7 ms·

SB79 is a great step forward for California. Hopefully other states implement similar (and more aggressive) bills in their states. My dream world would see an e

SB79 is a great step forward for California. Hopefully other states implement similar (and more aggressive) bills in their states. My dream world would see an elimination of local zoning as we do in the US, and a move to a zoning system more like the Japanese use. I would also love to see states adopt a Land-Value Tax to help incentivize development. Similar to SB79 I have always hoped for a bill that enforced something like within 1 mile of a school, all roads need to have cross walks, lights, and side walks to help kick start walkability in the US.

cyberax 1y ago
[flagged]
- brokencode 1y ago
  If you want rural, then don’t move to a metro area with millions of people.
  - cyberax 1y ago
    Ah. But that is the trick! You have to move into dense helks, because it is the only place with decent jobs.
    - brokencode 1y ago
      So basically you want to reap all the benefits from living in a big city without any of the downsides. California has been trying this for decades and it really isn’t working out, except maybe for people with very high salaries. Increasing density is the only realistic way to address housing affordability.
      - cyberax 1y ago
        > So basically you want to reap all the benefits from living in a big city without any of the downsides. Yes? Why is that bad? And I want everyone to be able to do the same, and not get crammed into microapartments. > Increasing density is the only realistic way to address housing affordability. No single large Western European or American city lowered housing costs by increasing density within the last 30 years. Your _only_ option to reduce housing costs is to reduce the population. It's as simple as that.
        brokencode 1y ago
        Can you list some examples where a city has tried this and it failed? The only example I can think of is Minneapolis, and they have seen lower rent increases than similar cities, so it seems successful. But outside of that, I just don’t think it’s been tried enough to really make any conclusions right now.
        cyberax 1y ago
        > Can you list some examples where a city has tried this and it failed? Moscow, Tokyo, Minneapolis, Seattle. Moscow is the one most familiar to me personally. They went full-in on density, demolishing 5-story buildings and putting in 20-story towers instead with the speed only possible in a corruption-filled society. You can guess what happened with housing costs. > The only example I can think of is Minneapolis, and they have seen lower rent increases than similar cities, so it seems successful. If I remove the labels from these graphs, would you be able to tell which one of them is MN and which one is WI: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1N1sc https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1N1sc ? Rents are not a useful indicator short-term, they can be strongly affected by various transitionary events and the rent datasets are notoriously unreliable. But even then, the rent in MN is not affected that much: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=1N1sB&height=490 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=1N1sB&heig... > But outside of that, I just don’t think it’s been tried enough to really make any conclusions right now. It's been tried. With the expected results: more misery and higher housing costs. There are all these hilarious articles as a result: https://archive.strongtowns.org/journal/2023/4/26/upzoning-might-not-lower-housing-costs-do-it-anyway https://archive.strongtowns.org/journal/2023/4/26/upzoning-m... Or Tokyo, it always cracks me up. 2016 - "Tokyo may have found the solution to soaring housing costs": https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=1N1sB&height=490 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=1N1sB&heig... 2024 - "Whoops, nope. It's in an even worse bubble": https://www.ft.com/content/40ce3cdc-5bc3-486f-b9e9-700af1087a65 https://www.ft.com/content/40ce3cdc-5bc3-486f-b9e9-700af1087...
        brokencode 1y ago
        You raise reasonable points. It seems like a common trend is that housing prices go up anyway due to outside investors buying up property, high income workers moving in and wanting luxury apartments, etc. Seems like we need to solve the demand part of the puzzle as well. There’s definitely no single easy solution here. It could also be that too few cities have increased housing supply, so the local effect is totally overwhelmed by a national or global effect. Either way, the bill is going forward, so we will be able to see the effects and reevaluate its effectiveness. I don’t think the idea of “just let the population go down” is a reasonable approach. Especially since it will be poorer people pushed out, even lifelong residents who are displaced by highly paid newcomers. It’s better to try something new and find out you were wrong than to never even try to solve the problem.
    - ambicapter 1y ago
      So move to your magical suburb or rural area with decent jobs.
    - yongjik 1y ago
      You are not entitled to have a town with no bus service within a humanly drivable distance from you decent job, to which you aren't entitled either. Those who blame others of collectivism have the weirdest sense of entitlements...
      - cyberax 1y ago
        The thing is, you are also not entitled to "affordble housing". Or to any housing, for that matter. You can keep trying to make everyone's life worse by making dense city living inevitable, but it will just make _everyone's_ life worse (very much including yours). Or you can try to advocate for ways to _improve_ the life of everyone.
        HDThoreaun 1y ago
        I am entitled to build housing on land I own. You are not entitled to say I cant.
