4 ms·

What's perplexing about a libertarian group not wanting some regional agency imposing a housing plan on a city that doesn't want it?

by NoPiece 13y ago

anigbrowl 13y ago
The Libertarian Group is in Sacramento, and is trying to use State environmental law to prevent the local governments in the Bay area from cooperating on a plan to build high-density housing. I'm not sure which 'city' you're referring to here, as PLC isn't representing any particular city, and Sacramento (where they're based) isn't part of the Bay Area, not that that makes a huge difference legally speaking.
- Shivetya 13y ago
  They are not the only group going after this development. Many smaller cities in the affected area also raised issues but their hands are tied. Even the Occupy movement doesn't like the PLC. Developer groups are against it in many areas as they have stated time and time again, high density housing of the type required is the domain of the wealthy and will not serve the purpose the PLC claims to address. It should not get a free pass because it sounds good. It takes away the ability of local government to determine what best use the land has under their domain. It tells builders what they have to build. It tells owners what they have to rent/sell for. It an attempt at one size fits all for an incredibly varied landscape. Let alone, the OP who brought up this groups complaint fails to address how the PLC would even begin to help the homeless in their cars. The PLC certainly isn't about fixing that. If people want to fix the homeless issue they are going to have to look away from city governments, across the country they are going out of their way to hide the homeless, drive them into the subs. The reason is simple, they don't have the money to deal with it and they don't see any benefit in keeping these people in town. The very party that runs most cities across the country, the very party that claims it wants to help the poor, only wants to do so provided they don't have to see them or live with them
  - anigbrowl 13y ago
    Even the Occupy movement doesn't like the PLC. The Occupy movement doesn't like anything except the sound of its own voice, which is why their internal meetings require 90% majorities to decide anything. Even semi-anarchist unions like the IWW don't impose such unworkable restrictions on their internal governance. I'm not sure what this 'PLC' you're referring to is. I'm talking about Plan Bay Area, which was put together by the Association of Bay Area Governments, an umbrella group of the 9 Bay Area county governments. It's not some external agency imposing its mandate on local governments, it is the local governments.
    - NoPiece 13y ago
      It is more complicated than that. There are state mandated housing requirements that are imposed through ABAG. They are going to tell you how much housing your town MUST build regardless of what the citizens or city council of the town want.
      - anigbrowl 13y ago
        Actually they're state-mandated environmental requirements, from SB 375 which s designed to reduce the output of greenhouse gasses. Stuff that people ultimately voted for (indirectly, via the election of representatives to our republican form of government) and have not so far seen fit to overturn via ballot initiative. I am not too big a fan of planning, but then I am not too big a fan of sprawl either. The fact is that ABAG is a local organization and the Plan Bay Area initiative is an attempt to coordinate planning activities between the local governments that they have voluntarily entered into. So, some people don't like it. Not everybody gets everything they want in a polity. People like myself who don't care for sprawl had to accept the fact that we were in the minority on many past planning decisions too.
        NoPiece 13y ago
        You've changed the argument from "I don't understand why libertarians might be opposed to ABAG requirements" to "I support ABAG requirements because I don't like sprawl." Whether people "ultimately" voted for it is as irrelevant as saying people ultimately voted for Obama and therefore libertarians should support war in Afghanistan. ABAG takes local control of housing away from city governments. It is less accountable to residents than city government. Of course a libertarian wouldn't want local control of development superseded by regional, or state, or federal mandates. And if you don't like sprawl, you shouldn't be forcing Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Mountain View, Burlingame, etc. to increase density, you should look for density in downtown San Jose and San Francisco, and try to get people to move from the suburbs back to urban centers.
smutticus 13y ago
Through application libertarian can mean whatever people want it to mean. Its meaning is as malleable as 'politically correct'. Want to discourage people from building dense housing, then you're stopping the government from imposing a plan on freedom lovers. Want to encourage people to build dense housing, then you're removing unnnecessary regulation from the free market and encouraging economic freedom. The only real constant of American libertarians is the fact that they're almost all successful white people. So any libertarian group needs to address their concerns if it wants to stay relevant. Abstract ideological beliefs such as libertarianism can be mapped in many different ways to actual real world problems. So what usually ends up happening is the more influential subgroups within an ideological organization control the mappings of the groups ideology to real world issues. Then can claim anyone who does not agree with their mapping is not a true member of their ideological organization. It's similar the 'No True Scotsman' fallacy, but not exactly. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman It might seem convenient for libertarians to have a single ideology that they can map to every political problem they encounter. But I doubt many of them realize that in their complex machinations to contort libertarianism to fit political reality they're simultaneously redefining what libertarianism means to them inside their own head. This process is made easier by elected libertarians rarely having to actually do anything in politics. Since there are no libertarians at the national level every person who identifies as a libertarian can maintain their own personal definition of libertarianism that agrees with their ideal implementation of the ideology and still bond with other self identified libertarians exclusively through abstract ideology. In short, libertarianism can mean whatever anyone wants it to mean as long as it doesn't piss of successful white people.

