
Bills before the California Legislature would crack down on NIMBYs - robk
https://www.citylab.com/housing/2017/05/californias-legal-assault-on-nimbys-begins/525840/
======
ThrustVectoring
IMO, it's gotten bad enough in the Bay Area that local control of zoning ought
to get abolished. Make a new regional zoning commission, put together some
clear and consistent rules about what can be built and where, and rubber-stamp
everything that meets those rules. Literal rubber-stamp here, as in "you give
us an affidavit saying that your plan meets the specified rules, and you get a
permit to build the same day, and if stuff gets falsified on the affidavit we
go after you after-the-fact".

~~~
cjensen
Under existing rules, developers do not pay enough fees to allow the School
Districts to build new schools to support the new housing. Now you'd like to
rubber stamp this?

For example there's a new development in Fremont of a few hundred houses: the
school district had to zone it as "we'll provide school for you, but it'll be
wherever we have space across the entire city." That's not good.

To me the idiocy is this: the state government mandates that all cities build
new housing. But they don't mandate that housing and jobs balance. A city like
Fremont was master-planned with enough space for both, but is being forced by
the state to build houses instead for people who will work in Sunnyvale which
has too many jobs and not enough houses.

~~~
tomcam
Wait, developers should pay for schools? What are property taxes for?

~~~
panzagl
Property taxes pay for the schools that already exist. It's hard for a
district to 'save up' because, well California, and 'surplus' money should be
returned to the taxpayer. If developers don't cover the cost a district
usually issues a bond but that's hard because, well, California, and direct
democracy rarely votes to raise property tax mil rates whatever it would cost
to cover the bond. And doesn't California basically freeze assessment values?
Because why should the people who already live there pay for services for
newcomers? It's all very hostile and backward.

~~~
JoshTriplett
A state shouldn't need a per-value increase in taxes to cover anything that
scales with the number of residents, which would include schools; the
additional revenue from the new residents should cover that. (Unless they've
utterly failed at economies of scale, but that should not need _repeated_
fixes.) The cost of accommodating growth for new capacity should be factored
into the ongoing existing costs. The people already there aren't paying for
it; the new people in the new development are.

The hostility is built up of years of expecting each new increase to be the
last, and yet continuing to receive urgent demands for more, all with the
plaintive "for our schools and our children" exhortations that try to suggest
only an absolute _monster_ would dare to say "enough".

~~~
wbl
I would suggest you never move to California. You will learn just how badly an
entitled generation can behave.

------
mrbabbage
I think it's really hard to overstate how deep of a hole we're in up in the
Bay Area. With the kind of growth numbers we're predicting, I believe nothing
short of a radical shift in planning and housing policy is going to produce
any relief for the beleaguered Bay Area.

The nine counties are currently permitting about 20,000 units of housing per
year [1]. The Metropolitan Transportation Commission and Association of Bay
Area Governments are expecting 27,000 new _households_ (not people,
households) and 43,000 new jobs per year in the thirty years to 2040 [2].
Thus, we're about 25% short of the units we need to preserve today's
unaffordable status quo. To make any sort of dent in cost of living, the nine
counties need to shoot far, far higher than what we're producing today.

[1] [http://www.sfchronicle.com/business/networth/article/Bay-
Are...](http://www.sfchronicle.com/business/networth/article/Bay-Area-
building-boom-may-not-end-housing-7223711.php)

[2]
[http://2040.planbayarea.org/sites/default/files/2017-03/PBA_...](http://2040.planbayarea.org/sites/default/files/2017-03/PBA_2040_033017%20web%20display.pdf)

------
gumby
For a bit of micro NIMBYism: my street in Palo Alto just instituted resident-
only parking (I was the only one to object). Thus the people who cut our hair,
serve our meals etc will have to walk even farther to work (my house is about
1.25 miles from downtown) while the wealthy shoppers park downtown for free.

Yes it was a pain having a lot of cars on the street but I didn't feel it was
a hardship that I couldn't park _in front of_ my house but occasionally
(horrors) across the street.

As my passive aggressive neighbor put it, "well they can just buy a downtown
permit. It's just a tax." So again, the minimum wage earners get the shaft.
The discount permit for low earners is $100.

PS: my kid wants to buy up the extra parking permit allotment and offer them
to folks parking the next street over.

