequity. The clearly correct approach is for the state to continue its current path of overruling local zoning ordinances and to allow increases in density against the will of local homeowners.

majormajor 4y ago

> Unfortunately wealthy established homeowners don't want more people to near to them so they vote against any and all change. Sometimes poor established renters also don't want change. In the 20th century a lot of cities grew practically 'out of nowhere'. Why has that stopped? That's a great pressure relief valve and gets new buyers/renters out of a vicious feedback loop caused by the tendency of already cash-or-property-rich people to concentrate resources. "The opportunity/jobs are there" is historically the answer, for millennia of cities. But does it have to be that forever? In the 20th century US, there were a lot of explicit government interventions and such that caused things like the defense industry to sprawl across countless different states and counterbalance it. What would that look like in a post-2020 world?

novok 4y ago
Cities out of nowhere do exist in function in the USA, there are plenty of cities where people can buy for cheap. New settlements get started due to something unique about the place, be it ports, resources, trade route nexuses, and so on. The USA was a frontier and thus these cities were established. You'll notice in western europe you don't see many new towns either for 100s of years, because it's frontier was settled long time ago. People want to live in SF because of the effective social networks that develop there and access to it's labor market. Cities are essentially representations of different labor markets, and labor markets in specific places develop because there is something unique about the place, or they seed crystal into a form of 'labor black hole' as a new industry develops.
- majormajor 4y ago
  Sure, but we explicitly tried to counter those forces in the US, including through government policy to build industry in areas where it wasn't before. Moving the defense industry to be less-concentrated in Los Angeles was deliberate and wasn't moving to "frontier" towns. It was moving to towns that were created for one purpose but had been somewhat "skipped over" after that in favor of the biggest cities. I think it's probably worth trying to incentivize that more today. It still happens organically some (big companies moving HQs out of expensive areas, for instance), but probably could stand to happen more.

ejb999 4y ago

>>This is why higher orders of government need to step in to "force" municipalities to enact some of these sorts of policy changes you describe. The people that live there, don't want their city/neighborhood to change in a certain way, so people that don't live there should force them to do it? Why are people that aren't even voters in that location have a say at all?

supersour 4y ago
The state has an interest in keeping its cities economically healthy, perhaps more than the city government itself which is focused on appeasing citizens with its delivery of police/recreation services. The state government can act more dynamically since it has a wider voter base to consider, including those who would like to live in the city but are pushed out. The Valley must maintain some level of competitiveness with other city hubs, else the techxodus worsens and California loses a large portion of their economy and tax revenue. This is an existential threat to California, and the residents of the valley will lose out in the long run.
- UncleEntity 4y ago
  > This is an existential threat to California… California was doing just fine when I was a kid growing up in the 70s and 80s. No doubt it’ll be doing just fine when the tech bros take their ball and go home. There’s absolutely nothing in California that is essential for the tech industry but plenty to offer that turned it into an economic powerhouse before that time. Pretty depressing that the only way I could possibly permanently move back to the land of my birth is in a casket.
fxleach 4y ago
It's not "their" city/neighbourhood. It existed before them and it will exist after. What gives someone a right to move in and create laws to make it harder for other people to do the same thing they did? I understand they actually have that right, it's just shitty to have that kind of mindset.
- 4y ago