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So the majority of people want to keep it that way? Then it might just essentially boil down to democracy issues. Companies on the other hand don’t get a vote.

So the majority of people want to keep it that way? Then it might just essentially boil down to democracy issues. Companies on the other hand don’t get a vote. So if all grocery companies banded together and voted for a law to allow monopolies then it wouldn’t be the same thing as if all the humans voted for it. Companies do love to lobby though, but lobbying and voting are still two different things. So if all the people in California banded together and voted to allow grocery chains to collaborate and split up areas to avoid competition, then I guess that would be mostly fine too.

delfinom 2y ago
>Companies on the other hand don’t get a vote. Bullshit. Their money holds more value than any vote.
eesmith 2y ago
You do not have enough information to tell if a majority of people want it that way. Some of these zoning restrictions (don't know specifically about CA but true elsewhere) were put into place 60 years ago, when a majority wanted it that way (often for very racists and class warfare reasons), and they made it a requirement to have a supermajority to change it, not simple majority. Thus, a majority could want to change, but are unable to reach the 2/3rds or whatever supermajority threshold is required. Don't all political questions in the US boil down to democracy issues?
- ttyprintk 2y ago
  Yeah and I believe a lot of HOA dissolution rules must reach 2/3.
jandrese 2y ago
One caveat is that these decisions are local, so people who have not had a chance to move in because there is no housing don't get a vote. Thus over time the law increasingly favors existing homeowners to the point where it completely fossilizes the community. It's a good deal for the people who live there, but a bad one for the population as a whole as all of the prime real estate is taken and they're pushed out to places that nobody previously wanted to live. If I had a good or easy solution I would offer it, but this is just a fundamental problem with democracy. Maybe if there was a fairly hostile state zoning board that vetoed most of the laws that prevent new construction, but there is almost no way to prevent that sort of position from being captured by the local interests and it would be very hard to staff since the person would be under both intense pressure and hate from nearly all communities in the state. Can you imagine being the guy who, through veto of the anti-construction law, let some skyscraper be built that blocks the ocean view of a few millionaire mansions? You'd be lucky to get out of town alive.
- bigstrat2003 2y ago
  > One caveat is that these decisions are local, so people who have not had a chance to move in because there is no housing don't get a vote. That's a feature, not a bug. People who don't live in a community shouldn't be able to dictate how that community runs its affairs.
  - scoofy 2y ago
    Oh my. No. This is a shortsighted strategy exactly because it forces decisions into bigger jurisdictions. If you want to live in a world where the entire State, not your neighborhood, is deciding what you can build where and when, then keep refusing to make reasonable, regional compromises.
  - epistasis 2y ago
    By this logic, Vons is in the right in dictating how it runs its own property, right?
School-Cotton 2y ago
The state of democracy in the US into bad that you cannot really conclude anything about what “the majority of people want” from what the law happens to be.
- ttyprintk 2y ago
  The saying goes: It’s a Republic, not a democracy. The bad guys can always take it up a level to a smaller number of more-powerful people —- if that saying is right.
- School-Cotton 2y ago
  Can’t edit now, but “into bad” should have been “is so bad”.
epistasis 2y ago
It's certainly not the majority of people that want it this way, and poll after poll shows that. The local decisions on zoning are not made democratically, there's layers of representatives, and the representatives that get elected are some of the least reported-on and discussed elections in our society. Land use decisions are made by small numbers of highly motivated people, that already have housing, and benefit financially from a shortage of housing. Just like the grocery stores here. At the state level, regulation of land use is far more similar to poll results, and that regulation is reining in the abuses of local land use policy, forcing local decision makers to allow for more housing.

delfinom 2y ago

>Companies on the other hand don’t get a vote. Bullshit. Their money holds more value than any vote.

eesmith 2y ago

You do not have enough information to tell if a majority of people want it that way. Some of these zoning restrictions (don't know specifically about CA but true elsewhere) were put into place 60 years ago, when a majority wanted it that way (often for very racists and class warfare reasons), and they made it a requirement to have a supermajority to change it, not simple majority. Thus, a majority could want to change, but are unable to reach the 2/3rds or whatever supermajority threshold is required. Don't all political questions in the US boil down to democracy issues?

ttyprintk 2y ago
Yeah and I believe a lot of HOA dissolution rules must reach 2/3.

jandrese 2y ago

One caveat is that these decisions are local, so people who have not had a chance to move in because there is no housing don't get a vote. Thus over time the law increasingly favors existing homeowners to the point where it completely fossilizes the community. It's a good deal for the people who live there, but a bad one for the population as a whole as all of the prime real estate is taken and they're pushed out to places that nobody previously wanted to live. If I had a good or easy solution I would offer it, but this is just a fundamental problem with democracy. Maybe if there was a fairly hostile state zoning board that vetoed most of the laws that prevent new construction, but there is almost no way to prevent that sort of position from being captured by the local interests and it would be very hard to staff since the person would be under both intense pressure and hate from nearly all communities in the state. Can you imagine being the guy who, through veto of the anti-construction law, let some skyscraper be built that blocks the ocean view of a few millionaire mansions? You'd be lucky to get out of town alive.

bigstrat2003 2y ago
> One caveat is that these decisions are local, so people who have not had a chance to move in because there is no housing don't get a vote. That's a feature, not a bug. People who don't live in a community shouldn't be able to dictate how that community runs its affairs.
- scoofy 2y ago
  Oh my. No. This is a shortsighted strategy exactly because it forces decisions into bigger jurisdictions. If you want to live in a world where the entire State, not your neighborhood, is deciding what you can build where and when, then keep refusing to make reasonable, regional compromises.
- epistasis 2y ago
  By this logic, Vons is in the right in dictating how it runs its own property, right?

School-Cotton 2y ago

The state of democracy in the US into bad that you cannot really conclude anything about what “the majority of people want” from what the law happens to be.

ttyprintk 2y ago
The saying goes: It’s a Republic, not a democracy. The bad guys can always take it up a level to a smaller number of more-powerful people —- if that saying is right.
School-Cotton 2y ago
Can’t edit now, but “into bad” should have been “is so bad”.

epistasis 2y ago

It's certainly not the majority of people that want it this way, and poll after poll shows that. The local decisions on zoning are not made democratically, there's layers of representatives, and the representatives that get elected are some of the least reported-on and discussed elections in our society. Land use decisions are made by small numbers of highly motivated people, that already have housing, and benefit financially from a shortage of housing. Just like the grocery stores here. At the state level, regulation of land use is far more similar to poll results, and that regulation is reining in the abuses of local land use policy, forcing local decision makers to allow for more housing.