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The major reason California is expensive isn't because of the things that make it nice to live here, it's because a faux-environmentalist love of sprawl and pro

The major reason California is expensive isn't because of the things that make it nice to live here, it's because a faux-environmentalist love of sprawl and protection of single family zoning from denser, more sensible housing options for those that want them. Instead, Californians with high incomes, but not enough to pay the outrageous price for ownership, pay outrageous rents to landlords that repackage unupdated 1970s starter homes at extreme luxury prices. Once we stop letting landlords exploit productive labor by removing the regulatory capture, the quality of life will increase, merely through allowing more people to experience the higher quality of life. However, reversing that trend is proving extremely difficult, despite fairly widespread support among the voting population.

gamblor956 8mo ago
Single family zoning was implemented back in the days when California was a red state. California is still a very red state; there are more Republicans in California than most of the U.S. South combined.
- epistasis 8mo ago
  Perhaps, but also it was Berkeley that invented single family zoning. There are some skeletons in the Progressive movement from a century ago, whether its eugenics or an idea of eliminating tenements, which enabled things like the destruction of the Urban Renewal movement in the following decades! And for fixing the current housing problems, there are still a good chunk of Republican representatives in the state legislature and they are even more strident in defending zoning and keeping out apartments than the Democratic representatives. At the local level, though, I think that housing issues are an axis that is pretty non-partisan, with only small amounts of partisan influence on the beliefs of people. I think the YIMBY groups have tried really really hard to keep it from becoming partisan, because even if it does become a partisan issue and move some deeply Democratic places, it would then cement Republican places against the issue and it would be nearly impossible to make overall progress on the issue.

gamblor956 8mo ago

Single family zoning was implemented back in the days when California was a red state. California is still a very red state; there are more Republicans in California than most of the U.S. South combined.

epistasis 8mo ago
Perhaps, but also it was Berkeley that invented single family zoning. There are some skeletons in the Progressive movement from a century ago, whether its eugenics or an idea of eliminating tenements, which enabled things like the destruction of the Urban Renewal movement in the following decades! And for fixing the current housing problems, there are still a good chunk of Republican representatives in the state legislature and they are even more strident in defending zoning and keeping out apartments than the Democratic representatives. At the local level, though, I think that housing issues are an axis that is pretty non-partisan, with only small amounts of partisan influence on the beliefs of people. I think the YIMBY groups have tried really really hard to keep it from becoming partisan, because even if it does become a partisan issue and move some deeply Democratic places, it would then cement Republican places against the issue and it would be nearly impossible to make overall progress on the issue.