
America's Cities Are Unlivable. Blame Wealthy Liberals. - pdog
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/22/opinion/california-housing-nimby.html
======
TulliusCicero
> Reading opposition to SB 50 and other efforts at increasing density, I’m
> struck by an unsettling thought: What Republicans want to do with I.C.E. 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.

100% spot on. NIMBYism is the left's version of xenophobia. The mantra is very
much "Welcome to my country, now get the hell out of my city".

~~~
shse
The more you build the more people will come. When can you consider a city to
be full? When there is no land to build? Or maybe when it's impossible to
provide an infrastructure to support its population? Are you ok with raising a
family in a 400 sq. feet condo like people do in Asia? Because if you increase
density that's going to be a new standard for American cities.

The problem is the high concentration of IT businesses in a small region of
space. And the solution is to spread it to other cities across US. It's
already happening as companies struggle to find workers in SF bay area opening
offices in other west coast cities.

~~~
epistasis
They won't come unless there are jobs.

But if there are _already_ jobs fro them, it's absolutely 100% the
responsibility of cities to make sure that they allow enough housing to be
built.

Right now California cities are encouraging growth in jobs while
simultaneously actively preventing any sort of balance with housing. This has
great effects for the pocket books of landowners in cities, and tremendously
negative effects for the environment and all the workers that come later.

It's a completely false strawman to assert that families in 400sqft condos are
the inevitable result of density. But we know what happens when nothing is
built, that families savings are drained until they are forced to move to
other areas, displacing them. That's by far the worst consequence, and it is
the active choice of wealthy people in California.

~~~
TulliusCicero
Yup, and then they move where they can accord: to a sprawling suburb in Texas
that's energy-inefficient and cuts more into nature. A real progressive win,
that!

It's like these people have infant-style lack of object permanence: if we just
make these people leave my city, they disappear! Look how great it is for the
environment that they vanished into the aether, never to be seen again!

------
docker_up
San Francisco's budget for homeless is over $300 million per year. If you add
the additional $300 million they got from their tax on companies, that's over
$600 million per year.

Even at $300 million, we have no idea how that money is being spent. There are
7500 homeless people in San Francisco, and yet Market Street looks like
something out of a 3rd world country.

San Francisco is mishandling the budget, plain and simple. They have more than
enough money, and yet they are completely opaque and they have zero
accountability.

This is the government that we want to give MORE money to, because somehow
more money is the solution to this problem? Hell no. Hold the politicians
accountable. Get a proper budget that will focus money on where it will most
help and make people accountable. Fire those in charge and put people who are
willing to help without wanting to suckle from the teat of public funding and
taxation.

~~~
lucaspm98
Do you have any sources about those numbers or other information about where
this money is going? That works out to $40,000 per homeless person, or almost
double the pre-tax annual income working full time at California's minimum
wage.

~~~
epistasis
It's an extremely dishonest look at the numbers. I'm having trouble finding
the article from sfchronicle.com now, but the idea that each person is getting
an average of $40,000 is comically wrong. The homeless population is always in
flux: new people become homeless, some people get housed, and some people
migrate. Treating a year time span as having a static population of X is just
an unrealistic way to look at it.

There are something like 20,000 different homeless individuals in the city
throughout the course of the year. Something like 15,000 end up getting some
sort of services.

However, that's not really much of the story, because the bulk of that $300M
budget from prior years goes directly to the easiest and cheapest intervention
to stop homelessness: paying people's rent. For families and individuals
living paycheck to paycheck, a single unexpected expense can get them kicked
out.

Without that $300M, the problem would be immensely worse, on a huge scale.

------
gok
The headline about all American cities seems like it doesn't match the rest of
the article, which is really just about San Francisco.

~~~
TulliusCicero
The bay area is the most obvious example, but the problems of exclusionary
zoning in America are extremely widespread. In practice, this means the
booming, high-income metros (which are largely liberal, like SF, NYC, Boston,
and Seattle) are suffering the worst of high housing prices.