~~~
jkimmel
If SF housing politics has taught me anything, it's that the nastiest of human
behavior is revealed by parking disagreements :(

I never understood the residential parking permit argument anyway.

Public dollars built the road, which now contains public parking spots.

Implementing residential parking permits is a transfer of value from the
public domain to private land owners.

In Palo Alto (and the rest of the Bay Area, where land owners are inherently
millionaires), this constitutes a transfer of wealth from the public to the
wealthiest few.

~~~
jrapdx3
I think you're right. I my observation (though not in SF) the top 2 sources of
dispute are 1.) parking, and 2.) dogs. Not infrequently, there's a correlation
between offensive parking and promoting bad dog behavior.

Of course it makes sense that would be the case. Inconsiderate people are
likely not to care about encroaching on others' driveways when they or their
guests leave their vehicles. They're also not likely to heed city leash laws,
leaving their dogs deposit excrement randomly which neighbors tend to object
to.

In some neighborhoods in town parking is a nightmare because there are not
enough spaces on the street for visitors and residents. Institution of metered
parking and permits was a price of success of urban redevelopment. Around here
the residential permits aren't cheap, but most residents cough up the fee
anyway. Even then there's no guarantee they will be able to find parking close
to home, though the odds are improved and local dwellers say that's better
than nothing.

Under the conditions operating here, I don't think there's a substantial
"transfer of value" from public to private hands. It may be a different story
in Palo Alto.

~~~
CalRobert
Sounds like the permits are still cheaper than they should be, though.
Presumably if people value the parking such that it's the best use of land an
enterprising person could set up a parking garage and make a profit?

~~~
lovich
That would require the enterprising person to be able to get past the NIMBYism
to construct the parking garage

~~~
jrapdx3
That's not quite the issue. Public parking garages have been proposed but
getting them sited has been difficult. One reason is competition from
developers of apartments, who want to use the space for residences. Rather a
dilemma to resolve as both are needed. Not exactly a NIMBY matter in that
case.

------
colordrops
I'm making what I would think to be an upper middle class salary and I can't
afford a home in a modestly decent neighborhood in L.A. It seems to me that
there is definitely a problem and I support loosening development
restrictions.

It's not only restrictions though. Of the people I know who own property,
many, if not the majority, own more than one property, some of them empty. I
also know many remote Chinese that own a property in L.A. It's super
frustrating.

~~~
umanwizard
> afford a home

Can you afford rent, though?

Isn't a bit extreme to expect to be able to own property -- like some sort of
medieval lord -- in a major city?

~~~
panzer_wyrm
Not at all. Renting with no road to purchase turns you into serf. Owning your
dwelling is the most basic form a security a human needs.

I own a condo that I rent and live renting in other part of my city. The rents
cancel each other. It works very nice for me.

I definitely wish more people own their homes. I also love highrises.

~~~
abalashov
I'm not sure this rather dated precept is compatible with the exigencies of
21st century economics, and the flexibility, mobility and long hours demanded.

For one thing, houses are cash sinks. It doesn't make sense for highly paid
professionals to spend enormous amounts of time or money reshingling roofs,
painting, mowing lawns, treating weeds, trimming hedges, repairing plumbing,
etc. The deep specialisation and constant attention that the professional
economy asks are orthogonal to all those things. It's prudent to upload those
demands to the cloud (aka your landlord, at scale) so to speak.

I know far more urban professionals that were hindered by the ballast of
owning real estate than those empowered by this "most basic form of security".
Here in the sprawling metro Atlanta area, taking another job will very likely
take you to a wholly different part of this vast agglomeration and doom you to
a punishing commute unless you sell your house and relocate. The uncertainty,
transaction costs and other friction kept a number of people I know in dead-
end jobs until they were finally laid off.

As a personal anecdote, I bought a condo in May 2007. I was drinking the very
same Kool-Aid about basic form of security and whatnot. I finally let my home
go to foreclosure in summer 2015. I financed at $160K, and in summer 2015 it
appraised at $85K. I still owed $140K. One of the lenders sued me for a $29K
deficiency and got a judgment, and I'll be paying them $250/mo for the next
six years. Some security. I grant that my effort at partaking of the most
basic form of security a human needs was exceptionally disastrous, but I think
the housing crash educated a lot of people about just how much security it
really offers. A senseless push to ownership for ownership's sake threatens to
discard those valuable lessons.

The real argument for owning vs. renting is the mortgage interest deduction,
and that's an artifice of government tax policy that hugely distorts the
market and the incentives.

