
Liberal America’s Single-Family Hypocrisy - johnny313
https://www.thenation.com/article/zoning-housing-homeless-segregation/
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rayiner
> . As cities regain their cultural clout, low-income African-American and
> Latino neighborhoods are often among the few where new housing is permitted,
> concentrating growth pressure and accelerating the process of
> gentrification.

This fact hit me like a ton of bricks. I had assumed that the reason all this
new construction happens in gentrifying neighborhoods is because land is
cheaper. But of course that can’t be the main reason. In Palo Alto, you can
get a single family house with an 6,000-8,000 square foot lot for $2-3
million. With reasonable zoning you could put in a 6-8 story building with a
3,000-4,000 square foot footprint and 12-24 units. At the upper end, the land
cost of each unit would be about $150,000. If construction costs $200 per
square foot, that’s another $260,000 for a 1,300 square foot 3BR unit. Say
half a million in costs for the whole unit. Already, you’re looking at land
costs being a smaller part of the overall per-unit costs, and this is a
relatively modest building (as you go higher, the per-unit land cost goes
down). Going to a gentrifying neighborhood might save you on land costs, but
at substantially greater risk. (Maybe the neighborhood won’t gentrify as fast
as you expect, people will expect a discount to live in a gentrifying
neighborhood, etc.)

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aaronbrethorst
A few months ago, I merged two data sets: one depicting Seattle’s history of
redlining in the 20th century, and another that showed every building
demolition project since around the year 2000.

What I found was that these historically redlined districts have see over 10x
the amount of demolition that explicitly white neighborhoods have had.

I’ll put this online sometime soon. It’s really astonishing to see the data.

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hackermailman
They forced density in Vancouver, Canada by billing property taxes on possible
uses of land instead of actual uses. So if city council decided your land
could actually be a 10 story condo, they would hand you a gigantic tax bill
based on that condo tower rate in hopes you'd sell to developers. It turned
the city into a judge dredd style dystopia of luxury condo towers but they
achieved density.

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Wowfunhappy
> It turned the city into a judge dredd style dystopia of luxury condo towers

Is it really that bad?

~~~
hackermailman
Not entirely, but because of local political corruption a lot of development
ended up like this but it doesn't have to be this way. US cities I imagine are
far more strict seperating development from politicians than the grey areas
here that permitted foreign money laundering.

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jarjoura
I'm a little confused by the implications the article is making. Density in
the outer suburbs is probably not a good idea, for all the reasons the article
mentions, such as traffic. Then you have to factor in all the other things
like electricity, water, sewage, garbage collection, police, firefighters,
more public schooling, etc.

I'm 100% all for more density, but just throwing up 8 story apartments in what
were single-family lots all over the outer suburbs isn't really going to help
anyone.

There are all kinds of competing forces at play, but the one I think is the
hardest to understand is quality of life. Everyone has an idea of what works
for them and it's different for everyone. Some of us do want to live in the
core of a city and be as close to the energy as possible. While some of us
need to be in a quiet area far from it all. I don't want to shame people for
wanting to live in a single-family home with room for a garden and toolshed.
Those spaces should exist and be in reach for anyone who wants that lifestyle.

Yet, I do think we need to rethink what is considered the "core" of a city and
should expect and demand that those areas build up. That's when I start
getting frustrated with cities on the peninsula. All of the downtowns from
Burlingame to Cupertino have height limits of 2 stories. Are you kidding me?
None of them have views, and all of them have Caltrain stops.

So I don't think "liberal America" is necessarily wrong, and I'm not sure the
article is convincing me of that.

~~~
esoterica
> I'm 100% all for more density, but just throwing up 8 story apartments in
> what were single-family lots all over the outer suburbs isn't really going
> to help anyone.

It'll help the people who no longer have to pay $5k/month in rent.

> Then you have to factor in all the other things like electricity, water,
> sewage, garbage collection, police, firefighters, more public schooling,
> etc.

Density makes all of these things cheaper.

> Those spaces should exist and be in reach for anyone who wants that
> lifestyle.

Low density living is environmentally unsustainable yet heavily subsidized by
the government. People living in rural and exurban areas receive far more
infrastructure spending per capita while paying the same taxes as the rest of
us. If you want to destroy the earth just so you can have big yard then not
only should the government not subsidize you, you should be paying extra to
reflect the negative externalities caused by your carbon emissions.

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notasnakein
I've got an important question for everyone the writer. According to their
premise and most 'liberal' premises white people are inherently racist and
don't want to live around 'poc' or whatever is the polite word these days. See
white flight. So what makes them think the people won't just flee the suburbs
again if they do this? I too think those rich people are racist and use their
wealth to live away from poc while supposedly working for them but I need some
clarification on this point. I'd also love to see and be amenable to the idea
of the government forcing these people to practice what they preach to the
rest of us. Diversity is our greatest strength after all.

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LargeWu
There's been a lot of pushback on Minneapolis's 2040 plan, but ultimately I
think it's a step in the right direction. Most of the objections are from
people living in quiet, mostly single-family neighborhoods who don't want
apartments near them. But really, most of the rezoning only takes place
directly along busier corridor streets; the interiors of those blocks would
still be single-family zoned.

~~~
rayiner
That’s really cool: [https://www.curbed.com/2018/11/27/18113208/minneapolis-
real-...](https://www.curbed.com/2018/11/27/18113208/minneapolis-real-estate-
rent-development-2040-zoning). Someone called Sweden “Minnesota writ large”
and that really seems to have a kernel of truth to it.

~~~
Ericson2314
That and also it's full of Scandinavians.

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brianberns
I don’t find this persuasive at all. Over-population of humans on this planet
is the root cause of the impending climate disaster. Jamming more people into
cities is just going to fuel the population explosion. I think we have to find
a way to reduce the population to a sustainable level.

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knolax
Maybe it's just me but maybe we should do our partisan name-calling somewhere
other than Hacker News. I'm sick of these flamebait articles that do not
"satisfy curiosity" in any way.

~~~
vore
I don't think there's any partisan name-calling at all in here? If anything,
it's partisan introspection.

The content is pretty substantial and goes into great depth about the history
of single-family zoning.

~~~
knolax
The title is flamebait. It's just the typical rant about NIMBYism with a
partisan tinge to it. When I made my comment there was only two comments and
one of them was:

"Liberal .* hypocrisy would match a lot of things..."

These types of tired comments, and more eloquently framed versions of them,
always pop up under articles like this and they never bring up any interesting
points.

~~~
SomeOldThrow
Liberal is ideological, not partisan.

Nonetheless I agree.