More conservative metros will at least build outward to deal with housing
supply problems. Yeah, that's not really good for the environment, but it does
help with prices. But not liberal cities: they don't want to build out OR up.

Instead, you get a plethora of excuses as to how they really shouldn't be
expected to host any more human beings: why can't another city in the metro
build more? Why can't _those people_ move to another state? Why can't those
companies hire more in another state? What about my god-given right to free,
abundant car parking? Shouldn't we build more infrastructure before more
housing (also let's not build that infrastructure please)? Why can't we freeze
my neighborhood in amber? Etc.

~~~
ptyyy
> More conservative metros will at least build outward to deal with housing
> supply problems. Yeah, that's not really good for the environment, but it
> does help with prices. But not liberal cities: they don't want to build out
> OR up.

SF, NYC, Seattle, and Boston don't have more land to open up for development
by virtue of their geography. Of course places like Dallas, Oklahoma city,
etc. are able to build outward -- they aren't surrounded on multiple sides by
large bodies of water. To build outward in SF, NYC, Seattle, and Boston they
would have to recreate Waterworld.

~~~
nostrademons
They could still build upwards, and that has been suggested many times by
residents. They (or rather, certain powerful factions within them) just don't
want to.

~~~
cannonedhamster
Can the land actually handle building up? Wouldn't building down be the better
way to go? I mean most of those cities are already threatened by rising sea
levels. Boston and New York are pretty dense areas who's home do you want to
tear down to build new more expensive high rises that the working poor can't
afford.

~~~
nostrademons
Skyscrapers go straight down into bedrock - the Prudential and Hancock in
Boston are built on landfill in the Back Bay, but it doesn't matter, because
their foundations go way past the mud. There are a few architectural/area
combinations you want to avoid (you probably don't want 4-story rowhouses in
the Marina in SF, for example), but most of the land area in these cities is
solid. Western SF, for example, is actually at a high elevation immune to most
reasonable sea level rise projections:

[https://ss2.climatecentral.org/#12/37.7341/-122.4540?show=sa...](https://ss2.climatecentral.org/#12/37.7341/-122.4540?show=satellite&projections=0-K14_RCP85-SLR&level=10&unit=meters&pois=hide)

(The East Bay and Palo Alo are screwed, but that's not the subject here.)

Also, expensive high rises benefit the working poor by giving rich yuppies a
place to live where they _don 't_ bid up the same housing that working-class
people have been living in for decades. If you put up luxury condo highrises
in SOMA where tech workers could walk to their offices, for example, then
maybe they wouldn't be bidding up the price of 1BRs in the Mission to
$4k/month. Landlords are generally unwilling to let housing go vacant, because
even a 2-month vacancy can destroy much of their profit for the year. So one
way or another, if you build enough housing the price will adjust itself to
the point where everybody gets housing.

~~~
cannonedhamster
Back Bay of Boston is really a marvel. I have literally no idea about
California so I'll have to take your word for it. My concern is that the only
people who seen willing to build are those who stand to make the most money.
It would seem that the effective way to do this would be to require as part of
codes for building different cost zoning to be taken into account. When I was
in Tokyo they had elevators sectioned off by floor access, which would provide
the ability to have luxury, shopping, and lower/mid income mixed into the same
building. When I've traveled to Europe I've been interested in how businesses
have been lower levels with hosting above, something I've not seen much of in
the US.

------
trabant00
The part about North Dakota having senators way above population share in the
country: why is this bad?

Maybe they represent a different kind of life. Maybe the zones that encourage
overpopulation shouldn't have monopoly on representation. Because on some
issues they clearly did bad.

And I think we can stretch this logic to the entire article. The author is as
guilty as "not in my back yard" as the rich people. Move you yard! Vote with
you wallet. Go live, work and pay taxes where they respect your way of
thinking.

Now you want to have your cake and eat it too. You talk against corporations
and rich people but you consume their products and dream about making it big
yourself. What other reason could you have for staying in mega cities?