~~~
closeparen
>It doesn't make sense for highly paid professionals to spend enormous amounts
of time or money reshingling roofs, painting, mowing lawns, treating weeds,
trimming hedges, repairing plumbing

So we pay HOA fees for high-rise condos.

Rents in SF grew $2000 over 5 years. I would be _ecstatic_ if my worst-case
housing market outcome were a measly $250/mo. My standard of living is going
to fall every year at lease renewal time until I can't take it anymore, and
then I'll go live out my days in a soul-crushing Midwestern cost center IT
department, if any haven't been outsourced or automated by then.

Housing costs that can't increase are looking _really_ good right about now.

~~~
abalashov
Oh, we've got problems of that sort in Atlanta, too (at a different price
scale than SF, of course). There's an enormous spread between mortgages and
rent at the moment; so many fewer people qualify for mortgages after the
housing crash due to tougher underwriting standards and a return to
traditional down-payment requirements that many, many more people are forced
to rent. That has pushed rents way up. But for those who qualify, buying has
never been cheaper. Needless to say, they pocket the difference, and it's an
extreme landlord's market. They've got their pick of tenants and getting a
place inside the Perimeter with anything less than impeccable credit is hard.

Median rent in Midtown Atlanta, where I last lived, is pushing north of $2000,
which for Atlanta is a _princely_ sum considering it's ... well, it's Atlanta.
It's not Brooklyn or Chicago. If I'm going to pay that much, I want Brooklyn
or Chicago.

------
azernik
Oh my:

'During the recession, many market-rate projects that had been OK’d were
abandoned by cash-strapped developers and converted into affordable housing
projects because the government was the only entity doing any building. The
community’s reception of a market-rate project compared with the same project
when it became an affordable housing project was noticeably different, says
Gloria, who was a San Diego city council member at the time.

“Whatever reason that might be, it could just be a pure no-growth approach or
it could be a true fear of what affordable housing is perceived to be—and it’s
never what it really is—maybe this [bill] is a way to address that,” he says.'

Amazing how they described this odd reaction without once uttering the words
"black people".

~~~
CalRobert
(Former San Diegan)

While you have the general idea right, it really could be more accurately
described as "poor people of a variety of backgrounds". I mean, there's plenty
of poor latino (especially in San Diego), black, and white folks who need
housing.

It's particularly galling when it happens in a charming neighborhood that used
to be run-down and redlined but now that people are discovering trees and
walkability are a nice thing has mostly $750k+ houses and residents who oppose
any new construction of any sort. I mean, reading the nextdoor feed these are
people who wanted to fight a discount grocer opening on an empty lot because
it wasn't classy enough for them. They also oppose bike lanes and street
calming, which is one of the reasons I left. (I refer of course to Golden
Hill)

------
ProfessorLayton
Right now cities have all the incentive to create office space to bring in as
many jobs as possible, and the taxes that come with them, while leaving
housing and infrastructure as someone else's problem.

There needs to be an incentive in place for this not to happen. Perhaps we
need to force the municipalities to split their employment tax with the city
where the employee actually lives?

Admittedly I have no idea what legal mechanism would make that possible, but
something like this would give cities an incentive to build more housing along
with increasing their employment/tax base.

~~~
mywittyname
Abolish local income taxes? Perhaps replace the income with state funds that
are distributed based on population.

------
whyenot
I have what would appear to be a good middle class job at a state university
but because I live in the Bay Area, half my paycheck goes to rent. Many of my
coworkers are now working weekend jobs just to stay ahead. Positions remain
unfilled for many months because the jobs don't pay enough. The chances that
the state will give us a meaningful pay raise is basically zero. The
California Faculty Association negotiated a 10% pay raise over 3 years and
that required major arm twisting right up to a strike vote.

Forget home ownership, forget starting a family. This current situation just
isn't sustainable.