        cyberax 1y ago
        Sure. As long as you teleport from your house and not abuse the roads that I'm paying for. And also teleport the sewage and water, btw.
        deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
  - SilverElfin 1y ago
    Those aren’t the only choices. It’s okay to have urban areas that are low density but not quite as low as rural. This prop overrides that choice.
    - HDThoreaun 1y ago
      No its doesnt. If you want a suburban sfh lifestyle you just need to buy in an area more than half a mile from public transit.
      - SilverElfin 1y ago
        You can have both SFH and public transit. Again, you’re reducing choice on the quality of life people want locally.
        HDThoreaun 1y ago
        You can also buy a sfh near public transit. You are the one who wants top reduce choices, no one is trying to take away the option to live in a sfh, you are trying to take away the option to live in multi family homes.
        cyberax 1y ago
        It's you who's trying to force everyone to conform to the sick urbanist vision of people living in microapartments. SFH can not work with regular transit. It's impossible. Fortunately, self-driving cars will finally put the transit out of misery within this decade.
        array_key_first 1y ago
        The problem is that public transport will be poorly utilized and will cost way too much. Look at this from an economic perspective. And, public transit is already public decision making. This is just more public decision making, which, IMO, makes it fair game.
- heavyset_go 1y ago
  If you want nice things, be prepared to pay the true cost for them instead of being subsidized by everyone else.
  - cyberax 1y ago
    Suburbs subsidize cities. If we use personal income taxes as a proxy.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - dcrazy 1y ago
      That’s an extremely poor proxy given that income tax is not the sole source of revenue in California, you’re not netting out state spend (which would be very important to the definition of subdsidy), and you don’t even specify whether you are speaking in aggregate or per capita.
      - cyberax 1y ago
        No. It's the best proxy to determine who's sponsoring whom. Corporate taxes are not a good proxy because they are imposed at the location of corporate headquarters. Which are almost always in the Downtowns even if the workers who produce all the value live in suburbs. Ditto for sales taxes.
        SilverElfin 1y ago
        I would also add: The people leading and owning businesses are largely higher income and older. They tend to want to get away from urban hell and live in suburbs. If anything it’s the people of the suburbs who subsidize the cities.
  - potato3732842 1y ago
    There's a sort of "you are why the world is the way it is" irony in your comment. Development costs spiral once you cross the 1ac threshold because them you have to do stormwater permitting (which is federal in some cases) and that adds a ton of cost and wastes developable land. And then the scrutiny this brings can cause you problems on other axis. This is why newly built houses in the middle of nowhere on a bunch of acres. Pretty much every commercial development, pretty much every cookie cutter residential subdivision of multiple houses, is saddled with costs that the sort of "5-over-1 here, shoehorn a duplex and some townhomes in there" type development 15min cities type people love isn't. Stormwater permitting is the driving force behind why developments get laid out the ways that they do. It's why every big box store, every residential subdivision, every warehouse building, they all have the same dozen shapes oriented in one of the same dozen ways on the lot. This is also why every residential subdivision ever has an HOA, someone needs to be responsible for maintaining whatever the stormwater infrastructure is in perpetuity.
- xmprt 1y ago
  > Can't have nice things This is unironically the current state of things. If you want to live in a semi dense suburban area which is within walking distance of transit, restaurants, and parks, then you're pretty much out of luck or you're paying millions for the handful of houses that meet that demand.
  - cyberax 1y ago
    Well. And why not make it more accessible for _everyone_ by ensuring that jobs are not available only in Downtowns of large cities? It's not even that hard to do. Pass tax incentives for companies opening offices in smaller cities, tax incentives for remote work, and tax the dense office space.
- almost_usual 1y ago
  This is a drop in the bucket, the Bay Area isn’t going to become Hong Kong anytime soon.
  - jitl 1y ago
    :-(
mothballed 1y ago
[flagged]
- jeffbee 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - mothballed 1y ago
    Read it: As used in Section 33700, “firearm barrel” means the tube, usually metal and cylindrical, through which a projectile or shot charge is fired. A firearm barrel includes any forging, casting, printing, extrusion, machined body, or similar article that has reached a stage in manufacture where it may readily be completed, assembled, or converted to be used as a firearm barrel, or that is marketed or sold to the public to become or be used as a firearm barrel once completed, assembled, or converted. A firearm barrel may have a rifled or smooth bore. Put compressed air (or maybe some capped off black powder) in tube, it will expel a projectile. PVC pipes are readily convertible into a tube through which a projectile is fired. Next time read the bill before accusing someone of being a loon. They 100% meet the definition in the law.
    - jeffbee 1y ago
      The difference between your interpretation and mine is that I studied the law and I know how to read it, while you don't and spend all your time on 2A forums.