~~~
TulliusCicero
> The part about North Dakota having senators way above population share in
> the country: why is this bad?

Because it's anti-democratic?

> Maybe they represent a different kind of life

Maybe Hindus have a different way of life than Christians in the US. Should
they get bonus representation too, since they're a much smaller population?

> And I think we can stretch this logic to the entire article. The author is
> as guilty as "not in my back yard" as the rich people. Move you yard! Vote
> with you wallet. Go live, work and pay taxes where they respect your way of
> thinking.

Absurd. Land is fixed, you can't just go generate more of it. And by not
allowing more people to live where a booming economy is, they're hurting
people, they're hurting economic opportunity, and they're hurting the
environment. That is not okay.

The winners here are selfish people, largely landowners who benefit from the
housing prices being so high. The losers are the rest of us.

~~~
mfatica
> Because it's anti-democratic?

Good thing the US is a federal republic

~~~
TulliusCicero
It's also a representative democracy.

~~~
mfatica
A federal republic is a type of representative democracy, so you're correct.

~~~
TulliusCicero
So what was the point of your comment, then? The US is still democratic.

If you're specifically objecting to the use of "democratic", I could also say
that it's blatantly unfair and nonsensical. Why should North Dakotans have
more voting power than Californians or Texans?

~~~
CompanionCuuube
North Dakotans have the same amount of voting power as Californians and
Texans. It's just that they have to share with more people.

If you have a gallon of pistachio ice cream and a gallon of vanilla ice cream,
the pistachio eaters have the same amount of ice cream as the vanilla eaters
even if more people like vanilla than pistachio.

~~~
TulliusCicero
They have more voting power/representation per capita. Which is ridiculous,
and blatantly unfair. People vote, not land.

~~~
scruple
Can you explain how what you're advocating / arguing for does not distill down
to tyranny of the majority? That's how I have always viewed this argument but
I'm open to hearing how I am wrong.

~~~
TulliusCicero
> tyranny of the majority

Man, I hate this phrase so damn much. What does it even mean, and why do
people bring it up? The original use was basically, "the majority using
democracy to be real assholes to the minority". It's the reason we have
certain rights enshrined in the Constitution, to protect against that.

But the way people bring it in response to anti-democratic efforts makes ZERO
sense. Letting 55% of people vote to be jerks is bad, but letting 45% of
people vote to be jerks is...somehow good, or something? Obviously not, it's
basically the same problem except with less popular support, so it's a flatly
worse situation.

It's super disingenuous too. If tyranny of the majority -- aka democracy -- is
such a problem, what even is the alternative? Go back to kings, or an
aristocracy? Should we remove the vote from Christians -- they're the majority
in the US, after all -- and let, I dunno, Hindus make all the decisions?

Plus, the people who mention it curiously only ever want minority-equalizing
powers that would benefit their side in particular. You don't see
conservatives advocating for giving extra votes for Muslims and Hindus, or
Asians and black people, despite those groups being obvious demographic
minorities.

------
scythe
Zoning is half the battle, but municipal boundaries are equally absurd. Many
town boundaries are still where they were 50 years ago, but the economic
reality has moved past them. For example, a meaningless line between the
nonexistent "places" of "San Francisco" and "Brisbane" constrains the
development of Hunter's Point.

As it is, if one municipality upzones alone, they see an increase in demand
and the neighboring municipalities see a decrease in demand. As a result,
whoever blinks first loses. So Palo Alto wants San Francisco to upzone and San
Francisco wants Palo Alto to upzone.

This problem is systemic: it particularly affects suburbs that were originally
created by segregation, most famously contributing to Detroit's budget crisis.