~~~
averagewall
It sounds like working at a university in the Bay Area is what's
unsustainable. Why not just let the market sort itself out? If the university
can't find staff, they'll have no choice but to raise salaries or move out. No
need for union pressure. You've chosen to take the low pay and high cost of
living, so it must be good enough for you. Perhaps at some point you'll be
pushed over your limit and move out yourself.

~~~
twoodfin
The point of this article is that "the market" in housing is not functioning
as one. Supply isn't rising to meet demand because it's being constrained by
arguably unjust political restrictions.

~~~
forgottenpass
Supply isn't the thing expected to raise boundlessly whenever demand goes up.
Prices are.

In this case supply is said to be bounded by government. But imagine an
alternate reality where SF was Tokoyo-fied to the max. The city has every last
housing unit that could possibly be squeezed in. The peninsula is slowly
sinking into the ocean. And there is still more demand for housing. What then?
Supply isn't going to rise then, either.

So all I see is a whine that the government should prioritize one interest
group's desires for lower prices over all the other desires and interest
groups that coalesced to constrain housing in the first place.

Want to talk about the market not functioning like a market is "supposed to"?
Look no further than consumers overpaying to pack into a city for salaries
that do not offset the higher cost of living.

------
mikekij
Currently trying to build a house in San Diego county. Red tape, permitting,
and waiting on the county to review things has consumed no less than 18% of
our total budget. I'm happy that California protects our environment from
negative environmental impacts, but the way in which they do it makes new
housing almost entirely uneconomical.

~~~
mythrwy
I've always suspected if not the overt aim, then a "side benefit" of this kind
of activity was to restrict the inflow of people into desirable areas (rather
than just protecting the environment or collecting taxes or else general
bureaucratic nonsense).

I'd love to live in San Diego. If I could afford it and live like I do now I'd
be there in a heartbeat. Not the case with San Fransisco which I'd have to be
paid a whole lot more than could reasonably be expected to go near.

------
Paul-ish
In NJ a state supreme court ruling created something called the Mount Laurel
doctrine, which according to Wikipedia: requires that municipalities use their
zoning powers in an affirmative manner to provide a realistic opportunity for
the production of housing affordable to low and moderate income households.

How hard would this be in CA?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Laurel_doctrine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Laurel_doctrine)

------
imbusy111
Unlikely to happen, in my opinion. Locals, who have lived in the Bay Area for
a long time, have all the voting rights and they either own homes and want to
see their property value increase or are considered poor and get cheap housing
and plenty of handouts. Only those who move here actually suffer and pay all
the taxes to support the locals and end up renting forever.

~~~
sjg007
More renters than owners. Renters need to get out and vote.

~~~
imbusy111
Too bad most of them are probably immigrants with no voting rights.

~~~
muninn_
If it sucks here then don't move here?

~~~
imbusy111
There is no perfect place. Pick what you are willing to accept.

~~~
muninn_
Right so if it's bad don't move there. I don't see what the issue is.

------
mamon
<sarcasm> It recently occurred to me that NIMBY policies probably are secretly
promoted by US government as a way of protecting cities against nuclear
attack: thanks to them cities get spread on the largest possible area,
minimizing potential casualties and damages by exploding nukes. </sarcasm>

~~~
ericd
That actually was a design consideration in the 50s, especially for
infrastructure. Part of the reason that highways were more favored was that
they're more resistant to attack than trains.

~~~
moftz
The Interstate Highway system was also sold as a way for the military to
easily move around should there ever be an invasion.

------
ReligiousFlames
Instead of growing vertically up, cities ought to consider down because it
doesn't ruin existing property owners' view and the community's beauty of not
turning into a concrete, brutalist jungle. Furtheremore, there's effectively
infinite subsurface real-estate while the maximum usable height of buildings
is finite. Musk's Boring Company transport ideas are also onto something but
housing and office space should also be deployed underground to maximize
spatial efficiency.

