
Neighbors Clash in Silicon Valley - prostoalex
http://www.wsj.com/articles/neighbors-clash-in-silicon-valley-1465291802
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vadym909
Build Baby Build! I was first aghast when I saw the new big apartment
buildings coming up on El Camino Real and San Antonio Ave in Mountain View and
Sunnyvale- with barely 1-5 feet set back from the the sidewalk. Then I
realized which side of the table I was and I was like Fuck It. It may not be
pretty, someone pulled a fast one on the Inspector/Panel/whoever but they are
helping me with making more housing avbl and hopefully rents more affordable.

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davidw
Setbacks are very often a complete waste of space. I think www.strongtowns.org
has some articles explaining the details.

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rhizome
I believe these are streets with CalTrans right of way, which means the ROW
extends the whole sidewalk. They (or MV) likely require the setback at
property lines as a matter of course, and in turn the developer would want
that space for balconies or bay windows or whatever that they can't hang over
the line.

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bentpins
[http://archive.is/h939P](http://archive.is/h939P) Sans-paywall link

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mistermann
This seems like some sort of a strange failure of capitalism - I mean, the
money is there, why can't it be allocated correctly? If the big brains in
silicon valley riding the wave are unable or unwilling to set their egos/greed
aside and figure this out, maybe the government should step in and take over
allocation of taxes, where buildings are built, etc for the entire region. I'm
pretty hard right but if capitalists can't get their shit together, bring on
the central planning. But what if that fails? Tough luck, you had more money
than you knew what to do with and plenty of time to do it, take it as a lesson
to the next bubble.

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moultano
There's nothing capitalist about zoning. What you are seeing is central
planning in action.

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curun1r
Cities that are adding housing could enact taxes on residents who work outside
of the city (or, more likely, exempt those that work in the city, are retired
or self-/un-employed.) That would add a market force to both offset the cost
of zoning residential over commercial as well as putting additional pressure
on those cities that have not kept up with the demand for housing. It could
even be sold as an environmental measure to discourage longer commutes.

This wouldn't make sense for suburbs where jobs are limited, but for San
Francisco, Oakland or another city that does have available jobs, it would.
Because otherwise, cities like Mountain View build nothing but commercial,
make tons of money and shirk their responsibility to house the people working
in those commercial developments.

In classic Libertarian fashion, you could argue we need only properly account
for the externalities and the market will solve the problem. But when
externalities are allowed to go unchecked, as is the case here, things get
bad.