In ancient times, cities were autonomous units, defended by local armies. The
idea of a "suburb" financially independent of the main city was unthinkable;
the city _was_ the state. The modern US has created a system of social
organization with entities called "cities" and "towns" which are really
nothing of the sort; they are more like electoral fiefdoms, chartered by whit
of the state government usually back in the time when we were still killing
Indians and promoting racial hierarchies. And these "towns" have given rise to
their own mythology, with a call to defend "our community" (usually from
annexation) which is neither ours nor a community, but a haphazardly sown
legal artifice whose primary effect in reality is moving tax money around and
putting up signs.

This whole charade has got to end sometime. But what would _that_ look like?
And how can it be squared with our love of bottom-up governance, which, via
English common law, has always been a part of America?

~~~
novok
This is why you need state level bills with teeth to end the stalemate.

------
deviomi
The problem goes deeper than that. I've have discussion with highly educated
people in San Fransisco and it becomes obvious they really don't understand
this is basic supply and demand problem. The first step in fixing this is
somehow teaching econ 101 as a PSA.

~~~
WalterGR
That hasn’t been my experience.

------
elhudy
Just curious why has this been flagged for removal?

~~~
nostrademons
Politics, presumably. From HN guidelines:

"Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're
evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters,
or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-
topic."

~~~
elhudy
That's unfortunate. The article offered an interesting new perspective to me
and I don't think it's one that would generally be found on tv or elsewhere.

~~~
mfatica
Because it's a bullshit article claiming all American cities are shit when
really it's just San Francisco and the liberal elite that are fucking up their
own cities. New York as well. The rest of us are doing just fine actually.

~~~
TulliusCicero
> all American cities are shit

This is true. American urban design is hot garbage that fell off a truck, went
threw a sewer, was dried out, set on fire, and then shot into the sun.

But affordability wise, yeah it's mostly the super-successful liberal cities
that are really feeling the pain. Though all the other cities still have
serious problems with economic segregation by neighborhood, generally.

------
thrower123
The best part is when they have so polluted one area that they start to flee
to greener pastures, and they turn right around and start instituting the same
policies in the new place.

------
sonnyblarney
If San Franciscans don't want their city to be 'verticalized' that's perfectly
fine.

There's actually quite a lot of space in Cali, and cost of living is not quite
insane in many areas just outside the bay.

So if there were some thoughtful progress even on just transportation (i.e.
imagine something faster than Bart/Caltrain that looped quickly around) and
some quick commuter trains ... combined with less of the various needs to be
_in_ the Valley/City ...

Then maybe places like Stockton, Merced, Morgan Hill etc. could flourish
smartly.

Consider if there were a fairly quick way to get from Gilroy to the
Valley+City without fuss? Maybe someone would open a big office there? The
entire North Bay seems to be 'cut off' (many residents probably like that...),
but maybe 'a tunnel' where the Golden Gate is, to connect that 'fast train' to
Santa Rosa? (Yes, 'earthquakes' surely) but it's worth considering.

The Valley, and even many places in SF are not particularly aspirational
places, frankly. My bet is people would be happy to live a ways away if they
could get into the office quickly.

~~~
TulliusCicero
> If San Franciscans don't want their city to be 'verticalized' that's
> perfectly fine.

No it's not. It's ridiculous. Cities are meant to change, to grow, to adapt to
conditions over time.

By refusing to build enough housing to match its booming economy, the cities
in the bay area are seriously hurting people. They're seriously hurting
economic opportunity. _That is not okay._

~~~
sonnyblarney
No, the notion that every city should become 'Dubai' is ridiculous.

NYC has already 'verticalized' ... _and they are one of the example 'problem
cities'_ \- and they still have extreme inequality and 'housing problems'.

So when SF crams in 5 million more folks, will they have 'solved the problem'?
Or will they be just like NYC?

Why haven't Chicago, NY or Hong Kong, with all their 'amazing density' solved
this ostensible problem?