For example, the Mountain View San Antonio Shopping Center development has
become an uninspired eyesore. I don't live there but it's unattractive.

~~~
twobyfour
Building downwards into space that has no natural light makes for housing that
is unpleasant and in many cases dangerous in case of fire (on the 1st to 4th
stories, roughly; windows provide a secondary means of egress; and above that,
fire escapes).

Additionally, building downwards is extremely impractical where downwards is
below the water table, which is the case in many parts of most major cities
(since cities tend to have historically developed along rivers or shoreline
for access to drinking water and transportation).

------
pascalxus
I'm glad they're starting to crack down in NIMBYs. we desperately need a vast
increase in housing.

One of the long term side effects of this enormous housing shortage and the
presence of prop 13, is that 50+ aged people are making up a larger and larger
% of the population, as many of the younger people get pushed out (the next
generation has nowhere to live). Already just in the last 10 years, % of 65
years olds and up has increased from from 13% to 18%. I'm guessing this trend
will continue for the next 10-20 years, until the housing starts to correct.

------
dmode
I am tired of NIMBY's in Bay Area and all over California. I am wondering if
there is some economic analysis on the impact of NIMBY on job growth and
poverty. I am convinced that at least some of the joblessness in Central
Valley is due to NIMBYism in Bay Area.

Having said that, I don't believe any amount of legislation will solve the
housing problem in California. The appeal for living in California extends
beyond US borders and there is a large population abroad willing to move to
CA.

------
ktRolster
That's fine, but now they need to build new roads (or PT).

------
g_sch
> Residents might be less likely to rally against a new project, the thinking
> goes, if it means their new neighbors will be teachers and firefighters in
> addition to those receiving housing subsidies.

I suppose the implication here is that teachers and firefighters make a
middle-income salary. The author is gonna freak when they find out how much
housing a teacher or firefighter salary will buy you in a major US metro city
real estate market.

------
makecheck
If they want to solve housing, they need to incentivize the hell out of
"permanently remote" positions.

It is insane that so many teams in such dense areas have these butt-in-chair
policies that require employees to live in expensive areas and commute great
distances.

Frankly, there are tons of jobs that can be done just fine from _anywhere_.
Managers have to get over this idea that they can't keep track of people
wherever they are.

------
scarface74
What I really don't get is why isn't the free market working? It seems like
other cities in other states would compete for high tech jobs aggressively
enough to make companies willing to move to cheaper areas where they could pay
their employees less and the employees have a better cost of living.

~~~
matwood
>It seems like other cities in other states would compete for high tech jobs
aggressively enough to make companies willing to move to cheaper areas where
they could pay their employees less and the employees have a better cost of
living.

There are towns doing this, but it takes time.

[http://custom.forbes.com/2015/12/03/charleston-
s-c/](http://custom.forbes.com/2015/12/03/charleston-s-c/)

------
ganfortran
The residents are blocking the construction to protect their real estate
value. Nice move from the government, however I don't know how would this go
through because there will surely be some intensive lobbying from the NIMBYs'
side.

------
rebootthesystem
Rule number one of using acronyms: Do not assume everyone knows what they
mean.

NIMBY:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NIMBY](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NIMBY)

~~~
matt4077
Rule number two: Right-click and choose "Look up" on any word you don't know.

~~~
rebootthesystem
Oh, I know what it means. That was a public service.

Acronym soup can be maddening. Sure, one can look up every acronym but this
can reach the point of jarring the reader out of a story. It is often a better
idea to help the reader retain the desired mental state by taking a second to
clarify acronyms.

Anyone who's read legal documents know just how easy it is to do this. The
first time you use the acronym you define it, just like this (JLT). Any time
after that the reader knows what it means without having to run a separate
search and change mental states, JLT.

------
golemotron
It's a very anti-democratic move by California. They are willing to destroy
local control of people in their communities to foster growth that will lead
to further deterioration of living standards.

Wouldn't it be better to try to grow tech outside of California in places like
the Dakotas and Idaho where there is plenty of land and people in need of
work?

