4 ms·

Who are "cities"? It's the people who live there and vote for the city government. We did this.

by ttymck 3y ago

PeterisP 3y ago
One aspect is that often people who work there and would want to also live there don't get to vote for the city government which (through its decisions) prevents them from moving in the area where they work.
slabity 3y ago
That's a vacuous argument. By that logic, you can easily dismiss all problems in a democratic society since the source of the problem is "the people". In reality, there were huge misinformation and lobbyist campaigns waged by automobile manufacturers and energy companies to stop any decent public transportation projects. Even our laws on jaywalking were originally manufactured as an effort to demonize pedestrian traffic.
- ekianjo 3y ago
  i dont know about the automobile lobby but public transit projects have suffered from corruption mismanagement and awful planning as well.
- ttymck 3y ago
  You're absolutely right. But I would argue "cities" is no less vacuous than my wording.
- Paul-Craft 3y ago
  No, it's not vacuous at all. "The people (who have an interest in the matter)" and "the people who live there and vote for city government" are not the same "people." That's a large part of the problem.
acdha 3y ago
Kind of. Power is quite disproportionate and in many areas that means that the city leadership are hearing at lot from established affluent people who see their homes as significant assets and don’t want competition. For years that combined with low voter participation made it easy to block progress because anyone affluent has a financial incentive to say they’re not a NIMBY due to race or class bias, it’s just that this one development (like every other one) is poorly designed, too big, etc. and it’s just pure coincidence that this position juices their retirement plans. What changed is that millennials and gen Z were screwed so hard that even their more affluent members are often willing to vote for people who say reform is necessary (climate change factors into this a lot, too, since even if cars were affordable and traffic wasn’t a problem we’d still have to change something).
- ttymck 3y ago
  I couldn't agree more. I think it's disingenuous to pretend that the hacker news demographic isn't historically aligned with the NIMBY class, as you put: "affluent". Its easier to say "cities" did this than admit there's real work to be done (as you also described).

Who are "cities"? It's the people who live there and vote for the city government. We did this.

by ttymck 3y ago

Who are "cities"? It's the people who live there and vote for the city government. We did this.

One aspect is that often people who work there and would want to also live there don't get to vote for the city government which (through its decisions) prevents them from moving in the area where they work.

slabity 3y ago

That's a vacuous argument. By that logic, you can easily dismiss all problems in a democratic society since the source of the problem is "the people". In reality, there were huge misinformation and lobbyist campaigns waged by automobile manufacturers and energy companies to stop any decent public transportation projects. Even our laws on jaywalking were originally manufactured as an effort to demonize pedestrian traffic.

ekianjo 3y ago
i dont know about the automobile lobby but public transit projects have suffered from corruption mismanagement and awful planning as well.
ttymck 3y ago
You're absolutely right. But I would argue "cities" is no less vacuous than my wording.
Paul-Craft 3y ago
No, it's not vacuous at all. "The people (who have an interest in the matter)" and "the people who live there and vote for city government" are not the same "people." That's a large part of the problem.

acdha 3y ago

Kind of. Power is quite disproportionate and in many areas that means that the city leadership are hearing at lot from established affluent people who see their homes as significant assets and don’t want competition. For years that combined with low voter participation made it easy to block progress because anyone affluent has a financial incentive to say they’re not a NIMBY due to race or class bias, it’s just that this one development (like every other one) is poorly designed, too big, etc. and it’s just pure coincidence that this position juices their retirement plans. What changed is that millennials and gen Z were screwed so hard that even their more affluent members are often willing to vote for people who say reform is necessary (climate change factors into this a lot, too, since even if cars were affordable and traffic wasn’t a problem we’d still have to change something).

ttymck 3y ago
I couldn't agree more. I think it's disingenuous to pretend that the hacker news demographic isn't historically aligned with the NIMBY class, as you put: "affluent". Its easier to say "cities" did this than admit there's real work to be done (as you also described).