By this 'build out' logic Stockholm, most of London, Zurich should be
bulldozed and turned into NY or Hong Kong as well?

So first, is the notion, hinted above, that 'more density' in no way implies a
solution to the problem - because there's nary any limit to how many people
might want to come into the city.

Second, which underlies the above, is an issue called 'Supply and Demand'.
People moving to the Bay have to make that rational decision as to housing
costs vs. pay. Moving to the Bay is usually a choice, not some kind of
coercion, so people are for whatever reasons, making that choice.

If the Bay wants to expand smartly they should consider wicked fast
transportation to places around the bay, and those places could be built with
a little more density than now as well.

There's quite a lot of space, there's no reason that even working class folk
can't live a decent standard of living.

~~~
TulliusCicero
> No, the notion that every city should become 'Dubai' is ridiculous.

They don't have to become Dubai. Vienna would probably suffice.

> NYC has already 'verticalized' ... and they are one of the example 'problem
> cities' \- and they still have extreme inequality and 'housing problems'.

Much of NYC's housing would be illegal to build today because of zoning
regulations. It's absolutely a part of the problem.

> So when SF crams in 5 million more folks, will they have 'solved the
> problem'?

SF proper doesn't really need to get 5 million more people, probably. The bay
area as a whole does. SF could stand to receive some of that, sure.

> Or will they be just like NYC?

NYC is substantially cheaper as a metro than the bay area despite having a
much larger population. Going from bay area affordability to NYC affordability
would be a huge win, believe it or not.

> Why haven't Chicago, NY or Hong Kong, with all their 'amazing density'
> solved this ostensible problem?

Don't know much about Chicago or HK, but NYC still has zoning problems,
absolutely. They've gotten more conservative over time.

Now look at Tokyo, which is much more free form with zoning, and -- surprise
surprise -- WAY cheaper than SF or NYC, despite being an even larger metro
area than either.

> So first, is the notion, hinted above, that 'more density' in no way implies
> a solution to the problem - because there's nary any limit to how many
> people might want to come into the city.

And yet, even with 40 million people, Tokyo has done an alright job. I mean,
it's still fairly expensive, but nowhere near as bad as the most comparable US
cities.

> There's quite a lot of space, there's no reason that even working class folk
> can't live a decent standard of living.

Who says you can't have density and standard of living? Vienna is one of the
most livable cities in the world, and it's far denser than almost all of the
bay area. It's probably denser than SF too, despite the stats saying otherwise
(Vienna city limits include a lot of green space around the edge that's
basically just forest/farms).

~~~
sonnyblarney
Vienna illustrates that there can be a decent standard of living or at least
cost of housing, at medium density.

Nobody is arguing that.

The argument put forth is that SF _needs_ to increase density as a matter of
pragmatism, economics, even humanity - which is rubbish.

Your Vienna example provides no evidence that that level of density is in and
of itself somehow going to provide better housing costs, or anything else
frankly.

There is zero evidence that building higher in SF will ease housing costs,
especially in an aspiration city a zillion people would like to live in.

Moreover, people have every right to chose the conditions in which they live.

The residents of SF can chose whatever density they want, it's their city.