What's perplexing about a libertarian group not wanting some regional agency imposing a housing plan on a city that doesn't want it?

by NoPiece 13y ago

What's perplexing about a libertarian group not wanting some regional agency imposing a housing plan on a city that doesn't want it?

anigbrowl 13y ago

The Libertarian Group is in Sacramento, and is trying to use State environmental law to prevent the local governments in the Bay area from cooperating on a plan to build high-density housing. I'm not sure which 'city' you're referring to here, as PLC isn't representing any particular city, and Sacramento (where they're based) isn't part of the Bay Area, not that that makes a huge difference legally speaking.

Shivetya 13y ago
They are not the only group going after this development. Many smaller cities in the affected area also raised issues but their hands are tied. Even the Occupy movement doesn't like the PLC. Developer groups are against it in many areas as they have stated time and time again, high density housing of the type required is the domain of the wealthy and will not serve the purpose the PLC claims to address. It should not get a free pass because it sounds good. It takes away the ability of local government to determine what best use the land has under their domain. It tells builders what they have to build. It tells owners what they have to rent/sell for. It an attempt at one size fits all for an incredibly varied landscape. Let alone, the OP who brought up this groups complaint fails to address how the PLC would even begin to help the homeless in their cars. The PLC certainly isn't about fixing that. If people want to fix the homeless issue they are going to have to look away from city governments, across the country they are going out of their way to hide the homeless, drive them into the subs. The reason is simple, they don't have the money to deal with it and they don't see any benefit in keeping these people in town. The very party that runs most cities across the country, the very party that claims it wants to help the poor, only wants to do so provided they don't have to see them or live with them
- anigbrowl 13y ago
  Even the Occupy movement doesn't like the PLC. The Occupy movement doesn't like anything except the sound of its own voice, which is why their internal meetings require 90% majorities to decide anything. Even semi-anarchist unions like the IWW don't impose such unworkable restrictions on their internal governance. I'm not sure what this 'PLC' you're referring to is. I'm talking about Plan Bay Area, which was put together by the Association of Bay Area Governments, an umbrella group of the 9 Bay Area county governments. It's not some external agency imposing its mandate on local governments, it is the local governments.
  - NoPiece 13y ago
    It is more complicated than that. There are state mandated housing requirements that are imposed through ABAG. They are going to tell you how much housing your town MUST build regardless of what the citizens or city council of the town want.
    - anigbrowl 13y ago
      Actually they're state-mandated environmental requirements, from SB 375 which s designed to reduce the output of greenhouse gasses. Stuff that people ultimately voted for (indirectly, via the election of representatives to our republican form of government) and have not so far seen fit to overturn via ballot initiative. I am not too big a fan of planning, but then I am not too big a fan of sprawl either. The fact is that ABAG is a local organization and the Plan Bay Area initiative is an attempt to coordinate planning activities between the local governments that they have voluntarily entered into. So, some people don't like it. Not everybody gets everything they want in a polity. People like myself who don't care for sprawl had to accept the fact that we were in the minority on many past planning decisions too.
      - NoPiece 13y ago
        You've changed the argument from "I don't understand why libertarians might be opposed to ABAG requirements" to "I support ABAG requirements because I don't like sprawl." Whether people "ultimately" voted for it is as irrelevant as saying people ultimately voted for Obama and therefore libertarians should support war in Afghanistan. ABAG takes local control of housing away from city governments. It is less accountable to residents than city government. Of course a libertarian wouldn't want local control of development superseded by regional, or state, or federal mandates. And if you don't like sprawl, you shouldn't be forcing Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Mountain View, Burlingame, etc. to increase density, you should look for density in downtown San Jose and San Francisco, and try to get people to move from the suburbs back to urban centers.

smutticus 13y ago

Through application libertarian can mean whatever people want it to mean. Its meaning is as malleable as 'politically correct'. Want to discourage people from building dense housing, then you're stopping the government from imposing a plan on freedom lovers. Want to encourage people to build dense housing, then you're removing unnnecessary regulation from the free market and encouraging economic freedom. The only real constant of American libertarians is the fact that they're almost all successful white people. So any libertarian group needs to address their concerns if it wants to stay relevant. Abstract ideological beliefs such as libertarianism can be mapped in many different ways to actual real world problems. So what usually ends up happening is the more influential subgroups within an ideological organization control the mappings of the groups ideology to real world issues. Then can claim anyone who does not agree with their mapping is not a true member of their ideological organization. It's similar the 'No True Scotsman' fallacy, but not exactly. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman It might seem convenient for libertarians to have a single ideology that they can map to every political problem they encounter. But I doubt many of them realize that in their complex machinations to contort libertarianism to fit political reality they're simultaneously redefining what libertarianism means to them inside their own head. This process is made easier by elected libertarians rarely having to actually do anything in politics. Since there are no libertarians at the national level every person who identifies as a libertarian can maintain their own personal definition of libertarianism that agrees with their ideal implementation of the ideology and still bond with other self identified libertarians exclusively through abstract ideology. In short, libertarianism can mean whatever anyone wants it to mean as long as it doesn't piss of successful white people.