cyberax 1y ago

[flagged]

brokencode 1y ago
If you want rural, then don’t move to a metro area with millions of people.
- cyberax 1y ago
  Ah. But that is the trick! You have to move into dense helks, because it is the only place with decent jobs.
  - brokencode 1y ago
    So basically you want to reap all the benefits from living in a big city without any of the downsides. California has been trying this for decades and it really isn’t working out, except maybe for people with very high salaries. Increasing density is the only realistic way to address housing affordability.
    - cyberax 1y ago
      > So basically you want to reap all the benefits from living in a big city without any of the downsides. Yes? Why is that bad? And I want everyone to be able to do the same, and not get crammed into microapartments. > Increasing density is the only realistic way to address housing affordability. No single large Western European or American city lowered housing costs by increasing density within the last 30 years. Your _only_ option to reduce housing costs is to reduce the population. It's as simple as that.
      - brokencode 1y ago
        Can you list some examples where a city has tried this and it failed? The only example I can think of is Minneapolis, and they have seen lower rent increases than similar cities, so it seems successful. But outside of that, I just don’t think it’s been tried enough to really make any conclusions right now.
        cyberax 1y ago
        > Can you list some examples where a city has tried this and it failed? Moscow, Tokyo, Minneapolis, Seattle. Moscow is the one most familiar to me personally. They went full-in on density, demolishing 5-story buildings and putting in 20-story towers instead with the speed only possible in a corruption-filled society. You can guess what happened with housing costs. > The only example I can think of is Minneapolis, and they have seen lower rent increases than similar cities, so it seems successful. If I remove the labels from these graphs, would you be able to tell which one of them is MN and which one is WI: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1N1sc https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1N1sc ? Rents are not a useful indicator short-term, they can be strongly affected by various transitionary events and the rent datasets are notoriously unreliable. But even then, the rent in MN is not affected that much: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=1N1sB&height=490 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=1N1sB&heig... > But outside of that, I just don’t think it’s been tried enough to really make any conclusions right now. It's been tried. With the expected results: more misery and higher housing costs. There are all these hilarious articles as a result: https://archive.strongtowns.org/journal/2023/4/26/upzoning-might-not-lower-housing-costs-do-it-anyway https://archive.strongtowns.org/journal/2023/4/26/upzoning-m... Or Tokyo, it always cracks me up. 2016 - "Tokyo may have found the solution to soaring housing costs": https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=1N1sB&height=490 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.png?g=1N1sB&heig... 2024 - "Whoops, nope. It's in an even worse bubble": https://www.ft.com/content/40ce3cdc-5bc3-486f-b9e9-700af1087a65 https://www.ft.com/content/40ce3cdc-5bc3-486f-b9e9-700af1087...
        brokencode 1y ago
        You raise reasonable points. It seems like a common trend is that housing prices go up anyway due to outside investors buying up property, high income workers moving in and wanting luxury apartments, etc. Seems like we need to solve the demand part of the puzzle as well. There’s definitely no single easy solution here. It could also be that too few cities have increased housing supply, so the local effect is totally overwhelmed by a national or global effect. Either way, the bill is going forward, so we will be able to see the effects and reevaluate its effectiveness. I don’t think the idea of “just let the population go down” is a reasonable approach. Especially since it will be poorer people pushed out, even lifelong residents who are displaced by highly paid newcomers. It’s better to try something new and find out you were wrong than to never even try to solve the problem.
  - ambicapter 1y ago
    So move to your magical suburb or rural area with decent jobs.
  - yongjik 1y ago
    You are not entitled to have a town with no bus service within a humanly drivable distance from you decent job, to which you aren't entitled either. Those who blame others of collectivism have the weirdest sense of entitlements...
    - cyberax 1y ago
      The thing is, you are also not entitled to "affordble housing". Or to any housing, for that matter. You can keep trying to make everyone's life worse by making dense city living inevitable, but it will just make _everyone's_ life worse (very much including yours). Or you can try to advocate for ways to _improve_ the life of everyone.
      - HDThoreaun 1y ago
        I am entitled to build housing on land I own. You are not entitled to say I cant.
        cyberax 1y ago
        Sure. As long as you teleport from your house and not abuse the roads that I'm paying for. And also teleport the sewage and water, btw.
        deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
- SilverElfin 1y ago