The American heartland could be a place rich in opportunity if we invest there
as a nation. Considering urban/rural income differentials it would ease
inequality also.

~~~
imbusy111
Not a lot of people want to live in places that you mentioned. The really
smart people will find a way to stay in California forcing all others to
gather around them.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
How far is it from Silicon Valley to a really good trout stream? In Boise,
it's a lot closer.

How about hiking in a wilderness area? Skiing?

Now, true, if you want high-quality Chinese food, Boise may not be your cup of
tea (pun intended). But I bet there are enough tech people who like the
outdoors more than the big city to make a small-ish tech hub in someplace like
Boise.

~~~
MaysonL
Ever heard of Micron Technology? They have a bit of a presence in Boise:

[https://www.micron.com/about/locations/USA/Boise](https://www.micron.com/about/locations/USA/Boise)

------
ChefDenominator
I've been in Silicon Valley for close to 20 years, and I have been concerned
about this for a long time. I want to say it was somewhere around 2010 that I
began noticing a sudden increase in the number RVs I see in non-RV places,
such as large parking lots and along industrial area roads. Now it seems like
I hardly go anywhere and not see several RVs that are clearly out of place -
they used to only be found in sideyards, RV parks, or driving down the
highway.

Next, the homeless situation has truly grown to epic proportions. Take a peak
into any of the inbetween areas, and you'll find a small encampment. How many
of these exist, I can't say, but once I began to understand where the homeless
go, I started to venture and take small peaks - they're everywhere.

Next, the homeless started showing up, en masse, in large public places. The
most obvious is the parks near San Pedro square in San Jose. Yes, this area
has always had an "element" to it, but that element used to live in the nearby
housing. Now, the element is in the park.

I was talking with a friend who lives in a very expensive and beautiful home
near this park, and this friend was really annoyed at how the homeless
population around this house has really exploded. At the same time, this
friend had not identified any link to the homeless population and crazy median
home prices, now approaching $1 million for San Jose. I asked this friend to
please consider the statistic of a $1 million median home price in a city with
a population of 1 million, and what does that really mean for its residents?

My feeling is that, in time, this is going to be incredibly bad. The first
problem is an increase in property crime. When people are forced out of their
shelter, they will become desperate. Some percentage of any population is
going to be pre-disposed to considering crime, so increasing the number of
people who are desperate will increase the absolute number of people who will
turn to crime.

Police forces do not exist to protect - they are really just for cleanup, and
currently there is a new trend that will eventually get reported of how the
nature of burglaries, especially in the San Jose area, have changed. It used
to be that perps would case and then burglarize when owners were out for a
weekend or vacation. Now, the owners are out for only a few hours and return
home to find they have been burgled. Obviously they are using some more
sophisticated surveillance or network tech of some sort. In at least one
precinct, the police have yet to catch anyone performing burglaries in this
manner.

With this new trend, a group of, say, five clever people can do 10s of
millions in property damage annually. As these small groups are increased, the
dollars in damage become very real, plus the emotional impact of feeling
insecure in your own property will often push people over the edge to sell
their homes or at least move away, converting their residence into a rental
unit.

The second trend that I fear will begin to occur is the less clever criminals
who simply mug, loot, and smash-and-grab.

Finally, there will simply be violence against the property owners. People are
not dumb, as we can see by this article that even the politicians and
bureaucrats are beginning to get concerned for their jobs. In San Francisco,
there was the violent demonstrations against the Google buses. I don't know in
exactly which way the violence comes out or is directed, but when you force
enough people in to desperate circumstances, you will eventually have enough
of those who are pre-disposed to violent "solutions" that they will find a
target.

In all of this, people will begin selling and moving out. The property values
will drop, not because of increased supply of housing, but because of an
exodus of existing buyers coupled with a sharp reduction in new buyers.
Eventually, companies start moving jobs or entire companies to other areas
(owners, executives, and managers don't want to live in all of that), and
demand for residential housing falls yet further.

As the prices drop, people will consider selling to get equity, so the prices
drop further (selling encourages selling). Getting things to go up from here
will be a serious problem. All of the governments are maxed out, credit-wise,
and their revenues will tank.

