
Opinion: America's cities are unlivable. Blame wealthy liberals - bobpappas
https://www.sfgate.com/opinion/article/America-s-Cities-Are-Unlivable-Blame-Wealthy-13877486.php
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mrosett
I think this is the key passage:

> Reading opposition to SB 50 and other efforts at increasing density, I’m
> struck by an unsettling thought: What Republicans want to do with ICE and
> border walls, wealthy progressive Democrats are doing with zoning and
> NIMBYism. Preserving “local character,” maintaining “local control,” keeping
> housing scarce and inaccessible — the goals of both sides are really the
> same: to keep people out.

California's failure to address the housing crisis isn't an economic failure;
it's a moral one. Moving to a high-productivity city has long been the best
way for Americans to better their prospects and their childrens' future. That
opportunity is still available to the handful of engineers who can move to SF
and pull down $150k-200k right out of college, but it's increasingly a thing
of the past. It's been dismantled by wealthy homeowners who don't want to
share their cities with the wrong sort of people. The fact that many of them
are self-described progressives and theoretically in favor of greater equality
doesn't make this worse, but it certainly is ironic.

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clairity
this story was just discussed on airtalk [0], including a segment with gov.
newsom, where the thrust was whether the striking down of sb50 is compatible
with the progressivism espoused by many californians.

it’s not. opposition to building housing is squarely conservative—an impulse
to keep things the same for selfish advantage rather than sharing prosperity
with others.

with that said, these labels are merely that—they don’t have to define us in
the ways that they seem to do. let’s throw off the labels and work on
welcoming people into our neighborhoods. let’s build housing for them and let
them enrich our lives.

but it’s hard. i have a neighbor who complains about being priced out of our
neighborhood while at the same time complaining about the people coming in.
*sigh~

[0]
[https://www.scpr.org/programs/airtalk/](https://www.scpr.org/programs/airtalk/)

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sidlls
I really wish people would stop equating democrat with liberal.

And this issue is less about liberal/left versus conservative/right and more
about simple human greed which respects no political label (and which in
America is amplified by our culture of wealth and authority worship).

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amw-zero
Democrats are liberal. They’re synonyms right

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sidlls
No, they aren't in general liberal (some are, most aren't) and the words are
not synonyms.

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JohnFen
I don't think this problem can be cast as a liberal vs conservative thing.

Greed and maintaining privilege are not confined to, or excluded from, any
particular spot in the political landscape.

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mrosett
That's mentioned in the piece:

> Not-in-my-backyardism is a bipartisan sentiment, but because the largest
> American cities are populated and run by Democrats — many in states under
> complete Democratic control — this sort of nakedly exclusionary urban
> restrictionism is a particular shame of the left.

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JohnFen
> this sort of nakedly exclusionary urban restrictionism is a particular shame
> of the left.

But that doesn't really address my point. Also, I disagree with that statement
on two counts. First, "Democrat" and "liberal" are not synonyms, and second,
it's not a "particular shame of the left". It's a shame of the wealthy and
privileged.

(Just to be clear, I'm not a Democrat)

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muro
Sure, but since Republicans are usually casted as party of greed, this is a
good counterpoint how much Democrats really care about the less fortunate than
themselves.