------
lemony_fresh
All this news looks like a good complex systems / agent based modeling
problem. Is anyone aware of such research?

~~~
heurist
Not sure complex systems researchers have gone that far into the practical
issues yet, but Luis Bettencourt and Geoffrey West are the current leaders in
urban growth/sustainability as far as I can tell as an interested outsider.
Strong Towns [1] takes an antifragility approach in line with Nassim Nicholas
Taleb and touches on complex systems thinking (without taking a theory/purely
scientific stance). NNT occasionally posts thoughts on localism, though again
usually quite abstract relative to the practical modeling question you pose.

The most practical related work I've seen has been on growth of major
international cities and large villages/slums in third world countries. I
can't recall any authors in particular. Some of my commercial work approaches
what you're asking about but I build products more than perform research and
have never worked with zoning data.

If anyone has a better answer I would love to hear it; this is my jam.

[1] [https://www.strongtowns.org/](https://www.strongtowns.org/)

------
flatfilefan
«with a fifth of the population struggling to get by» - isn’t this just per
definition of poverty: the lower quintile? That is in any place lower quintile
is poor. Regardless of their absolute living standards.

------
crispinb
Opinion columnists are lazy unoriginal authoritarian dictator manques. Stop
writing imperative mood headlines.

------
mfatica
Cleveland, Ohio is perfectly fine. We have amazing suburbs, nature, a beach, a
beautiful lake, tons of unique places to go and see, and a bunch of jobs (tech
especially, many startups as well).

~~~
asdff
That's because greater cleveland has lost population almost every decade since
the 1970s, so there is plenty of supply to meet demand and keep housing costs
low.

------
Left8ntright
Liberal policies create homelessness period. Show me a city or state rife with
poverty and crime and I will show you a city or state run by Democrats for
decades. 9 out of the 10 poorest most crime ridden cities in America have been
under Democratic control for decades. Chicago, Detroit, Flint, I could go on
and on. And then you have the model of conservative values. Texas which has
one of the fastest growing economies in the country and was until recently a
mostly red state. But with people fleeing California in droves because the
liberal policies of over-taxation and over-regulation and other Nanny State
policies. Truth is a big government makes the people small. Now the people
that have fled California are made up of a lot of people with liberal ideology
and they don't have enough sense to see that their belief system is what
screwing everything up. So they are now trying to change Texas into the
nightmare that California has become. That is the Democratic way Liberals
forced to leave areas that are becoming unlivable because they voted for
people to enact their liberal ideology when everything goes to hell in a they
are too blind to reality to see what caused it so they criss cross the like
Locust leaving Devastation in their wake.They are taking a perfectly good
state like Texas and screwing it up. California's economy which was built on
conservative values was rated the 4th or the 5th in the world has now 7th or
8th and falling fast. This is under liberal policy. Data shows that
conservative values conservative fiscal policies conservative ideology leads
to high employment and more people enjoying the American dream. Capitalism is
not by any means perfect but Has Lifted more people out of poverty than any
other system. Not once in the history of the world has socialism helped
anybody but the Elite and those high up in the . You can bet your last dollar
that when they start running out of everybody's money that the government will
get theirs first and all their rich friends, and then if there's anything left
the people get theirs last and that's how it's always worked Venezuela is a
perfect model for that that's where we'll be if we take on the socialist
agenda the Democrats have for us socialism always starts out sounding so good
and turns out being so bad. I have yet to hear somebody point out the
difference between socialism and Democratic socialism other than you vote for
somebody to steal from you and your neighbors. Government has never produced
anything. Everything the government has they take from somebody who worked to
produce it the government paid for it they paid for it with money they took
from somebody who worked for it.

------
justinph
55 years of republicans working to lower taxes and demonize public employees
has had an effect, even in cities that don't vote republican. Our cities are
starved of money for basic maintenance and to pay the best and the brightest
to do public work.

------
TimJRobinson
Is it really wealthy liberals or just Californians? Seattle is building like
crazy to keep up with demand, as are many other Democrat run cities.

~~~
sonnyblarney
Texas is growing like crazy, and housing is super affordable.

~~~
asdff
No zoning and what do you know, supply appeareth.

------
Dirlewanger
Lol, flagged post. Seems like some "wealthy liberals" here on HN don't like
being called out.