At this moment, today, it seems like increasing housing is a bad idea for
cities and property owners because they will lose at least some of the current
equity in their homes, but depending on the property owner's time-horizon,
they may well lose all of their equity.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
There's a very simple solution here: build more housing and pay better wages
_in the first place_ , so as to avoid the awful dilemmas of French Revolution-
style situations.

~~~
ChefDenominator
Inadequate wages is not the issue. There simply isn't enough housing. In the
most recent 6-year period for which there is data, 500,000 net new jobs were
created in Silicon Valley, but only 65,000 new residential units were built in
the same area.

------
maverick_iceman
It's fascinating to see how the NIMBYs couch their arguments in terms of
environmentalism and morality, when they are motivated by nothing else than
greed and shallow personal interest at the cost of everyone else.

------
golemotron
Maybe the answer is to stop growing and let other parts of the country grow.
The brain drain to SV has been disastrous for other communities. It's
contributed to inequality and deep geographic/political polarization.

Yes, you can downvote me but consider formulating a counter-argument.

~~~
Nav_Panel
That's... not really how it works. Or, you could also argue that's what the
area has been doing for the past 40 years, and look at the current state of
housing.

EDIT: I didn't downvote you, but I will elaborate: there's very little you can
do to stop people from moving to California, short of forcefully putting them
on buses and sending them away (which is what some cities actually do[1][2]).
What you _can_ do is figure out a plan before they show up to provide them
decent housing for a fair price, or else they'll figure something out,
something likely to be illegal/extremely uncomfortable/look a lot like
homelessness.

Some anecdotes: one friend of mine lived in a house-boat in Berkeley for 2
years while going to college. Another lived out of his van in Los Angeles.
These are regular young people, both born in California, trying to make things
work.

It has been extremely hard to build new buildings in hotspots throughout the
state for quite a long time. You could argue that preventing growth to meet
demand is, in a sense, what it means to "stop growing" (short of turning folks
away at the state line). This is what I meant by my comment.

1:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/29/nyregion/29oneway.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/29/nyregion/29oneway.html)

2: [https://thinkprogress.org/nevada-gets-sued-for-dumping-
homel...](https://thinkprogress.org/nevada-gets-sued-for-dumping-homeless-
patients-with-mental-illnesses-onto-buses-271e5c518016)

~~~
muninn_
But how many people are going to move there to live in a bus? I certainly
wouldn't. If property values get too high I'll just not move there. I don't
understand this mentality where everybody thinks they should be able to afford
to live in the best cities in the country, especially in California. It's just
simple supply and demand. If housing prices get too high and people can't
afford to live there they will live somewhere else. Period.

Now that's an oversimplification. There is a lot to be said for mixed income
communities and whatnot, but just saying "oh I can't afford to live here this
sucks" is not good enough.

~~~
lukeschlather
I think you both have the causality backward. Vanishingly few people are
moving to California to live in a bus.

People are moving to California to get better jobs, and most of them can
comfortably afford to live in California. The people who are ending up in
buses have lived in California since housing was cheap enough that they didn't
have a problem, or since they were children.

People who can't afford to live in California anymore also can't afford the
cost of moving. So they end up on the street and unable to find work or leave
the state.

~~~
parineum
> The people who are ending up in buses have lived in California since housing
> was cheap enough that they didn't have a problem, or since they were
> children.

Most of the people I know who complain about the housing cost in California
are young people who make considerably less money than their parents do but
expect to be able to maintain the lifestyle they had growing up. That's
incredibly unrealistic and I doubt that's ever been attainable unless you're
exceedingly wealthy.

When my parents moved to the area I grew up in, it was not even close to the
desirability that it is when I eventually moved out. I've done what they did.
I bought a house further away in a less expensive neighborhood because I can't
afford to live there.

The amount of young people who think they have a right to move in the opposite
direction and maintain their lifestyle is strange to me. Tons of people I know
moved to bigger, expensive cities out of college/high school but they had to
live with 3 roommates to do so. Eventually, when you want your privacy back,
you have to move away.

For most young people, you can't have your cake and eat it too when it comes
to where you choose to live.

------
tn135
Moving power away from local bodies to State is a bad idea. This is a recipe
for corruption.

------
wfunction
Does the state have a plan for the water crisis that keeps getting worse if it
were to make it easier and easier for more and more people to settle down in
it?