  Those aren’t the only choices. It’s okay to have urban areas that are low density but not quite as low as rural. This prop overrides that choice.
  - HDThoreaun 1y ago
    No its doesnt. If you want a suburban sfh lifestyle you just need to buy in an area more than half a mile from public transit.
    - SilverElfin 1y ago
      You can have both SFH and public transit. Again, you’re reducing choice on the quality of life people want locally.
      - HDThoreaun 1y ago
        You can also buy a sfh near public transit. You are the one who wants top reduce choices, no one is trying to take away the option to live in a sfh, you are trying to take away the option to live in multi family homes.
        cyberax 1y ago
        It's you who's trying to force everyone to conform to the sick urbanist vision of people living in microapartments. SFH can not work with regular transit. It's impossible. Fortunately, self-driving cars will finally put the transit out of misery within this decade.
      - array_key_first 1y ago
        The problem is that public transport will be poorly utilized and will cost way too much. Look at this from an economic perspective. And, public transit is already public decision making. This is just more public decision making, which, IMO, makes it fair game.
heavyset_go 1y ago
If you want nice things, be prepared to pay the true cost for them instead of being subsidized by everyone else.
- cyberax 1y ago
  Suburbs subsidize cities. If we use personal income taxes as a proxy.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - dcrazy 1y ago
    That’s an extremely poor proxy given that income tax is not the sole source of revenue in California, you’re not netting out state spend (which would be very important to the definition of subdsidy), and you don’t even specify whether you are speaking in aggregate or per capita.
    - cyberax 1y ago
      No. It's the best proxy to determine who's sponsoring whom. Corporate taxes are not a good proxy because they are imposed at the location of corporate headquarters. Which are almost always in the Downtowns even if the workers who produce all the value live in suburbs. Ditto for sales taxes.
      - SilverElfin 1y ago
        I would also add: The people leading and owning businesses are largely higher income and older. They tend to want to get away from urban hell and live in suburbs. If anything it’s the people of the suburbs who subsidize the cities.
- potato3732842 1y ago
  There's a sort of "you are why the world is the way it is" irony in your comment. Development costs spiral once you cross the 1ac threshold because them you have to do stormwater permitting (which is federal in some cases) and that adds a ton of cost and wastes developable land. And then the scrutiny this brings can cause you problems on other axis. This is why newly built houses in the middle of nowhere on a bunch of acres. Pretty much every commercial development, pretty much every cookie cutter residential subdivision of multiple houses, is saddled with costs that the sort of "5-over-1 here, shoehorn a duplex and some townhomes in there" type development 15min cities type people love isn't. Stormwater permitting is the driving force behind why developments get laid out the ways that they do. It's why every big box store, every residential subdivision, every warehouse building, they all have the same dozen shapes oriented in one of the same dozen ways on the lot. This is also why every residential subdivision ever has an HOA, someone needs to be responsible for maintaining whatever the stormwater infrastructure is in perpetuity.
xmprt 1y ago
> Can't have nice things This is unironically the current state of things. If you want to live in a semi dense suburban area which is within walking distance of transit, restaurants, and parks, then you're pretty much out of luck or you're paying millions for the handful of houses that meet that demand.
- cyberax 1y ago
  Well. And why not make it more accessible for _everyone_ by ensuring that jobs are not available only in Downtowns of large cities? It's not even that hard to do. Pass tax incentives for companies opening offices in smaller cities, tax incentives for remote work, and tax the dense office space.
almost_usual 1y ago
This is a drop in the bucket, the Bay Area isn’t going to become Hong Kong anytime soon.
- jitl 1y ago
  :-(

mothballed 1y ago

[flagged]

jeffbee 1y ago
[flagged]
- mothballed 1y ago
  Read it: As used in Section 33700, “firearm barrel” means the tube, usually metal and cylindrical, through which a projectile or shot charge is fired. A firearm barrel includes any forging, casting, printing, extrusion, machined body, or similar article that has reached a stage in manufacture where it may readily be completed, assembled, or converted to be used as a firearm barrel, or that is marketed or sold to the public to become or be used as a firearm barrel once completed, assembled, or converted. A firearm barrel may have a rifled or smooth bore. Put compressed air (or maybe some capped off black powder) in tube, it will expel a projectile. PVC pipes are readily convertible into a tube through which a projectile is fired. Next time read the bill before accusing someone of being a loon. They 100% meet the definition in the law.
  - jeffbee 1y ago
    The difference between your interpretation and mine is that I studied the law and I know how to read it, while you don't and spend all your time on 2A forums.