------
anomie31
Isn't the problem not so much liberals but the perverse incentives created by
a housing market in a globalized economy?

~~~
epistasis
It's not a globalized economy that's made perverse incentives, it's local
control that prevents enough housing to match the number of jobs in the area.

Also, it's only sort of "liberals" that are the problem, the real problem is
those who claim progressive values, except for when those values may affect
themselves.

------
alphabettsy
The problem is wealthy people, not just wealthy liberals.

------
overthemoon
*Blame the wealthy.

Liberals at the levers of power are certainly part of the problem (or at least
their neoliberalism is) the problem is the wealthy of all ideological stripes.

Blaming nimbyism is just a roundabout way of blaming government regulation,
which I find nonsensical.

~~~
TulliusCicero
Why is it nonsensical? It's absolutely the problem.

The bay area in particular isn't even _that_ densely populated. It's just that
most of the residential land is reserved for detached single-family homes
still. When you constrain supply that much and demand shoots up, the result
isn't exactly surprising.

~~~
overthemoon
It's nonsensical because it's too limited. Housing is like health care in that
the market is sorely lacking in its ability to distribute those resources
equitably--pinning the problems on nimbyism is admitting that market solutions
are the best we've got, which I think is wrong. I'm advocating for socialized
housing, not tweaking the knobs of the market until it comes out fair.
Moreover, nimbyism is a lot like the solutions for environmental problems that
stop at consumer boycotts and individual choices to recycle or reduce water
usage. Good things, but predicated on individual virtue over systemic changes.

Finally, nimbyism is resentment about gentrification in reverse. I find
objections to gentrification pretty convincing--why shouldn't people have a
say in what happens to their neighborhood?

TLDR a lot of the description of the problem (IE nimbyism) depend on the
market continuing to do what it's doing, and I think the market is the problem
to begin with.

~~~
TulliusCicero
> pinning the problems on nimbyism is admitting that market solutions are the
> best we've got, which I think is wrong.

I'm all for public housing too (more competently executed than last time,
please), but Tokyo is a good example of prices being fairly reasonable
relative to the size/prosperity of a metro area, and that's been done with the
market.

Besides, you'd need to upzone for public housing complexes anyway. There's no
conflict here between the socialized solution and the market one, really. The
government can make what public housing it can do, and the market can handle
the rest.

> why shouldn't people have a say in what happens to their neighborhood?

Because it turns them into reactionary assholes? Because land is in fixed
quantity and quality, so letting people with a monopoly on it command even
their neighbors to not let people in is a terrible idea? Because mandatory
single-family home zoning is classist bullshit that is designed to keep out
the poor and working class? It's economic segregation, pure and simple, and
you can't be economically progressive while supporting it.

One of the starkest changes going from the US to live in Munich was that
suddenly, I didn't notice neighborhoods being obviously rich or poor or
middle-class most of the time. Nearly all of them are sort of middling, and
have people with an obvious variety of incomes. Even if I focus on it, it's
hard to slot neighborhoods into a particular income bucket. And the most
obvious cause of this is that SFH-only zoning does not exist here, not in
Munich and not anywhere in Germany. Thus, would-be rich neighborhoods cannot
keep out the working class by making sure that nobody can build fourplexes or
apartments that might be more affordable.

edit: to be clear, I'm not categorically opposed to community input on
neighborhood design. But letting specific neighborhoods and cities decide on
zoning density has been an unmitigated disaster. So yeah, let's maybe not do
that.

------
SamuelAdams
We need to be careful about where this line of comparison will take us. X is a
problem, blame group Y.

This sounds a lot like something Hitler would say: he used the Jewish
community as a scapegoat for many problems the country was facing, so some
citizens were all too happy when they were quietly being taken away.

------
noxToken
The headline feels so disingenuous just to garner clicks.

First of all, this article is about San Francisco. SF is parodied within many
groups for being exactly the way that it is.