~~~
jkimmel
Only ~10% of California's water use is residential/urban (varies a little bit
year to year) [0].

The majority of non-environmental water is used to grow cash crops in the
central valley, like almonds, which take 1 gal/almond.

Overall, urban residents have far less impact on climate than exurban
residents who drive around in SUVs. It is in the best interests of everyone on
planet Earth to make our cities denser and more inviting [1, 2].

[0] -
[http://www.ppic.org/main/publication_show.asp?i=1108](http://www.ppic.org/main/publication_show.asp?i=1108)

[1] -
[http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/](http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/)

[2] - [https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/mar/23/city-
dwe...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/mar/23/city-dwellers-
smaller-carbon-footprints)

~~~
AnimalMuppet
One gallon per almond? But... one gallon of bottled water is more than a
dollar. I know there's packaging and transportation, but there's packaging and
transportation for the almonds, too. And almonds are not one dollar per
almond.

Do the almond growers receive subsidized water? I don't know how else the
economics of this works out. (Unless the water used to grow almonds isn't up
to the purity standards of drinking water, and they're counting on the tree to
filter it...)

~~~
WillPostForFood
I think people (especially urban dwellers) are disconnected from how
agriculture works. It takes lots of water to support plants, and even more to
support animals (including people).

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/13/food-water-
footprin...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/13/food-water-
footprint_n_5952862.html)

some highlights:

1 gallon of coffee - 1056 gallons of water

1 pound of chicken - 518 gallons

1 pound of beef - 1847 gallons

1 gallon of wine - 872 gallons

1 gallon of lentils - 704 gallons

~~~
jessaustin
The disconnect is with whoever decided that desert farms should receive water
that could instead be used by cities. No one has a right to farm the desert.
Quit subsidizing that, and agriculture will move back to areas that have
plenty of water. Dairy, in particular, should be concentrated in the Midwest.

------
Tempest1981
Some of us just wanted a 3 bedroom house on a 5000 sq ft lot -- so we could
have a small yard with room for a dog and BBQ. Maybe a kid playing outside.

Now we're being told we're greedy, and our neighborhoods should be replaced
with 3 story townhouses on 1200 sq ft lots. No room for Fido.

Makes me wonder what we're working insane hours for -- to settle for permanent
apartment style living. At least we don't have cage houses yet.

~~~
Tempest1981
Heavy down votes, wow. Did I offend someone?

~~~
Eric_WVGG
I didn't downvote you, and I'm not offended, but I sure as hell rolled my eyes
at your comment.

Nobody in a city deserves their own yard. Public parks where everyone can BBQ
make far more sense. Want a dog? Move to Montana, or get a housecat instead.

You seem to want sprawl; cities need density.

~~~
Tempest1981
Thanks. But what are we defining as cities? Are suburbs included? Where are
suburbs allowed to remain, as we force zoning shifts to high density?

The YIMBY movement is strong throughout the Penninsula, between SF to San Jose
-- areas previously considered suburbs.

Clearly a 5000 sq ft lot is unacceptable in SF, but where _is_ it acceptable?
San Bruno? Menlo Park? Mountain View? Sunnyvale? Pleasanton? Oakland? And for
how long?

The article is talking about State laws. Presumably they would apply to all
cities, not just SF.

~~~
mywittyname
Cities area already defined. Yes suburbs are included. They should allowed to
remain as long as it's economically viable to do so.

If you're neighbors want to sell for $10MM each to a developer who wants to
build an apartment, they should be allowed to. If your other neighbor wants to
tear down their house and build a duplex and rent the other out, they should
be allowed to. If you want to keep your dog and bbq, you should be allowed to.

The general idea is to allow people the ability to extract the wealth from
their property. It's possible that they are "drinking your milkshake" by
extracting wealth from surrounding properties too. But everyone was given the
same opportunity.