However, put that aside. Are the problems of SF cause by liberals or are they
cause by people who happen to be liberal. This is an important distinction. If
it's the latter, then the problems are caused by the inhabitants, and you
could substitute any politically identifying individual in to get similar
results:

> _Then there is the refusal on the part of wealthy progressives to live by
> the values they profess to support at the national level. Creating dense,
> economically and socially diverse urban environments ought to be a paramount
> goal of progressivism._

That's what I mean. Is that due to liberals only paying lip service, or is
that due to wealthy people not wanting to co-mingle with commoners? I agree
with some of the base reasoning in the article: NIMBYers make it hard for a
major city to be inhabitable by others. However, how much of this politics
compared to people?

------
mishkinf
Blame Wealthy Liberals? What does the liberal part have to do with it. Blame
wealthy corporations. The formation of ultra large corporations who pay people
in highly unequal ways is the root cause of all of the country's problems;
offshoring of labor, layoffs, huge executive compensation, real wages being
stagnant, corruption that led to the 2008 housing crisis, government
corruption, etc..

~~~
gipp
And what causes them? There is no such thing, really, as a "root" cause, just
causes we can effectively intervene on.

~~~
door5
Capitalism.

~~~
gipp
This is not an insightful answer.

~~~
door5
Capitalism has certain systemic features, one of them is concentration of
wealth and power in the hands of a small few. Look at how wealth is
concentrated in the U.S., especially over the last 40 years. Unions have
eroded, markets have been deregulated, our social safety net has been
dismantled, etc. and as a result, the power of capitalists has expanded.
Capitalism is by its nature struggle between workers and capital. Capital is
winning.

------
xrd
OK. Correlation does not imply causation, or something...

So, San Francisco still votes 8% Republican.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_San_Francisco](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_San_Francisco)

Is it possible that there are a majority of people in SF that support changing
their city and are Democrats? And, that a small minority of people (who could
be Rs or Ds) can effectively block legislation to change housing laws? I'm not
sure this article proves it is all "liberals" doing it, just that a) lots of
liberals live in SF and b) SF has been ineffective at tackling the housing
crisis ("...a place where lots of liberals live! QED!!!").

Having said this, my mom considers herself very liberal, and still has signs
up on her lawn saying "Preserve Historic Houses" (which means "I don't support
tearing down houses in my neighborhoods to build higher density places").

BUT: I do think she would be open to changing her mind. I'm not sure someone
that lives in SF and that agrees with Trump's approach to immigration would be
open to changing their mind. Is that biased of me?

~~~
bdittmer
Nope. There is no vast right wing conspiracy to prevent affordable housing. I
don’t want to jump to conclusions but I’m guessing you don’t live in SF or
California?

~~~
xrd
I never said there was a "vast right wing conspiracy" nor did I imply that.
You are the only person saying that and thinking that in this thread.

You don't want to jump to conclusions, but you already did, didn't you?

I wrote: "... that a small minority of people (who could be Rs or Ds) can
effectively block legislation to change housing laws."

How did you turn that into a vast right wing conspiracy UNLESS you already
felt that "someone out there" already thinks that (well before my post)?

~~~
xrd
None of my statements ever said that I think Republicans have a right wing
conspiracy to prevent affordable housing.

I am refuting the assertion made by the article that says Liberals are to
blame. I think it is more complicated.

I point out that there are voters in SF who vote Republican. DOWNVOTES because
I must be saying Republicans are to blame. Hint: I never said that, nor do I
believe that.

I point out that people that align with Trump's immigration policy that live
in SF might not be open minded about changing their mind. DOWNVOTES because I
must be saying Republicans are not open minded. Hint: I never said that, nor
do I believe that.

Hint: downvoters, you aren't reading carefully. And, if there is a hint of
people making assumptions about who you are, and you are angry, and it is
translating into downvotes, then you have some introspection work to do.

------
ptyyy
Clickbait title and hyperbole aside, this is the same guy who published a
piece declaring that he was unplugging from social media and continued to use
Twitter. [https://www.cjr.org/analysis/farhad-manjoo-nyt-
unplug.php](https://www.cjr.org/analysis/farhad-manjoo-nyt-unplug.php)

